Month: September 2012

SHOW REVIEW: Twin Shadow

It was not without drama that I came into a ticket to Twin Shadow’s second of two sold-out NYC performances.  I’d planned to skip both sets since tickets were $22 and one of them was at Webster Hall, which I kind of hate.  But a friend of mine who’d gotten tickets in advance had just turned thirty, thrown a temper tantrum, and bailed, so I found myself at Music Hall of Williamsburg.  I’d seen Twin Shadow play a CMJ show at Le Bain in October 2011, with the twinkling ribbon of the West Side Highway unspooling across giant glass windows behind the band.  I’d ruined a suede skirt by spilling wax on it in attempt to light a joint in the bathroom; I’d also embarrassed myself during the dance party afterward when I toppled sideways in uneven heels at the very moment I’d finally caught the eye of the tall, bearded dreamboat I’d been spying all evening.  As it turns out, he had a girlfriend anyway.

But I’ve come a long way in the last year, and so has George Lewis Jr., the man behind Twin Shadow.   He has released two albums to tons of critical acclaim (including Pitchfork’s coveted Best New Music for this year’s Confess on 4AD), survived a motorcycle accident to have an epiphany that majorly influenced the songwriting and recording of his sophomore album, and headlined a two month tour across the United States and Canada.  The MHoW show was the second-to-last stop on that tour, and the fact that Lewis is a bit fatigued from it all was likely a factor in his somewhat bitter between-song banter.

Twin Shadow’s songs have been compared to just about every pop band from the eighties, and it isn’t hard to hear why.  2010’s stellar Forget, produced by Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, was all airy synths, anthemic choruses, bouncy bass, and shimmering guitar riffs.  These parallels also grew out of Lewis’ personal style, in which leather jacket and pompadour were de rigueur.  With lyrics hopelessly meant for chanting (namely that moment in smash single “Slow” when Lewis croons “I don’t wanna believe / or be / in love”) it was pretty inevitable that Twin Shadow would blow up, and when Confess was released it was apparent that he’d stayed on that same trajectory and managed to amp up the nostalgia factor even further.

Honestly, Confess is almost too over-the-top for me.  In certain moments, like personal favorite “Beg For The Night”, it takes the form of giggle-inducing orchestra hits which are somehow still endearing.  But on album opener “Golden Light”, the backup vocals sound so much like the closing theme from Lost Boys that I can’t even see past it to enjoy the rest of the song, which is unfortunate since without that, it would actually be really lovely.  Slowly but surely, however, Confess has grown on me; it’s something in the transition of Lewis’ low, sultry moans into easy falsettos, the urgency and desperation on songs like lead single “Five Seconds”, the heartbroken but detached callousness of pretty much every lyric Lewis has ever penned.

That cockiness is something that Lewis may as well have trademarked at this point.  While his swagger is not unwarranted, it certainly permeates every aspect of his persona, from song to image to stage banter.  I had always assumed that it was a bit put on, but last night’s show may have convinced me otherwise once and for all.  When I saw him less than a year ago, he didn’t say much and mostly kept his eyes trained on the floor while he hunched over his guitar.  Friday’s performance was an entirely different thing – he wore his mohawk slicked back, jumped around on stage with his guitar swinging, and belted out his most raw lines with fierce bellicosity.

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Twin Shadow, image courtesy of BrooklynVegan

It started in a low-key manner, with a slow, stripped-down solo performance of “The One”.  A guitarist, keyboard player and drummer joined him on stage and they moved through a setlist featuring the four best tracks from Forget and all but three cuts from Confess.  While “Slow” was incredibly disappointing (he sang choruses out of turn, feedback screeched), “Castles In The Snow” had to be the show’s highlight; the live version was huskier and grinding in all the right ways, with basslines blaring and buzzing.  But even in the more rote performances, something intense was happening, at least to me, most notably during his performance of “Run My Heart”.  So much of Confess is seemingly infused with a summery mood; it was birthed in Los Angeles, where Lewis fled to escape brutal Brooklyn winters when he was writing and recording the album.  But its darker power comes from what happens when the sunshine fades, from that realization that summer is ending and that with that death, romanticism is doomed.  When Lewis sang “This isn’t love / I’m just a boy / you’re just a girl” it acted as a grim reminder to that harsh reality.

Between songs, Lewis rewarded Brooklyn with some backhanded compliments, then promised to move back and abandon his 3,000 square foot loft in Silver Lake (and its jacuzzi) if the crowd screamed loud enough for him.  So not only is he actually cocky, he also doesn’t seem to realize how a bragging about his success might sound to a bunch of folks who paid slightly inflated ticket prices just to dance at his feet.  He made this trespass up slightly by unleashing a bunch of gold and black balloons on the audience, but the kicker was closing out the show with a cover of “Under Pressure” dedicated to openers Niki & the Dove (who I’d missed).  The cover was rather epic and he proved his chops in performing it shockingly well, ensuring that it will be all anyone really remembers about this show.

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All in all, Twin Shadow’s live shows are a tad sloppy compared side-by-side to the obsessively glossy production on his records, but Lewis, let’s remember, is relatively new at this.  He has toured extensively in the last few years, and if nothing else has come out of it, he’s certainly perfected his rock’n’roll idol swag.  Even if this moment doesn’t last much longer than it has, his penchant for making ultra-nostalgic records will ensure his place in the collective consciousness of everyone who came close enough to touch it.  And he’ll be sneering back at us, telling us all how hollow it really is with tears in his eyes.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

SHOW REVIEW: Sinkane, Friends, Phone Tag

There are certain nights when I wish my favorite venues in Brooklyn, all of which happen to inhabit the same square block of Williamsburg, would just band together and offer three-for-one show deals, or at least build a network of secret tunnels connecting each venue  to the next – like those elaborate ferret dens you see in pet shops, all neon yellow and orange plastic.  Thursday was a perfect example of just such a night, as my buddy Ahmed Gallab and his band Sinkane were opening for Sun Araw at Death By Audio and Brooklyn-based band Friends were over at 285 Kent.  Additionally, Annie was amped for a Chris Cohen set at Glasslands, so we did what any good AudioFemmes would do and attended all three between the two of us.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about Sinkane’s set; this blog has not seen the last of him by any means.  Frontman Ahmed Gallab is a longtime friend of mine from Ohio, where I’d see him play regularly with two of my favorite Columbus acts, Sweetheart and Pompeii This Morning.  Sinkane is the most psychedelic sonic adventure he’s ever been on, and I’ve been stoked to watch it evolve from its humble beginnings as a solo project, through a move to Brooklyn and tours with the likes of Caribou and Yeasayer, and into what it is now – a four piece as much informed by seventies funk and Afrobeat as it is by indie rock.  His jams get more and more solid every time I get a chance to see him play, helped along by a recent residency at Zebulon and soon to take the world by storm as he was just signed to DFA.  On Thursday he debuted some great new material – stay tuned for an upcoming AF feature.

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Sinkane at Death by Audio

As I mentioned, Sinkane was opening up for fellow purveyors of psychedelic sound Sun Araw, though I was only able to stay for a few of their songs.  I’ve liked a good many records that they’ve put out, but have never really gotten to see them live.  Their first few numbers were droning and dissonant; hair hung in the faces of the flanneled band members who had turned most of the stage lights out just before playing.  I’m hoping the set got better as they went on.  They were sluggishly nonchalant, as though there weren’t a room filled with folks eyeing their moves, and the songs just didn’t come across as textural or integrated as they do on the albums, and the cloud of weed hovering in the front room of DBA didn’t even help.  I’ll be giving them another chance, though, and soon.

I could have probably stuck around a bit longer, but I didn’t want to miss Friends and figured they’d play at 285 Kent around 11:30.  When I arrived at the venue, Phone Tag was finishing up an adorably bouncy set that had the crowd (and it was a decently sized crowd for an opening band on a Thursday night) going wild.  I hadn’t yet heard their self-titled 2012 LP but was definitely intrigued by the ardent fanbase, not to mention the glistening keys and synths, reverb-drenched guitar and cooing vocals reminiscent of a less grating Passion Pit.  The band is led by Gryphon Graham and comprised of some pretty attractive kids.  They could just as easily be a group of hip super-heroes as a band, but lucky for everyone at 285 they chose to play instruments instead of fight crime.  Their songs are made for rooftop dance parties and flirting in bars, ultra catchy and very fun but never totally frivolous.

All of this made them appropriate openers for Brooklyn band-of-the-moment Friends, who will soon embark on a month-long tour opening for Two Door Cinema Club.  Like Phone Tag, Friends play deceivingly simple indie pop party jams, but there’s a certain depth and skill at work that goes beyond the band’s youthful exuberance.

Friends take ultra catchy jams and infuse them with beats and instrumentation so eclectic it’s hard to pin down any definitive influences.  Their live shows feature heavy, funky basslines courtesy of a new bassist known as “V” (who in a weird way looks like an avatar from Rock Band), lively synths thanks to Nikki Shapiro, and he percussive efforts of  Oliver Duncan (on a drumset) and Etienne Pierre Duguay (formerly of Real Estate) on bongos, tambourine, and anything else that will make a sound when you bash, tap, or click it.

But Friends simply would not be what it is without the incredible vocals and personality of Samatha Urbani, whose aesthetic has informed the band since its inception, when she directed videos for the band’s first and very buzzed about singles, “I’m His Girl” and “Friend Crush”.  Wearing high-waisted navy blue pants with double rows of gold buttons, a white shirt tied at the waist with gold beadwork cascading down her back and across her shoulders, Urbani was every bit the glamourous frontwoman.

Her flamboyant-meets-chic style is one thing, but her vocal chops are completely another.  She drifts back and forth easily between a higher, sweeter coo and lower, more sultry tones delivered with a dose of sass.  That much was apparent on the band’s debut LP, Manifest! released this year.  But live she’s that much more captivating, peppering her performance with coquettish yelps and squeals reminiscent of Kate Pierson from the B-52’s.  A friend of mine told me that she used to see Urbani perform regularly at karaoke and said that she completely slayed every song, which I not only believe but would have probably paid money to see that alone.

 

 

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SHOW REVIEW: Gang Gang Dance w/ Prince Rama

Okay, so I know I’ve been spending too much time at 285 Kent.  I know you’re all sick of hearing about it.  I’m thinking of getting a tattoo of a sharpie line drawn across my wrist so they won’t have to ID me anymore, maybe even the “RANDO” stamp they use on my forearm so I don’t have to pay to get in.  For all you foursquare nerds out there, check out the mayor – it’s actually me.  But none of this is my fault.  I could quit if I wanted.  It’s just that there is too much goodness going on inside those walls on a nightly basis, really.

On Sunday night, that goodness took the form of Gang Gang Dance and Prince Rama.  It was the last night of GGD’s “Tour of Williamsburg” in which they played Public Assembly on Friday (with Sun Araw), Cameo Gallery on Saturday (with New Moods), and 285 on Sunday (with Prince Rama).  All of these shows were put together by Brooklyn-based booking agency Bandshell, whose mission is to bring bigger bands to smaller, more intimate venues.  From what I can tell their venture is a new-ish one and they don’t seem to have any events coming up, but it’s a mission we can get behind and we’d like to see it succeed.

I’d been dying to see Prince Rama but had missed the seven billion opportunities I’d been given in the past.  Now I will say this: NO MORE.  No more will I show up late to shows where they are opening, no more will I skip their free or cheap shows for some other free or cheap show, no more will this band play in Brooklyn without seeing me at the foot of their stage, worshipping every move.  These ladies (and one gentleman) do it so, so right.

First, they were wearing ultra-eccentric outfits (think animal print, think sequins) and had gold glitter all over their faces and all of them (the boy too!) had pretty hair.  The driving force of the project is sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson, joined by guitarist Michael Collins.  The three met in a Hare Krishna commune in Florida and honed their psychedelic leanings in art school.  Oddity can sometimes seem affected or put on, part of a performance rather than a way of life, but for Prince Rama it’s genuine and engaging.

Taraka sang the majority of the vocals and was also in charge of the synths, but abandoned them relatively often for a little audience participation.  The audience this night included members of the Larson family; during the second-to-last number Taraka jumped off stage and danced with what I’d assume was maybe her mother, who seemed to know all the words.  Nimai stood in a circle of drums, dancing while she played, her smile so wide and constant that she kind of reminded me of the girl muppet in Dr. Teeth’s Electric Mayhem.  She was adorable and so fun to watch, but it was hard to train the eyes on any one thing.  There were cool projections mirroring their movements filtered to look like some kind of crazy acid trip, and the stage was festooned with loudly printed textiles and gauze.

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Musically, Prince Rama’s sound is designed to put you in a party trance of sorts; there’s plenty of chanting and call-and-response but it’s backed up by an acute understanding of what makes a song worth dancing to.  I’ve been to plenty of psych shows that devolve into sort of boring drone, and this is the exact opposite.  To prove that, the sisters leapt off stage during the last number and performed an incredible dance routine on the floor to close out the show; this included flips, hand motions, dramatic facial expression, and probably went on for over six minutes.  Since they’d arrived late and hadn’t been able to start the show on time, yet the venue wouldn’t allow them to hold up Gang Gang Dance’s scheduled performance, the dance number ended up being a significant portion of time in their set overall.  But it was absolutely enchanting.  I cannot wait to see them again.

Gang Gang Dance play a similar brew of exotic psych, but there are way more people in the band and have a much heavier ratio of males to females – there are four dudes to the one lady, Lizzi Bougatsos.  At this particular show there was also a strange shaman-type dude in the band; he mostly hid behind the amps but he’d peer around them with some weird antique binocular-type gadget, or hit an adjacent cymbal with a piece of rope tied to his wrist.  At one point he did move to the front of the stage to hold a drum head so Lizzi could bang on it, but that was as present as he ever seemed.

I’m getting a bit ahead of myself though.  Before the show even started, Bougatsos appeared onstage in a baseball cap and a homemade hijab, asking the house DJ to stop playing MIA.  Despite Gang Gang Dance’s obvious affinity for world beats, exotic instrumentation, and Middle-Eastern influenced sonic tinges, Bougatsos proudly identified herself as a Long Island girl, glorious accent and all.  When she sings, though, it sounds like she’s coming from some other planet.  She also plays a floor tom and a smaller set of drums.  The synth guy sometimes played drums too, and then there was actual drummer.  Together, they caused quite a lovely racket, the band spooling out their off-center dance tunes into sprawling psychic meditations.  They tackled favorites like “Mindkilla” “Adult Goth” “Egyptian” and “Vacuums”, interspersed with new songs like “Lazy Eye”, which prompted Bougatsos to keep a lyric sheet on hand, though she ended up not needing it.  In addition to building kaleidoscopic jams out of their regular material, the band also debuted some expansive instrumental tracks.  The only song notably missing from the set was “House Jam”, but in such a long and tight set its omission was not exactly tragic.

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It’s been over a year since Eye Contact was released, and it’s exciting to see the band develop new material, though if the time that passed between their most recent release and 2008’s Saint Dymphna is any indication it will be a while longer before we see a new full length.  If this trio of performances is any indication, Gang Gang Dance are far from exhausting the font from which their reputations as experimental wunderkinds flow.

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SHOW REVIEW: Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall

There’s not a whole lot left to say about the caliber of Thee Oh Sees’ or Ty Segall’s live shows; both acts are known in many circles for providing one of the best live experiences the price of a concert ticket can buy.  It’s not mere hype; the energy and skill which these musicians and long-time friends bring to any stage is a real thing, and best seen to be believed.

Those in the NYC area had multiple chances to do so this weekend – both bands played brand new Bushwick venue The Well on Saturday, Death by Audio on Monday, and Thee Oh Sees played ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror on Sunday.  Given the chance to choose between these shows, I’d say the show at The Well was least preferable.  Going into it, I was excited to check out the venue, which boasts and incredible beer selection as well as gourmet eats.  But I was totally underwhelmed by the interior of the space, which basically looked like someone was storing their fully-stocked bar in an empty garage.  The stage was huge, framed between the brick walls of surrounding industrial buildings, with an expanse of dust and gravel for show-goers to kick around below.  The sound wasn’t bad, but the setting was far from intimate (which would be the advantage of having gone to Death by Audio), much more reminiscent of a festival or large SXSW showcase than a punk rock show.

Thee Oh Sees had already started by the time I arrived, just after 8pm.  It was hard to get close enough to the stage to actually see anything that was going on, but I could hear just fine – crashing drums, crushing guitar distortion, and John Dwyer’s characteristic yelping.  They shredded through favorites like “Warm Slime” “I Was Denied” and “Tidal Wave” as well as “Lupine Dominus” from recent release Putrifiers II, bouncing along with the crowd every beat of the way.  It’s nearly impossible to not enjoy an Oh Sees show, and I did.  But the enjoyment stung a little; I was definitely kicking myself for not bothering to attend their shows years ago, before I had to stand in a mob to do so.

Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees are garage pop’s version of peanut butter versus jelly – an unquestionably appropriate pairing for the ages.  Their camaraderie actually borders on adorable, and it makes the vibe at shows like this that much more ecstatic and playful.  Segall brings a gritty frontman charm to a talented group of musicians that includes drummer Emily Rose and guitarist Mikal Cronin.  During crowd-pleaser “Finger” it started pouring rain, but few folks in the audience bothered to run for any sort of cover – if anything the crowd got rowdier.  Plenty of them had already been soaked by airborne plastic cups half-full of craft beer, so maybe the rain collectively drowned everyone’s remaining inhibitions.  Someone raised a pair of crutches in the air – they’d made a brief appearance earlier in the show but this time they stayed lifted.  I saw a couple of idiots go from good-natured moshing to an almost legitimate altercation; luckily someone standing by helped the two angry dudes cool out.  Meanwhile, Segall stopped the show to call a medic to the front of the crowd, where apparently someone’s ears had started bleeding.  With that issue resolved, he dedicated his next song to the medic.  In addition to unleashing plenty of classics like “Girlfriend” “Standing at The Station ” and “My Sunshine” Segall played new material from Slaughterhouse, and even showed a flair for a irony by riffing a few lines of “Sweet Home Alabama” and encoring with a snippet of “The End” by The Doors.  The rest of that encore can be seen in the video below, as this was the only time I was even remotely close enough to the stage to justify recording anything at all.

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I’m not as stoked on The Well as I thought I might be given its size, but depending on who is booked there in the future I can’t say I’d never go back.  Ticket prices were pretty cheap despite the professional level of the stage and sound equipment, so no complaints there.  What will be truly interesting is to see where the trajectory of Oh Sees/Segall will take them; while they’ve built a reputation playing to smaller audiences in less commercial spaces both have clearly outgrown these institutions in terms of popularity.  It’s rightfully earned and there’s no judgement in that. “Selling out” is a thing that certainly doesn’t exist when your entire goal as a musician is to incite your fans to have the best time they can possibly have; with the degree of excellence these guys bring to their performances, it’s unlikely either will find an audience so large that that can’t be done.

SHOW REVIEW: Lightning Bolt w/ Indian Jewelry

Not long ago, I joked about subletting my apartment and just moving into 285 Kent since I have been spending so much time there, and will be spending more time there in the near, near future thanks to the venue’s constant stream of awesome lineups.  Thursday night found me back at the DIY space for noise wizards Lightning Bolt.  It had been nearly a decade (!) since I’d seen them last, but in my early college days bands like this were my bread and butter, and Lightning Bolt had always represented the most mind-blowing talent of the bunch.

I got there just as controversial punk rockers Liquor Store were finishing up.  Their sound was actually pretty straight forward and they played it well enough; the controversy comes from their possible involvement in Jay Reatard’s 2010 death.  They’re from New Jersey and play shows here all time.  If you’re ever in the mood to get beaten up you should go to one of their shows and ask them directly if they know what happened that night in January.

It was around this time that something happened at 285 Kent I’ve never observed until then – a disembodied voice from the sound booth rang over the crowd with some “announcements” regarding where folks could smoke (outside only, although the voice did specify tobacco) and that no one should be taking beer outside due to the cop circling the venue in a golf cart waiting to catch people for peeing in the street.  Really?  Why do these things need to be stated?  I get that it’s a very raw space and that there are plenty of morons who think that means there are no rules, or believe themselves to be such badasses that whatever rules there may be don’t apply to to them, but it sucks that 285 even had to say it.  People should just know how to behave themselves so everyone has a good time at a show, no matter how raucous it gets.  And everyone should be more respectful of the neighborhoods that house these venues, so said venues don’t get shut down, so shows and crazy raves (or whatever) can keep happening.  GEEZ.

Indian Jewelry took the stage after a brief equipment change.  The Houston four-piece also play a genre-bending brand of distortion-drenched rock, but take more cues from psychedelic and industrial music than the headliners.  It was perhaps for that reason that some completely ill-mannered jerk-offs in the audience decided to heckle the quartet with some extremely insightful chants of “You SUCK!!!”  For what it’s worth, there were also some ill-mannered jerkoffs on the other end of the spectrum – some idiots who loved the band so much they flailed about in the audience like windchimes in a hurricane, flinging gross sweat everywhere and elbowing folks nearby.  I finally found an area unmarred by stupidity and actually enjoyed Indian Jewelry’s set.

I’ve listed to and enjoyed their records for years but had never seen them live, and it was quite the sight to behold – that is, if your eyeballs could handle it.  Before their set they shut off all the stage lighting and turned on a seizure-inducing strobe light.  It flashed bright white to black, bright white to black, through the hour long set, making the musicians on stage look like marionettes animated in stop-motion.  Erika Thrasher and Tex Kerschen divvied  vocal duties, both fronting the band with plenty of sass, swapping keys and guitar intermittently.  A dreadlocked drummer furiously pounded a stripped-down kit at the front of the stage, while a very blonde bassist donned sunglasses, presumably so that he didn’t go into epileptic convulsions.

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The band has been playing lots of shows in the New York area lately, presumably to generate buzz for Peel It, a new album slated to drop sometime this fall.  If the live show and the teasers they’ve released are any indication, it will see the band straying further from their psychedelic beginnings into a dancier post-punk realm while continuing to push experimental boundaries.  The truly great thing about Indian Jewelry is that they just don’t seem to care about playing by rules; they’ll do whatever, say whatever, stray from whatever convention, even if it’s viewed negatively.  As Kerschen warned the hecklers: “Every time you tell us we suck, we’ll just play another song.”  That self-possessed, devil-may-care kind of determination is pretty admirable, and to me sums up what Indian Jewelry is all about.

Lightning Bolt is known for setting up and taking a stage just moments after their openers play, taking the audience by surprise.  But that wasn’t the case for this show; it seemed to take longer than usual to set up two towers of precariously stacked amps (one of which had a cartoony, acid-trip sort of face painted on it), Brian Chippendale’s drum set (which despite being covered with Spongebob Squarepants stickers was about to take plenty of abuse) and, most challenging of all, to get everything running electrically.  For what it’s worth, the Bolt guys seemed just as antsy to get the show on the road.  But before that could happen, the 285 folks made another public service announcement, this time regarding pit etiquette (“If someone falls down in the pit, what do we doooooooo?  We PICK THEM uuuuuuuup!”).  The audience, whether due to short attention spans or all-out cult worship, were reveling in every stray note while the band worked out the electrical issues, with Chippendale apologizing.  Someone yelled out a request for “13 Monsters” which garnered disbelieving laughs from the band.  Finally, Chippendale pulled on his Mexican-wrestler-esque face mask (which houses a microphone so he could play hands-free) and the show got underway.

From the first shredded rhythms of Brian Gibson’s bass, the crowd was churning.  Distorted waves of noise issued from his instrument; it’s almost unfathomable that it’s only one guy playing one bass.  People climbed the interior supports of the cavernous venue for a better look at the virtuosity, rivers of sweat poured from every gland on stage and off.  Both guys play at a feverish pace, and while it looks far from effortless it’s simply incredible to behold.  Beholding the spectacle was challenging in and of itself since the electrical circuits kept overloading, effectively shutting off every light and amp in the venue so that only Chippendale’s drumming could be heard.  Ever the problem solver, he suggested the band somehow plug into the sole string of Christmas lights that remained lit when the rest of the venue’s power had failed.  The problems were sporadic but ongoing through the first part of the set, at which time Todd P came to the rescue.  He was showered with accolades and all but compared to God by Chippendale, who stopped the show only once more when someone in the audience lost a wedding ring (it was quickly located, but made me feel a little old; ten years ago there were few wedding rings at Lightning Bolt shows).

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The band ripped through a blistering selection of old and new material, leaving the stage only briefly before returning to encore with “Dead Cowboy”.  Chippendale had been somewhere in the crowd and emerged smudged with filth, his left arm dripping blood.  When he noticed that this was so, his reaction was to smear that blood all over his face, put his mic back in his mouth, and hammer through the last song.  Lightning Bolt’s method of performing is so physically intense you almost feel bad cheering for an encore; it’s like asking someone who just ran a marathon to jog another few blocks.  I’d been standing against a wall close to the stage to avoid the chaos, feeling vibrations from the amps move through my body like thunder.  I hadn’t moved much but I was still damp since the air was made humid by everyone’s sweat.  I thought back to the days when I would willingly give myself whiplash at shows like this, getting pummeled, getting my hair pulled.  Even if those days are gone, the energy and intensity that Lightning Bolt put into their shows hasn’t slowed a bit, and it’s good to know they’ve still got it.

 

SHOW REVIEW: Mount Eerie w/ La Big Vic

There’s really no entity that compares to the genius of Phil Elverum.  He’s like a mythical creature or enlightened being from another planet.  He’s been actively making music and art for nearly fifteen years under a variety of monikers, with common threads and motifs connecting each project to the next.  His soft, cooing voice sounds bashful but the words they convey are anything but; together they form a cohesive aesthetic whether the tunes are performed as a black metal band or as stripped down acoustic melodies.  I’ve been amazed and inspired by his work for most of my adult life, finally getting to see him play live (in a glorious cathedral no less!) during Northside fest in the summer of 2011.

I saw him again a few months later at le poisson rouge.  The opener both times was Nicholas Krgovich, who put out a 7″ on Phil’s record label P.W. Elverum & Sun.  This is significant because he also accompanied Phil, playing keys and synths and adding backing vocals.  The set for both shows spanned a lot of Mount Eerie material (and there really is so, so much of it) but from show to show was pretty similar.  They were both moving in their own way, although far from my dream set, or what I’d imagined a Mount Eerie set might be like after countless repeated listens to their infamous triple LP recorded live in Copenhagen.

For Saturday night’s show, Brooklyn-based electronic indie pop outfit La Big Vic warmed up the crowd with bouncy set, each beat measured against swirling synths and vocals.  Their smartly crafted dream pop is sort of like waking up from a dream you just had where you were lying on the beach sunbathing but the sky was all shifting neon colors instead of the standard blue.  The majority of the crowd paid rapt attention to the attractive trio, with Toshio Masuda casually looping guitars, Emilie Friedllander bowing a violin or cooing into the microphone, and Peter Pearson manning the keys.

During the set, Phil Elverum and his bandmates could be seen milling about the crowd – putting finishing touches on set-up, selling records, and chit-chatting with fans.  This highlights one of the best aspects of Elverum’s live performances and work in general; despite the emotional depth to his work and its esoteric facets, he is really just  normal guy.  He doesn’t take himself too seriously, preferring to interact with the crowd, making jokes at his own expense.  The band had a little trouble with initial set-up, blowing two amps and lacking connections for some of the instruments, during which Phil took it upon himself to introduce the new material as well as his four touring bandmates, all on loan from their various bands and side-projects.

I was really excited to see him play with a fuller band, especially because the additional vocals sounded particularly heartbreaking.  There was also a fake campfire on stage, which added a bit of kitsch but also a bit of setting, and setting is what the new Mount Eerie material is all about.  In his introductory speech, he’d mentioned that the evening’s setlist was composed of songs taken from each of his two newest records, Clear Moon and Ocean Roar.

These albums were recorded simultaneously in Elverum’s new studio, The Unknown, while he took a year off from touring, and he divided the material into separate records afterward.  He has stated that the records are truly meditations on his hometown in Washington state and what it meant for him to be in that one place, day after day, walking from his home to his recording studio and back and then spending quiet evenings reading about Anacortes history.  They represent two sides of the same coin; Clear Moon is as succinct and glistening as its name might suggest, in exactly the same way that Ocean Roar is murky and embattled, its dense layers rolling over tumultuously over and over one another.  In a live setting, the juxtaposition of the material highlighted the breadth and beauty of the sonic divide.  Moving from quieter, dreamier movements into towering walls of drone, Elverum knitted these conjoined twins back together to stunning affect.

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Why You Should Always Go To A “Secret” Show

Last minute, some friends and I decided to grab tickets to Ariel Pink’s Webster Hall show.  TEEN was opening and I hadn’t seen Ariel Pink in roughly two years, the last time being at Irving Plaza when I was going through some major melodrama that kind of ruined the whole thing for me.  So despite the hefty ticket price and less than ideal venue, I logged on to Ticketmaster, rolled my eyes at the ‘service’ surcharges, and was just about to click on “Submit Order” when I heard a familiar gchat ding.  My roommate was informing me that Holy Other had announced a secret show at 285 Kent via a Twitter message that had already disappeared.  All that remained was the following cryptic tweet from the venue:

Todd P’s reply tweets seemed to confirm that it would all go down after Ariel Pink finished the Webster show.  Holy Other was opening for Amon Tobin at Hammerstein, so that also seemed to make sense.  285’s facebook dangled a 3am set time like a carrot on a stick.  The matter was discussed with friends; it simply made more sense to skip Webster on the chance that Ariel would play later, cheaper, and in a rad venue instead of a lame one.

My brain was buzzing while I excitedly coordinated a new game plan for the evening.  Sure, I’d been excited to see TEEN, but had no doubt they’d play a CMJ showcase somewhere.  Holy Other was a more than suitable consolation prize.  And I was curious about R. Stevie Moore’s set as well.  But something about the prospect of seeing Ariel Pink at 285 seemed so epic, even though it was nothing if not the scaled-back nature of this alternative venue that made it that much more appealing.  There was something else at work here – the rumors, the hush, the knowing wink (or in this case, knowing retweets).  The magic of the ‘secret’ show.

What is it that makes a secret show feel so magical?  By its nature, even indulging the rumors means you are part of a club that is “in-the-know” and from there you have two options: play the part of the cool skeptic, or go all in on the chance that whatever happens might be spectacular.  It’s not like buying a ticket for a bill announced well in advance; while the anticipation might be just as acute there is the added glamour of uncertainty.  The venue could be jam-packed!  The ensuing show could be mayhem!  It might not even happen until the wee morning hours!  There could be insane special guests!  Suddenly, I was starring in a saga that had yet to unfold, knowing that if any one of these grandiose scenarios came to fruition, there were major bragging rights to be had.

After all, it was only about a month ago that Pictureplane and Grimes infamously took over 285, aided by surprise appearances from araabMuzik and A$AP Rocky.  I had been at that show; I got tickets before they sold out without thinking about the fact that I was supposed to work that evening, but it ended up taking place much later than expected so I just went afterward.  I’d had some friends in town that weekend so by the Sunday evening on which the show took place, I was exhausted, ready to keel over.  I was quite enjoying Arca’s DJ set but also feeling impatient and super-annoyed by the underaged seapunks populating the crowd.  Pictureplane didn’t go on until after midnight, as though enacting some backwards Cinderella clause.  I was simply too worn out to stick around for Grimes and her gaggle of buzzy artists, but the next day I admittedly kicked myself for not sticking it out a little longer.  A very well-known ‘journalist’ infamous for his over-use of superlatives tweeted: “Seems clear @285Kent will one day be regarded as a legendary NY scene.  Easily the wildest + most creative I’ve witnessed in my 5 years here.”

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Grimes DJs 285 Kent. Photographed by Erez Avissar, photo courtesy of Pitchfork.

And it is kind of true.  If there’s a venue in Brooklyn that’s really taking the reins as far as booking avant-garde artists and quirky parties, it’s 285.  While it’s no doubt benefited from its proximity to neighborhood DIY stalwarts Glasslands and Death By Audio, it has also had to set itself apart from these institutions.  It does so by catering to subcultures so specific to an ever-fleeting moment that, while the general populous tries to come up with a searing punchline to describe it, the nature of the ‘scene’ has already morphed into something else as explosive and as vibrant.  As with any scene there are downsides and caveats, but boredom isn’t in the vocabulary.

So when a place like this announces a secret anything, be there with bells on.  These aren’t just stories to tell your grandkids, these are stories that will make your relatives believe you are starting to go senile, because what you’ve described seems so fantastical.  No, you’ll insist: these are things that happened.  To me.  And they will either commit you to a geriatric care facility right then and there, or their shining eyes will widen and they will beg you to regale them with more tales from your debaucherous twenties.  You’ll play them a Grimes record, they will make strange faces.

Last Friday wasn’t quite so legendary as I’d hoped it would be, but Holy Other played an absolutely killer set.  His features were totally obscured by fog-machine sputter and pitch black lighting save for a mesmerizing laser projector cutting through the darkness.  Now, don’t go thinking I’m some stoner who could spend hours in Spencer gifts staring goggle-eyed at lava lamps and blacklight posters, but this laser thing was incredible.  It had a presence, like you could reach out and touch it, and it made geometric shapes and waves in myriad colors.  When I was living in Ohio, we had a regular karaoke spot and the DJ, Dave Castro, was the main reason behind our repeat attendance.  From time to time he’d have contests and give away this DVD he’d made for cats.  It was literally called Cat DVD and it was looped footage of goldfish swimming around or birds hopping through a forest or… that’s right, lasers.  The idea was that when you had to leave your cat at home alone, you could put on the DVD and then instead of napping the whole day away it would watch and be stimulated.  It was also really good for backgrounds at parties – much better than a lava lamp and much less likely to short out and cause a fatal blaze.  Watching Holy Other and his magical laser box was like getting sucked into Cat DVD in the best way I can describe.  When I talked about the show with friends afterward, the laser was the focus of conversation.  We wondered where we could get one, then decided that you had to know a wizard or a unicorn who could hook you up with it.

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Holy Other’s latest album Held makes good on all the promises of his early demos, singles and EPs.  Right at home on label Triangle Records, Holy Other is often associated with witch house, but he’s a front runner and a creator within that genre, not an imitator or piggy-backer.  He invented the sound that would define that movement, in all its sinister glory – skeletal beats marred by thumping bass, syrupy samples, seemingly random bleeps which emerge after repeated listens into blissful sonic fractals.  It’s hard not to be moved even during a subway ride with headphones over the ears or via computer speakers while you’re supposed to be casually checking email.  But with the volume up as loud as eardrums can handle, letting every pulse wash over you, the experience is truly one of holiness.

His set was plenty satisfying, but we had to know if Ariel Pink would show up so we stuck around, breathless from the experience.  What we got instead was bizarro pop Ariel Pink protege Geneva Jacuzzi, whose live performance I was surprised to learn just consists of her leaping barefoot around the stage in questionable attire while she howls over iPod tracks.  Since it was by that time close to 3AM if not well past it, and because grilled cheese from Normaan’s Kil was calling my name ever so faintly, my friend and I reluctantly left.  The reluctance was mostly mine and mostly only a byproduct of that uncertainty still reverberating through my psyche – what if Ariel Pink did show and I missed it?

While we waited for our cheeses (Solona + Vernice for LIFE!) I checked twitter for any news, mostly to no avail.  Finally someone posted an Instagram of a blurry, nearly obscured R. Stevie Moore backed by a band which may or may not have been Bodyguard and may or may not have included Ariel Pink, but there was no definitive account of who was actually onstage.  The person who posted the picture said they stayed at the venue until six in the morning.

In the end, the takeaway is this: the experience as a whole was totally worth it.  If I’d really wanted to see Ariel Pink I could’ve gone to Webster Hall, and for that matter I’m sure I’ll have another opportunity to bask in his weirdness.  In return for giving the promoters the benefit of the doubt, I was witness to an absolutely majestic Holy Other performance that I’m sure would have been nowhere near as intimate or haunting at Hammerstein.  It’s a great reminder that there is only one moment, and it’s the one you’re in.  You’re only a sucker if you stay home.

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