SXSW (Wednesday): 4AD Showcase
Central Presbyterian Church; Austin, TX
The 4AD showcase is a typical event that shows SXSW's true caste colors. The hierarchy system of the privileged badge holders, the less-but-still-privileged wristband holders, and the braying, paying public is a pickle that ends in a lot of ill will and sad fans. The current policy is a point of contention among many people and is fraught with pecking problems: badge holders get to walk straight into any show; wristband holders get next admittance dibs but often have to wait (especially at a showcase such as this one), and fans wanting to see the show lineup in ridiculously long queues, waiting for the rare instance that a badge-or-wristband holder leaves, without another one taking their place. It is tricky; the wristband and, especially, badge holders pay a lot of money to cover the conference and shows, but if you had seen the faces on the hundreds and hundreds of one-time ticket buyers in line, there wasn't much sympathy going around for anyone lucky enough to get into this packed place of worship. There needs to be a better scheme in place (maybe limit numbers for each group of entrants or a show-sharing thing?). Anyway, as a wristbander, I was incredibly fortunate to arrive when I did, but I still had to wait a long time before slyly maneuvering myself inside using less-than-wholesome means.
- {M. Ward}
My deviousness paid off. As you would expect, M. Ward thrived in this sort of setting. Standing front of altar, he played an emotional set challenging the crowd to turn away. You could just see it in his eyes. All songs were ravishly received but tracks like "Fuel for Fire," "Sad, Sad Song," and his cover of "Oh Lonesome Me" echoed off the wood-paneled walls and spiraled around the arched ceiling. Naturally, his playing was spectacular. The one solo instrumental guitar musing gave me goosebumps, and this was a rare case in which hearing Ward's gentle scraping of chord changes along his acoustic's neck was absolutely necessary. It was his voice that surprised me. Not that Ward doesn't possess an endearing set of lungs but hearing his voice bounce off those walls like a warm superball was even more powerful than I remember. At the end, Ward intervened divinely by multi-tracking his own voice to sound like a mini-chorus of himselves before sitting at the piano for a quiet coda. All in all, Ward's was a set full of elegiac laments.
- {Department of Eagles}
What was started before, but has since been eclipsed by his Grizzly Bear commitments, Daniel Rossen's Department of Eagles were one of the most anticipated buzz bands among the outside throng. Inside, Rossen, Fred Nicolaus, and company had everyone, including fellow Grizzly Ed Droste smiling from their pews. Arrangement is key to Department of Eagles and everything sounded, to borrow a Brian Wilson-ism, like teenage symphonies to God. But there is something more sinister going on with Department of Eagles. They tend to play the creepy and eerie card more than the baroque popsters to whom they are often compared. The result is the creation of a wonderful dark mood. Buoyed by their immaculate arranging and playing, and some light-hearted self-deprecating in-between song banter, they won over the crowd of fans and industry smugoes quickly. Although this was as rapt as I've seen a crowd in a long time, I was more impressed with the show's beginning and end. The solitary Rossen playing solo songs filled the church air with a less lush sound perhaps, but it was doubly beautiful to these ears. This was the first but not only time I wished for a stripped down set.
- {St. Vincent}
I have eyed her from afar, but this was to be my first time seeing the lovely Annie Clark/St. Vincent. I didn't know what to expect and was excited to see her in a quiet, acoustically-endowed setting. After a lengthy prelude of stage-arranging, tuning-up, and monitor-leveling, the five-piece band launched into a strong songlist with Clark using this opportunity to introduce us to a number of new songs from her forthcoming album, Actor, plus a few "oldies" like "Marry Me" (which was one song that demanded a full-band treatment). As good as it sounded -- the band was eclectic, enthusiastic, and tight, and the crowd loved every minute of it -- I really would have preferred to see this uniquely gifted performer less-accompanied. She cuts such a charismatic figure that anything that deflects the focus from her is superfluous. There was a healthy mix of softer interludes and crunchy cuts that the audience bought up wholesale, but, no offense to anyone, I really hope I get the chance to catch St. Vincent again with a simple backing of bass and drums, sans the sax or strings.
- {Camera Obscura}
A new label, a new chapter, but, thankfully, the same comforting pop sound for Camera Obscura, who ended the night by filling the church with their joyful yet melancholic missives. Playing as a seven-piece tonight, the band began the proceedings with the title track from My Maudlin Career before sliding nicely into Let's Get Out of This Country's "Come Back Margaret." Dressed in their granny garb, Tracyanne Campbell and Carey Lander manned the front of the stage while the boys backed with the gusto and groove of a band that always puts the listeners in a good place. Pop music has been done so many times over that finding unique needles in the hay is a blessing. Camera Obscura have patented their sound so perfectly that no one even tries to cop their moves. And why would you want pretenders when you can get the real deal, anyway?
Parenthetical Girls / No Kids
Sunset Tavern; Seattle, WA
If it weren't for friendship, one would wonder how two distinctly different groups would end up on sharing a stage. No Kids with their sweet Canadian dance pop and Parenthetical Girls with their cabaret anthems — the pairing left the bearded masses in states of mad scratching and syncopated head-bops.
No Kids quietly took the cramped stage, but managed to spread themselves out to give the stage an appearance of grandness. Crafted of P:ano keyboardists Nick Krgovich and Julia Chirka along with drummer Justin Kellum, No Kids had little command of their created illusion. The band ripped through tracks from a promised new album to half the crowd — the other half eager to drink as much as they could and stay as far away from the stage as possible. No Kids had a calming effect on those hunkered near the band, lulling the audience into tipsy sways and small but controlled heap-bops and shoulder-shrugs befitting of wallflowers. The start-and-stop pop of No Kids is similar to the wealth of keyboard-based bands out there (Chromeo, Matt & Kim, Mates of State) -- that is, if those bands downed copious amounts of Valium and Xanax. In a live setting, No Kids’ tight-knit grooves were repetitive, turning each song into deformed clones of the previous. It wasn’t until the set-closing “Halloween” that the band and crowd got on the same page, but by then the once-clustered crowd was already spreading itself to random corners of the small club. If No Kids proved anything, it was that perhaps the bedroom was the perfect place for them.
Parenthetical Girls gladly gave up their bedroom escapades, as Zac Pennington stormed the crowd in a floral sweater vest and elderly thrift store button-down. After a snafu (involving a detached mic cord) halted Zac’s march through the middle of the club, he (literally) picked himself up, brushed himself off, and jumped back into the song as if it were scripted. Rather than being the polite knocker No Kids has presented themselves to be, Zac and (((GRRRLS))) kicked in every door in the house with a mix of Roxy Music swagger and Matthew Friedberger static. While the breadth of their set focused on a jittery mix of slow-fast-slow and loud-quiet-loud, (((GRRRLS))) made it work by throwing a bit of old style and grace with the kitchen sink instrumentation that has become a trademark of modern indie musicmakers. While the bedroom may no longer be large enough to contain an entertainer as brash and exuberant as Zac Pennington, it’s a treat to know that the music (((GRRRLS))) create is still steeped in posters, LPs, journals, and toys.
[Photo: Sarah Meadows]
Crystal Stilts / Blank Dogs / Women
Music Hall of Williamsburg; Brooklyn, NY
Pop songs infused with a bunch of reverb and distortion have become something of a theme among Next Big Thing designees in the past year or so. Blank Dogs and Crystal Stilts are among two of the most recent Brooklyn bands to make a name playing verbed-out garage pop, and both were on the bill with Women (pictured), whose great 2008 record plays with pop more discretely and carefully than those bands.
But if Blank Dogs or Crystal Stilts wrote a song like Women's "Group Transport Hall," it probably would've been cloaked in reverb. Women, on the other hand, play it straight, sweet, and quick. Rather than overlaying melodies with a coating of noise, Women place them side by side, on equal level. The (comparatively) dulcet tones of "Transport Hall" stood next to the more abrasive "Lawncare" and "Shaking Hand" that, especially in their live show, created a sense of unpredictability and excitement. None of Women's songs departed greatly from their recorded versions, nor did the new ones break the mold in any way -- but the essence of each song, like the brilliantly unresolved tension of "Lawncare," stands out in a live context. Women's live show proves their status as under-appreciated forerunners of 2009 indie rock ‘n’ roll, but it also shows that this state of affairs won't change any time soon.
Meanwhile, Blank Dogs are like a Stereogum wet dream, with their pitch-perfect ’80s nostalgia, ambiguously dark lyrical themes, and garbled pop melodies. But for all their admittedly pretty great and prodigious recorded output in recent months, it's clear that Blank Dogs are still finding their sea legs in respect to the stage. If their live sound is more reminiscent of Big Black than Joy Division, they make up for it by stalking the stage like mopey Cure fans. On this night, they didn't sound bad, but they didn't sound especially good either -- and while it's hardly a surprise, given the effort they've put into maintaining some anonymity and mystique, they certainly didn't wow anyone with theatrics. "Setting Fire to Your House" came off well, but "Leaving the Light On" was the song that really stood out from the set, hinting at something resembling Jay Reatard-garage-pop chops under all the gothic affectation.
Crystal Stilts also towed a similar line, backing up their critically approved output with what would undoubtedly be a critically approved show. Not to be a downer, and maybe it's just cause I had been listening to classic freestyle all day, but I'd personally love to see bands like Crystal Stilts and Blank Dogs try tearing down the fourth wall of reverb, taking a good look at their audience, and lightening up a little.
The Books
Mass MoCA; North Adams, MA
A drug-addled gay icon once said, “There’s no place like home.” When The Books quietly stepped back onstage for their first show in two years, it was, fittingly, at the place they call home. Living in North Adams, MA, Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong previously served as artists in residence back in 2006 for the little-town-that-could’s illustrious Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA if you’re nasty). Like any homecoming after a long absence, the boys were both happy and a little nervous. “Just like we’d never been gone,” Zammuto quipped, after the crowd’s warm welcome. Taking up his cello, de Jong surveyed the theater, “You came! I’m astounded! …And visibly shaken!”
While fiddling with the DVD and projection system that would accompany the band’s mixed-media stylings, Zammuto attributed the two-year layoff to the “massive collection of audio and video tapes” they had to sort. Undoubtedly having found a self-help psychiatry goldmine at some poor sap’s garage sale, he introduced the first piece by saying “we’re really into hypnotherapy. ...Usually it’s one therapist and a group of patients; this is one patient and a group of therapists.” One of a handful of new songs debuted on the night, “Group Therapy” combined the band’s familiar loops, dulcet cello, and inventive guitar as floating heads spouted psychobabble ranging from the impenetrable to the utterly laughable.
“That Right Ain’t Shit” and “Take Time,” both from the group’s second album, The Lemon of Pink, elicited cheers of recognition from fans, and were accompanied respectively by old footage of men with and without hats, and a mélange of scenes depicting communities in Bible Belt megachurches and poor African villages.
Following the two old favorites were more debuts. “Cold Freezing Night” featured the voices of children making disturbing or perplexing statements against a pounding staccato score. One child repeatedly makes death threats, often elaborating in graphic detail: “I’ll kill you. I’ll cut off your toes… work my way up. I’ll rip your hair off.” Another little girl simply repeats the phrase “I wish I was a boy” throughout the song. The song’s refrain of “Cold freezing night/ Oh baby!” lends some comedy, combining with the angry child’s gruesome imagination for some interesting gallows’ humor.
“Hypnotherapy” continued the psychiatry theme, this time with a medical slant. The song’s percussive march evoked the sounds of heavy breathing, which were appropriately accompanied by synchronized video of a trachea drawing in air.
“Geese” came next, exemplifying what The Books do best. The song floats along pleasantly, using the flourishes of odd-sounding goose calls to lend unique color. If not for the title, or the source video of camo-clad hunters perfecting their call of the wild, one might picture the noise coming from some obscure instrument, a perverted kazoo, or hacked-up ProTool. The band recognizes that potential in the strangest of sources, and beautifully incorporates it into their musical landscape.
A short spoken-word piece dubbed “Meditation,” followed. The word repeats with different inflections as anagrams appeared onscreen -- “Do it in meat” being the biggest hit with the audience. “It Never Changes to Stop,” from Lost and Safe, twinkled along with its simple banjo, described cryptically by Zammuto as “the voice of the planet Saturn.”
In its 8/8 time signature, a new track, appropriately named “8 Frame,” centers on a slow build. The song boasts a wonderful change when the 8/8 verse gives way to a brief bridge in 3/4, before continuing its momentum. The build then pays off as the crescendo is matched onscreen by gorgeous super-slow-mo footage of popcorn kernels popping and a bursting water balloon.
“Classy Penguin,” by Zammuto’s brother Mikey, who has a band that shares the song’s name, was played to quirky home movies. The instrumental is one of only a few songs in The Books’ repertoire without lyrics or added audio. Another of Zammuto’s brothers, Mark, inspired the next piece, “Smells Like Content,” with his woodland stream-of-consciousness musings. The Books played dueling basses as the video ran the lyrics and images of nature. The Animal Planet theme then continued with spliced footage of wildlife for the ensuing song, “An Owl With Knees.”
A collaboration with artist Rich Remsberg, “Funeral March” closed the set. Inspired by a series of the saddest videos they could collect, the lyrics reflect the content. “I was born with a tea cup on my head” accompanies footage of an undersized infant with a tea cup held on its head to illustrate its size. The reel progresses with images of fire, flooding, and suffering, matching the song’s sorrowful tone. However, the subdued feel did not prevent a rousing ovation, as the men gave their thanks and made what would be their first attempt at an exit.
Unsurprisingly, the hometown crowd wouldn’t let Nick and Paul walk off stage so easily. Barely making it beyond the curtain before turning tail back to the spotlight, The band’s cover of Nick Drake’s “Cello Song” served as a rewarding encore. Recorded with Jose Gonzalez for the compilation Dark Was The Night, the subtle IDM backbeat gives new perspective to the major scale melody and memorable cello riff. When they stood up, just as before, it was obvious the noise would not be dampened without another return.
The two re-emerged, again, for one more song. Zammuto shared that he’d just had a baby, and that the last track, “All A’s,” was written for him. Best described as Sesame Street on a bad acid trip, the video moved through the alphabet, as the music leapt dramatically in mood from measure to measure -- one relaxed and the next instantly scatterbrained. It was easy to see why the new dad said his tribute scared his newborn.
After the two finally exited successfully, the crowd milled about the space, either browsing the wares, peeking at the art, or waiting for a word or two with one of pop music’s most innovative duos. Promotional materials for the museum lay about the rooms. The back of one magazine read, “Enjoy art more often.” With The Books around, that is certainly possible.
Setlist:
Group Therapy
That Right Ain’t Shit
Take Time
Cold Freezing Night
Hypnotherapy
Geese
Meditation
It Never Changes to Stop
8 Frame
Classy Penguin
Smells Like Content
An Owl With Knees
Funeral March
--Encore--
Cello Song (encore)
All A’s (second encore)
[Photo: http://www.thebooksmusic.com]
Jukebox the Ghost / J. Roddy Walston and The Business
DC9; Washington, DC
Have you ever been to a show where you hoped during every song that it wasn’t the last, because you didn’t want the show to end? Jukebox the Ghost’s set at DC9’s five-year anniversary party was one of those shows. There was yelling and dancing and clapping and the kind of frenetic energy normally only seen at house shows.
I arrived halfway through J. Roddy Walston and the Business’ set and was immediately drawn to the twangy country-rock filling every corner of the room. Their bassist had metal-as-fuck hair, and the band members were obviously enjoying themselves. Their set ended when one of DC9’s owners came on stage to introduce Jukebox the Ghost, who he thanked for playing “even though they’re too big now to play at DC9.”
Jukebox the Ghost seemed overjoyed to be back on home turf (they recently relocated from DC to Philadelphia) and immediately dove headfirst into their set. They’re a band whose live show clarifies their recorded material, and the energy blindsided me; I came in not feeling particularly invested in their debut album, Let Live & Let Ghosts, but walked out excited to listen to it as soon as I got home. Keyboardist/vocalist Ben Thornewill’s intricate piano trills provided a surprisingly effective anchor to the songs, as he hammered away at the keys with precision, successfully carrying melodies from simple to bombastic and back again within the span of a single song. Guitarist/vocalist Tommy Siegel provided both unobtrusive chords and expertly shredded solos, while drummer Jesse Kristin kept the beat both thumping and danceable. They tore through every song, pausing briefly for the occasional midtempo quiet moment, but the energy never subsided.
As their set came to a close and I thought things couldn’t get any better, they came back with an encore consisting of two excellent covers, “Beautiful Life” by Ace of Base and -- this is where they won me over completely -- Rage Against the Machine’s “Guerilla Radio.” Hearing most everyone in the venue screaming “All! Hell! Can’t stop us now!” and watching the band stumble around the stage screaming along was the perfect end to a nearly perfect night. They couldn’t have picked a better way to finish, because I don’t think anything in hell can stop Jukebox the Ghost.
Dirty Projectors
Walker Art Center; Minneapolis, MN
The indifference of Western formality was made poignantly clear when Dirty Projectors took the stage at The Walker Art Center. There we were, sitting in our particularly comfortable seats (The Walker's McGuire Theater isn't even four years old), while one of the most rhythmically complex guitar-based bands traveled at the speed of light in comparison to our rigid immobility. Dave Longstreth, Dirty Projectors' "musical director," jerked about the stage, hardly concerned with the technicalities of his labyrinth guitar lines. It was eye-opening just witnessing Longstreth scaling all over the neck of his left-handed guitar, stroking the strings just above the pickups with nary a pick (besides for a few rock-out moments).
A bulk of the set was comprised of new songs, mostly from Bitte Orca, their forthcoming album on Domino. Much is made of the group's stylistic appropriations, and these new songs projected this two-fold. Like the songs on Rise Above, they were melodically acrobatic, intricately composed, sharply accented, and structurally daring -- and if this performance was an indication of things to come, Dirty Projectors' increasing complexity is being matched by their increasing accessibility. They claimed to have little experience performing these songs, but it was certainly hard to tell.
Aside from Longstreth's expressive warbling and explorative guitar technique, the night was made successful by a wonderful rotating cast of bandmates. The foundation was held down by Brian McComber on drums and Nat Baldwin on bass, while Amber Coffman (vocals/guitar), Angel Deradoorian (vocals, guitars, keyboard, samples), and Haley Dekle (vocals) decorated the songs with additional rhythmic and harmonic ornamentation. I found their vocals at their best when creating textures ("Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie") rather than repeating lyrics or assuming lead vocals (Amber took a couple songs, and Angel did another), but it was nonetheless a welcome variation to DP's otherwise hierarchy of voices.
The rest of the set drew mainly from Rise Above, including fantastic versions of "Six Pack" and "Thirsty and Miserable," plus a stunning encore of "Spray Paint (The Walls)" performed without mics and in the crowd. Although I can't stand the ego and theater involved with encores, the naked performance of "Spray Paint" was refreshing, especially since the sound for the full-band portion was terribly mixed. It's as if the sound dude was trying to spotlight Longstreth like he was Neil Young, turning up his vocals and guitar and completely de-emphasizing the other members' contributions; the lopsided mixing essentially obliterated the dynamics of the rhythmic juxtapositions on songs like "Knotty Pine." Nonetheless, Dirty Projectors put on a thoroughly engaging, impressive performance -- and anything that gets me closer to Walker's Fluxus collection is a plus in my book.
