Bolts of Melody

Brothers and Sisters: Winston Deaver (12/5 1959 - 11/23 1991)

2010-11-23T23:05:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

My brother was handsome: square-jawed, tall, intense, sensitive, fierce. But most of the time my siblings and I avoided him because we always expected he was going to either say something mean or annoying, or just punch the shit out of us.

At the age he was in this picture above (18), he wasn't punching me anymore. He took his rage and frustration out on my younger brother, other fucked up kids, and himself, but not his little sister. We smoked pot together and listened to a lot of the same music. He was nice to my friends, a few of whom we even had in common. We were seniors in high school at the same time, Winston having stayed back a year to graduate. Because I had missed the submission deadline, his graduation picture appears in our senior yearbook and mine doesn't. I used to regret that I'm not in my high school yearbook, but now I like to think of Winston's photograph there, representing us.

I found this postcard recently and realized that I am not crazy for remembering, along with the difficult stuff, the sweetness of my brother. He loved me. He cared about me. He even met a girl he compared to me. For our family, as childhood brothers and sisters, this kind of tenderness was rare.

"Ghostly, flowing supersolid? No, it's quantum plastic." Or "puny flaps."

2010-07-06T15:19:00.004-04:00

This "solid that flows, ghostlike, through itself" relates beautifully to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "fluttering stranger" from Frost at Midnight, I must say.

New Scientist
30 June 2010 by Eugenie Samuel Reich
Magazine issue 2767

Ghostly, flowing supersolid? No, it's quantum plastic.

IT'S one of the weirdest things predicted by quantum mechanics: a solid that flows, ghostlike, through itself. As if that's not enough to get your head round, experiments that claim to have made this "supersolid" may in fact have resulted in something completely different.

"We still do not understand the phenomenon. It's something new," says John Reppy, of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who claims to have glimpsed the new effect, dubbed quantum plasticity.

In a solid, atoms are bound together in a regular lattice, keeping their structure rigid under normal circumstances. But at certain temperatures supersolidity is thought to kick in. Cool some solids close to absolute zero, and they should become frictionless and flow like a liquid, while retaining their lattice structure.

In 2004, Moses Chan and Eun-Seong Kim, then at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, claimed to have produced a supersolid by cooling a cylinder of helium-4 to within a whisker of absolute zero.

They placed the cylinder so it oscillated around a central axis - rotating a short distance in one direction and then switching to the other. As they lowered the helium's temperature, Chan and Kim noticed that the cylinder was oscillating more slowly. They assumed this was due to a drop in the fraction of solid helium rotating along with the cylinder. As it is friction that causes the helium inside the cylinder to rotate when the cylinder itself rotates, the researchers attributed this drop to a decrease in the friction of the helium. They concluded that the supersolid effect had come into play at low temperatures (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1101501).

While Chan and Kim's results have been replicated, Reppy says their interpretation may be wrong. To probe supersolidity further, he added a flexible diaphragm to the top of the cylinder that allowed him to crush the helium, creating extra "defects" in its lattice. Previous experiments hinted these might enhance supersolidity, but Reppy found no evidence of this effect.

What's more, he found that as he raised the temperature above 200 millikelvin, the frequency of the oscillation decreased, though the transition to supersolidity isn't supposed to happen at these temperatures (Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.255301).

He concludes that the link between temperature and oscillation frequency is down to a totally new quantum effect, not supersolidity. This new effect, Reppy says, occurs due to the defects inherent in all solid helium-4, which change their behaviour at different temperatures.

Reppy reckons that as the temperature rises, the defects become more mobile, making helium's structure less rigid. This "wobbliness" slows down the oscillations. Because it is different to normal softness and is probably due to quantum effects, the phenomenon is called quantum plasticity. "It's different from normal plasticity," says Reppy.

We still do not understand the phenomenon of quantum plasticity, it's something new
He isn't ruling out the existence of supersolidity altogether but suggests that those who say they have seen it may in fact have been observing quantum plasticity.

Kim, now at KAIST in Daejeon, South Korea, disputes the notion that he and Chan misinterpreted their results but finds Reppy's findings intriguing.

Make Hay, Save the Gulf.

2010-06-14T08:14:00.008-04:00

Wait for it... it looks like magic but it's just plain 'ol hay! The hay WILL NOT SINK and can be skimmed off. The amount of oil it absorbs is extraordinary. The hay can also be recycled (e.g. compressed into coal or some other form of usable energy).

"What birds plunge through is not the intimate space" —Rainer Maria Rilke

2008-08-20T09:42:00.010-04:00

What birds plunge through is not the intimate space
in which you see all forms intensified.
(Out in the Open, you would be denied
your self, would disappear into that vastness.)

Space reaches from us and construes the world:
to know a tree, in its true element,
throw inner space around it, from that pure
abundance in you. Surround it with restraint.
It has no limits. Not till it is held
in your renouncing is it truly there.

—Rainer Maria Rilke—

Are You Prickles? Or Are You Goo?

2008-03-21T14:46:00.007-04:00

Why is it that often the best kind of brilliance can be understood and appreciated by children just as much by adults? It's not less smart because kids like it too. If anything, it's smarter, trickier, to express an idea with sophistication, irony, depth of knowledge that only an adult is (likely to be) capable of, but that a child might well enjoy.

Two words placed together in a way that gently startles, makes us see newly, or see the same thing we've seen many times before but differently, might also be called poetry. Kids do this all the time, too. Kids, philosophers, artists, lively minds. And poets. Which we all are, in my view, at least sometimes, if not as often as possible.

So here is Alan Watts -- philosopher, translator, "entertainer" (his words -- not mine!), child, and poet, speaking in a video animated by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I do hope you watch and enjoy! xo

Soccer boys: Mismaloya, Mexico

2008-02-03T19:59:00.000-05:00

Rich Price and RGB, Canal Room, 9.19.07

2007-09-20T09:39:00.000-04:00

By Charlotte Deaver

True, this collection of singer-songwriters is performing as a trio. True, each band-member crafts songs that, in the tradition of Crosby, Stills and Nash and Van Morrison, are catchy and singable, but intricate enough to keep the listener's ears perked for the next unexpected turn. And true, while each individual voice is gorgeous and distinctive, as a group their most magical - and musical - moments occur when they sing together; These guys actually listen to and hear each other.

As a group, I think that's what I enjoyed most about their collective performance. They share the participatory experience they're having on stage with the audience by virtue of the way they relate musically on stage, more so than in terms of direct verbal address to the crowd or to each other. I can imagine that three different song-writers who perform together might encounter a bump or two along the way; Three egos, three singers, three styles, but similar genres, genders, instruments, and audiences, now sharing the stage and spotlight (a little arm-wrestling, anyone?). But RGB (Rich Price, Greg Naughton, and Brian Chartrand) balances their act with only a little bit of locker-room jesting, each taking a song, a lead vocal, a solo fairly, respectfully.

What drew me to the show was not, however, this deliberately equal distribution of talent. After hearing a song featured on the credits of the movie I'm Reed Fish, I downloaded several songs by the "R" in RGB, Rich Price, and was immediately hooked. First of all, his voice has a texture, range, and tonality that I love -- just a little airy but also really full, with real respect for melody. And secondly, the songs are simple but lovely. There is a lilting ease to them that aids a visceral response, while the lyrics are also thoughtfully constructed.

I've "spun" his latest CD, All These Roads, non-stop since I picked it up at the show, and the production (by Andy Zulla) and instrumentation on All These Roads are perfect. It definitely deserves much wider attention and listeners than I believe it has now. But I'm not convinced this RGB collaboration is the best way to promote it, if such is the case. I'd love to see him with his own band and tour as a solo act, and if my antenna is a good as I think it is, I bet I will soon.

Courtside with Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer: U.S. Open, September 4th, 2007

2007-09-05T14:11:00.000-04:00

,
Rafael Nadal was good -- fun to watch -- but David Ferrer was on fire last night. He controlled just about every point, whether he was serving or not, just slamming the ball so hard, catching it on the rise and driving it exactly where he wanted.

Nadal was forced into mere defensive play, standing way too far back, and unsteady when he approached the line (the back line, by the way -- not the net! That either player rarely ever did). In the third and fourth sets, Nadal would look up to the stands and his coaching box (which I was sitting right next to) with the saddest, most endearing face, like he was praying for rain in a dustbowl. But Ferrer was playing too well, and Nadal was playing like an underdog. And, of course, I always root for the underdog.

Audre Lorde, on not being silent . . .

2007-07-03T09:58:00.000-04:00

"I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. [...] In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality [she was diagnosed with cancer] and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words. And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me great strength.

I was going to die, if not sooner than later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. [...]

What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still into silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself — a Black woman warrior poet doing my work — come to ask you, are you doing yours?

(From Sister/Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde), 1984)

Black Rebel Motercycle Club, 5.31.07, Webster Hall

2007-06-03T11:37:00.000-04:00

By Charlotte Deaver

Smoking cigarettes on stage, looking vacant and aloof, wordless between songs, The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club don't have much going for them in terms of stage presence. Unless that's your thing. They do, however, hammer out slick, crunchy, southern-style chords on low-slung guitars and, with the help of a lot of dry ice and other kinds of smoke, create a dark, sexy mood that's nicely appropriate to their sound.

The set started so unpredictably early at Webster Hall that I missed the first four or five songs (Webster Hall: grrrrrrr). But what I did catch, apart from the songs played at the piano, was strong: driving, grinding rock and roll. Not amazing, but good.

I wasn't fully won over, though, until the encore, when one of them (Peter? Robert? not sure) played a few songs acoustically. It was then that the band seemed more real, less affected, stripped down to just an acoustic guitar. And he even demonstrated some personality with a welcome introduction to a quiet song: "This is a small song for a large space." Beautifully put — and beautifully played.

The full band then continued their extended encore with several more songs, making the set last a nice long time even for us late-comers. It seemed like an apt way to say "fuck you" to Webster Hall for making them start so early just so the club can fit a second show in later that night. Now that's an attitude after my own heart.

!!! (Chk Chk Chk), 5.30.07, Studio B

2007-05-31T09:36:00.000-04:00

Photo Credit

By Charlotte Deaver

"I'd like to see more people throw parties the way we threw parties in Sacramento when we were first excited about this music; we had a loft space and we played anything and we'd dance all night, you know? It was one of the best times of my life, really" says Nic Offer of !!! (Chk Chk Chk). Well, they've been taking their parties on the road for several years now, but I wouldn't doubt that the best times are yet to come for this band. Although no one seems quite sure how to describe their music: Is it House-Punk? Indie-Funk? Does it matter?! Nawww. The success and endurance of a group surely does not depend upon generic labels. If anything, the mad energy !!! generates is partly due to its very resistance to norms, its particular mix of genres, musical influences, ethnicities and a dose of sexual ambiguity.

Whatever the genre(s), this band makes you dance. And, they provide a lot more dirty raunch and funk than the vanilla indie culture (within which they operate) usually tolerates. Like indie artists Scissor Sisters and Peaches, for instance, they surely have their haters. And of course that's one of their appeals, that !!! are just outside the safety zone, a little too exuberant for the numbing conformity of the everyday.

The band's full instrumentation, including two guitars, several drummers, a juicy bass, and two, sometimes three lead singers, also contributes to the thrill of their performances. Real bodies, not machines, keep those driving beats and basslines solid. And the vocal performance spotlight is spread around the stage, with different singers offering their brand of shouts, growls, and belts.

But it's the seemingly insatiable and unstoppable Nic Offer who rounds everyone up, with his awkward arm-poking shake, his signature move which, as strange and unsexy as it is, works in his dance-punk-happy way. And as with many great live bands, bonding with the audience is key. The degree to which both audience participation and improvisation play a part in the music of !!! might be best reflected in their songwriting: “The songs are basically written four times” explains Nic [on their website]. “We write them in the practice space. Then we test them on the road. Then we take them into the studio, and relearn them before we tour with them again. So they´re always evolving. Playing them on the road has a way of making everything gel. People come to see us and party and dance, so if that doesn't happen, we´re not doing our job properly.”

They did their jobs "properly" on Wednesday night at Studio B, for sure. These folks have clearly spent a LOT of time locked together in a groove, and if you weren't dancing there's something wrong with you. Particular hits of the evening were "Yadnus," my favorite on the new record so far (very Nine Inch Nails), "Heart of Hearts," and "Must Be the Moon."

In preparation for their third record, Myth Takes, the band rented a house "on the "wrong side" of Nashville, [and] began each day with a strict exercise regime. "We all lived in this huge empty house" remembers Nic. “Every morning we'd do a kung-fu workout, and after that we'd jam all afternoon and night. I think the neighbours thought we were a cult or something. One time the postman walked up to the door when we were all in the living room, in our short shorts, chanting and contorted into these weird sweaty positions. It worked, though: don't mess with the magic." Indeed.

"Heart of Hearts" promo video clip

The Comas, 5.26.07, Mercury Lounge

2007-05-27T12:31:00.000-04:00

By Charlotte Deaver

Rock and roll serves relatively elemental (but crucial!) sensory needs, through even more elemental (yet cruder) means: a few essential instruments, chords, and beats, a voice, a lyric, and about three to four minutes. Oh, and to make this happen, a few preferably young and cute guys are required. And now, FINALLY, so is at least one female band-member.

Photo Credit (Photo taken last January, 2007, at the Mercury Lounge.)

The Comas have this recipe down, with the latter ingredient its most primary. Nicole Gehweiler does for the band what Nikki Monninger does for Silversun Pickups (as do so many other women, too; I am simply comparing these two here because I saw the SSPUs recently and notice some vocal and other similarities). Nicole doesn't provide lead vocals for or front the band, nor is she a mere add-on. Rather, the guitar sounds and arrangements she provides are fully integrated into the band's overall sound. SSPUs without Nikki's bass? Impossible. Or, utterly different (just listen to "Waste It On" and tell me otherwise). And The Comas without Nicole? Persistent Vegetative State, perhaps? It would just be a different band. Tool vs. A Perfect Circle, for instance, or Audioslave vs. Soundgarden.

Photo Credit (Photo taken last January, 2007, at the Mercury Lounge.)

The Comas are fun to listen to because they have, yes, the right ingredients, but also the right attitude. Since emotional response is such a major part of the experience, whether live or recorded, of rock and roll, the band has to at least seem to convey what you think you like about them. So for me, The Comas are cool, but "happy-friendly" cool; they understand that rock and roll is fun and playful, but that you have to know what you're doing and be good at it; they love the genre for its dependable patterns, but also for its intricacies and range; and, just as importantly, they recognize that the genre cannot move forward without women who complete the musical picture, and not just the visual picture. Okay, I have NO IDEA whether they think these things or not. But I enjoy my fantasy. No, I believe in my fantasy!

What make The Comas distinctive are their airy, layered vocals and complementary guitar parts, which contribute to overall lushness of their sound. These filled-out arrangements lend a moodier, almost psychedelic feel to their music which is offset by crisply marked chord changes. As songwriters, they (Andy Herod, mostly) follow old-school patterns that emphasize melody and multiple-chord song structures. I can't quite place them, exactly, and I like that. They don't dress very well, either, and I like that.

At their show on Saturday night at the Mercury Lounge I was rockin' a little too much at too late an hour to pay attention to the set list, but I remember loving every song, including ones I knew, such as "Come My Sunshine" and "Red Microphones," and ones I didn't know, such as "New Wolf" and "Stoneded." All of these songs can be found on the new CD they're pitching and touring to promote, Spells. (Have it, love it!)

Photo Credit

Silversun Pickups, 5.15.07, Webster Hall

2007-05-21T13:35:00.000-04:00

[photo credit and more photos . . .]

By Charlotte Deaver

The Silversun Pickups have a reputation for questionable live performances, but they clearly put it all out for this one. Yes, lead singer and guitarist Brian Aubert has a sarcastic side. He won me over early when he shushed noisy cell phone users (yay!) and felt it necessary to explain the laws of gravity to some particularly rowdy frat boys (said something about how it may seem cool to jump up as high as you can and smash into a pretty girl, but really, it just means you're a dick). So anyone who still loves angst and appropriate snarkiness can appreciate his persona. On their website, I read that it took awhile for the band to be comfortable on stage, and that "Aubert was initially painfully shy in front of a mike." If that's the case, then screw early reviewers, because they've got it ALL going on now, and I don't want to hear any more about their iffy live shows, darnitall!

[photo credit and more photos . . . ]

(Oddly, though, Aubert kept reminding me of Roger Federer, who seems to bear no shyness or angst -- couldn't get that almost creepy comparison out of my head. Hmmm . . . is that a tennis racket, or a Gibson?)

My first reaction to their show was "damn, this is a guitar girl's dream band!" But no, there's only one (six-string) guitar. I never cease to be amazed at how much sound, texture, and rhythm can be created by one guitar. But the instrument that cannot be overrated in this band is the BASS. Nikki Monninger plays belly-of-the-earth bass with fiery, charged tones -- just hammers every beat perfectly. She and drummer Christopher Guanlao were simply nailed together, as should always be the case, but is often not with super-white indie bands, jam bands, or just plain sloppy bands.

Finally, this is as much a song girl's band as any other sort of rock and roll. They're a smart bunch -- not just cute or young, insane or arty. They're criticized also for rehashing 90s grunge: too Pumpkins, too Nirvana. But their distinctiveness is, to me, clear: They're substantive, skilled, slightly acid, seem to both take their time and also let go, frenetically. Just ironic enough for us to know they know we know what their doing, but just sincere enough for us to care, this band
seems knowingly poised at the moment before becoming jaded -- by the industry, by haters, by their own success, by who knows what. If that does actually happen, let's hope A) that it takes a few more albums and tours, and B) I can bill retroactively for fortune-teller's fees.

Kate

2007-05-10T13:11:00.000-04:00

This is Kate. A friend recently rescued her and gave her a home. Isn't she pretty? I love the photograph, too, sent to me by the valiant saver-of-abandoned-fish. She looks so happy — floating in her new hammock, batting her eyelashes.

"I found him. I'm taking him home."

2007-05-10T02:00:00.001-04:00

Subway ride back to Brooklyn, A train, 11:30 pm, 5.9.07

May Day: Immigration rally and march, 5.1.07, Union Square

2007-05-07T14:53:00.000-04:00

These pictures have also been in my phone for a week! I admit to having stumbled by accident upon this May Day rally for immigration workers' rights. But I was so happy to have done so. The pictures speak for themselves:

Modest Mouse, United Palace Theater, 4.29.07

2007-05-01T09:08:00.000-04:00

By Charlotte Deaver

This show was over a week ago, so I'll cut right to it. I'd usually never see a band in a venue with seating, but damn, it was Modest Mouse! And my seat was smack in the middle of the theater, 1st row, lowest loge.

But as it turned out, the decisive drawback to the show was, in fact, the venue, the United Palace Theater. Its vast stage would be great for a Broadway show, but for rock and roll? The band sets up over ten feet deep into the stage, and then ten more feet of space are cordoned off with police gates. And, the stage is dotted with bouncers! Huh?

From where I was perched (albiet quite comfortably in my prime balcony seat, phone, notebook and pens all spread out in front me, feet up) the sound, sadly, was muffled, muddy, not crisp at all. And Modest Mouse is a crisp band: those guitars! I get a little weak in the knees just thinking about them. and now that Johnny Marr is along for the ride, we were in for quite a guitar-happy treat.

But noooo. I see live music to experience the energy, to get it under my skin, to move my body and feel like I'm right in the middle of it, of life.

This, instead, was spectacle: disengaged, impersonal, a distant, 3rd-person perspective.

I couldn't even tell what kind of guitar Isaac Brock plays (and I really, really wanted to know)! It looked like a Gibson SG, which would make sense, since he has to get so high up on the neck for those atmospheric, wavery, smooth-toned and incidental (sometimes) hammer-on-and-off riffs that make his sound so distinctive.

Nor could I distinquish Isaac's lisp, another, I argue, contributing texture to the Modest Mouse sound. And that made me sad.

Mid-set Isaac left the stage for awhile, and Johnny Marr took over, entering into a very sexy, pulsing, extended groove which slowly became distinguishable as "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes." That was by far the highlight of the evening, as Isaac reappeared and ripped the shit out of the song for at least ten minutes. Anthemic, yes, but finally the crowd got "close."

Other live versions I liked: "Edit the Sad Part," "Florida," "We Have Our Habitat," "Ocean Breathes Salty," and the evening's encores, "Fly Trapped in a Jar" and "Spitting Venom."

The theater is indeed spectacular, though: gorgeously decayed, ornate, old-world, the kind of place that seems destined for a tear-down were it not all the way up in a part of Washington Heights that has yet to be gentrified. Very cool space in that way. If having popular indie bands play there helps keep it standing, I'm all for it. But I won't be spending anymore money to sit there.

Of Atmosphere and Dogs: Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep" (1977)

2007-04-03T15:47:00.000-04:00

By Charlotte Deaver

She guards a doorway, eerily, dog mask on her face, hand stuffed in her dog-mouth. You imagine she’s about five years old, thumb and mouth appropriately attached.

Silent, she stands in the threshold as her father lectures his son desperately, yet wisely. It’s a cutting image, surreal in its juxtaposition of the perfectly innocent but also somewhat threatening mask, and the stark realism of the interior. A tattered, bare kitchen within, and without, the Watts district of L.A. in the late 1970s. Abruptly, she runs from the scene, into her backyard, and meets a neighborhood boy. Still wordless, but more expressive with her body, she's almost coy, reaching her one arm up to grab the chain-link fence while the other arm returns her hand to the dog-mouth.

What is this magical, heartbreaking, and wondrous world we've entered? The trailer below offers some idea, and is suggestive enough, at least, of certain key qualities:

This is the first opportunity for the public to see what many agree is one of the most affecting films to emerge in the 1970s. Charles Burnett's 1977 Killer of Sheep is now playing at the IFC Center (323 Sixth Avenue at W. 3rd Street), a long-delayed and storied release. Begun as his graduate project out of UCLA, it was Burnett's attempt to counter the proliferation of “blaxploitation” films from that period. Depicting a view of L.A.'s troubled yet vital Watts district, it follows, mostly, a day in the life of Stan, played by Henry Gayle Sanders, a man Burnett met by chance in an elevator and describes as "the saddest-looking man I'd ever seen."

Sad in many ways the movie is. But it is also joyful, celebratory, and funny as hell. I would put it right alongside Fellini's Nights of Cabiria. As a matter of fact, I shouldn't have said that, because now I won't be able to get the comparison out of my head: desolate, impoverished outskirts of a renowned city, daily experiences of a character who is denied access to anything other than the margins, soaring and plunging of the human spirit . . . But alright. I'll move on -- to breathtaking scene you can watch right here, in which Stan's wife applies make-up while their daughter sings along to Earth Wind and Fire in a cluttered room nearby. How the two look at each other towards the end of the scene is what this film, and life, are all about:

"Killer of Sheep" both captures and creates atmosphere: dense, vital, yet also despairing, a mingling of sounds, moods, minds, the material world, a long-since altered Watts, political and economic oppression, loss, anxiety, and more. Its atmosphere is one of strangely conflicted nostalgia mixed with an inevitable presentness, potent and immediate. Despite brutal emotional and social conditions, a childlike wonder prevails, evoking other great films that focus on children who have been prematurely thrust into a cruel adult world, including Night of the Hunter, Forbidden Games, The Bicycle Thief, and Au Hasard Balthazar.

Style-wise, however, it's SO different from those movies, in crucial geographic, cultural, and aesthetic ways, as the clips above indicate. That's one of the things that makes this film so hard to describe. You just can't pin it down. It's already gone. And yet so permanent, so always already there.

The Long Winters, Mercury Lounge, 4.1.07

2007-04-02T15:10:00.000-04:00

By Charlotte Deaver

The Long Winters can come across as deceptively generic. They don't jar you with gimmick or image, or ignite with raw youth. But they do balance their best attributes and integrate musical influences with such fine-tuned equilibrium that you might pass them over for something with a little more flash, more surprise.

For John Roderick, the banter-happy and charmingly well-educated frontsman, it's clear that songs matter. Melodies matter. Lyrics matter. Arrangements, textures, attitude, rhythm, energy, range, emotions, and performance all matter. And so does humor. He loves audience-play, enjoys his own and others' verbal wit and/or silliness, and yet remains focused on the primary aim: entertaining rock and roll.

Being ever the song girl, of course it was one particular tune that got me out this late on a Sunday night; "Medicine Cabinet Pirate" mixes strangeness with convention, an alluring combination. Perfectly distorted guitar riffs, a melody that you want to sing along with but don't readily understand why, odd minor to major key changes, slightly dissonant harmonies, and lyrics that suggest a lot of meaning but conclude nothing. The deal was clinched with the next song of theirs I fell in love with, the slightly wistful "The Commander Thinks Aloud."

Most of the other songs they played were new to me, though, and the set list seemed to be largely determined by the audience. I picked up their 2003 release, When I Pretend to Fall, and haven't stopped playing it yet, so next time around I'll be ready to make my requests.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, "Bomb. Repeat. Bomb." or, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction?"

2007-04-01T13:22:00.000-04:00

By Charlotte Deaver
Wow -- this is a great video. I saw it first on Stereogum today, watched it three times, and then several more times over on YouTube.

Meanwhile, I've been rereading Walter Benjamin's famous essay, "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," and can't resist the impulse to plant it right alongside this video. In the essay, Benjamin confronts the idea of a work of art's authenticity, its "aura," tracing its basis, historically, in ritual (from cave drawings to religious artifacts, where the work of art preserves its "cult value"). Later in history, a work of art begins to also serve a different function, with increasing value placed on its "fitness for exhibition." Still, "the original preserved all of its authority," since "[t]he presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity."

Mechanical reproduction, however, as in photography and even more so, film, "substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence." Benjamin cites this as basically a revolutionary historical shift, because mechanical reproduction "emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual." Furthermore, "the instant the criterion for authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic reproduction, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice -- politics."

And then there's this crazy epilogue on Fascism which I forgot about, I think because it confused me. Fascism gives the "masses . . . a chance to express themselves? Wait, Fascism enables expression? Without changing property relations? Huh? It only makes sense in the context of Futurism, a movement centered mainly in Italy that led up to WWII, which I don't really know much about. But he specifically addresses the "Poets and artists of Futurism," who, unlike Benjamin, were anti-Marxist, who obviously believed in maintaining the traditional, capitalist economic and property system, and effectively introduced "aesthetics into political life." Hence, an aesthetics of war.

But it's this next passage, with it's brilliant rhetoric and clear-eyed conscience, that will keep me from forgetting, ever again, the epilogue:
"War is beautiful because it establishes man's dominion over the subjugated machinery by means of gas masks, terrifying megaphones, flame throwers, and small tanks. War is beautiful because it initiates the dreamt-of-metallization of the human body. War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine guns. War is beautiful because it combines the gunfire, the cannonades, the cease-fire, the scents, and the stench of putrefaction into a symphony. War is beautiful because it creates new architecture, like that of the big tanks, the geometrical formation of flights, the smoke spirals from burning villages, and many others."

And so, returning to the video, its proliferation of images, image consuming image, a mis en abyme, almost. Is it effective? It makes me wonder, was Benjamin right? He's interestingly anti-nostalgic; this is no elegy for the "authentic." Rather, the mechanically reproduced image is liberating because it elevates the "masses" to the role of critic, a role that had previously belonged to an elite, ruling class. He has such faith in humanity! And in Marx! Maybe the jury is still out. I'm just not sure. I love to think that YouTube and Google and blogs and freer access to music and art are exactly what Benjamin was talking about. But then I think of the war machine depicted in the video, and I'm just not convinced that mechanical reproduction will have the positive power Benjamin imagines.

Loney, Dear, Loney, Noir, and live at Union Hall, Brooklyn, 3.12.07

2007-03-22T09:25:00.000-04:00

Photo Credit

By Charlotte Deaver

When a single-artist, multi-instrumentalist tours, suddenly a "band," he (or she) doesn't always get his act together, literally, as well as he does in the studio. So I didn't expect much from Loney, Dear's live performance. But my goodness, they were playing right down the street, and I had these damn songs of theirs looping and looping endlessly in my head.

Happily, however, this band was focused and tight. Headed by Emil Svanangen (from Sveden), each band member locked into the other completely, keeping a close eye on their leader, and clearly feeling each voice, each different instrument, and each song. And what gorgeous songs! They're melodic, both lush and spare, intense, private but open, and always driving forward. Many songs build, formulaically yet effectively, as layer upon layer of instruments and voices create a pulsating crescendo, to the point of leaving me, ever susceptible to this genre, a little high, a little ecstatic. "Carrying a Stone," "Hard Days, 1, 2, 3, 4," "Saturday Waits," "I Am John," "Sinister in a State of Hope" -- those songs got me to the show. And there are so many others, as this is at least their fourth release.

Most striking for me, the harmonies were actually better live than on recordings. Louder, freer, and never off-key (as is rarely the case with live performances). The sweet keyboard boy was on top of every note, every electronic shift, and blended every harmony perfectly. And the lovely female singer, also at a keyboard but sometimes percussing or jangling something in her hand, although strictly supportive in her role, sings with that wide-open, "full-throated ease" (Keats) that I've always wished I had. Not a huge or belting voice, but the voice in the band that especially seared into my brain.

Emil's high notes, a major part of his sound, are sometimes too high. I prefer his lower register (still not very low!), and his Peter-Pan-crowing style, which he provides only occasionally. There seemed to be more variety in his vocal textures at the live show, which was welcome.

As I watched and listened to them all I was reminded of what it's like singing in choir, where you learn to keep your eyes up, out of your music or your reverie, and on the director, especially at key moments -- beginnings and endings, musical changes, and tricky parts. I fantasized that they all grew up together in their Nordic, frost-bitten, melancholy local church, singing requiems and hymns and other choral music. The following text on Loney, Dear's myspace site reveals that part of my fantasy wasn't too far off after all: "Textural newcomers include clarinets, floortoms and pumporgans to enhance the sonic landscape surrounding the beautiful melodies that sometimes echo age old church hymns." But no, they surely did not grow up singing together as the band-members' names are not even listed on the Loney, Noir CD or on the myspace site, which is, to me, rude and annoying. Especially after being so joyfully entertained not just by Emil, but by them all.

Scissor Sisters, 3.3.07, The Theater at Madison Square Garden

2007-03-06T09:48:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

"It does not go away, this ecstatic possibility. Despite centuries of repression, despite the competing allure of spectacles, festivity keeps bubbling up, and in the most unlikely places."
– Barbara Ehrenreich, from Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy

Bodies slam, arms fly, feet hammer the dancefloor, and the stage erupts. Here we are again with the Scissor Sisters, who celebrate pleasure like it's church. This band performs what Ehrenreich describes as "collective joy," where sexual liberation, the body, choice, difference, and ecstasy are expressed not as spectacle, but as communal experiences. Eherenreich offers Burning Man and Greenwich Village's Halloween parade as rare contemporary examples only, I'm sure, because she's never seen the Scissor Sisters.

Both liberating and socially bonding, a Scissor Sisters performance encourages a dialogue with the audience that is political at its most personal. If individual sexual expression remains the #1 taboo topic in America, the Scissor Sisters supply the best revenge for much that's repressive, cruel, and wrong.

Of the two main performers, Ana is, for me, the main focus. She doesn't demand the attention the way Jake does, but I can't keep my eyes off of her. I love her movements, the way she dances, her tranny-trash outfits and wig, and her irreverent sass. She swears. She's nasty. She's "filthy" and "disgusting." And she's gorgeous. And yet I read her also as an archetypal earth-mother, nurturing figure. I could imagine her as the "mama" of a whole brood of outcasts and misfits, like Lilian Gish in "Night of the Hunter," or Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music."

Jake, the real centerpiece, is hyper-enthused. His eyes pop, and he runs out on stage like Richard Simmons preparing his overweight ladies for an aerobics class. On Saturday night at the MSG theater, Jake's comfort level seemed to increase with each item of clothing he took off. Fittingly, the more naked he was, the calmer and less strained he became. A welcome effect.

Ehrenreich acknowledges that her book is motivated by a "sense of loss." In the past few centuries "ecstatic pleasure," she writes, "of the kind once routinely generated by rituals involving dancing, music, and so on," has been just as routinely repressed. If that's the case, the Scissor Sisters, then, are doing more than entertaining — they are performing a public service.

Artist Alert: Dane LaChiusa

2007-03-02T10:26:00.002-05:00

Dane and I went to high school together. We both ran off to New York right after graduating, and lost touch until about a year ago. He is also a brilliant and accomplished illustrator, but Brazil has been inspiring his paintings, about which I can't say anything better than Dane does himself here:

Dane LaChiusa
Artist statement

Saudades do Brasil, “Longing for Brazil”

It has been said that the less a tourist knows, the fewer mistakes he’s likely to make, and the less likely he is to have to explain his ignorance. I was born in the midwestern United States so I’m only Brazilian by extension.

My grandmother was a Paulista (Born in Sao Paulo). In the late 1900’s her family sold their coffee plantation in exchange for passage to the United States. Pitti, my partner of 9 years, was born and reared in Rio de Janeiro— it is his family that we visit. Which is how I came by my love affair with Brazil. Having never lived there, and only having formed a surface impression of the culture based on my limited travel experience I embarked on the task of translating my affection for the Brazilian people and their country on paper and canvas.

…A hillside peppered with cows, a man with a wheelbarrow of yucca who went door to door in Pitti’s hometown, a little girl who lives in a house made of cardboard, and a businessman wearing nothing but a bathing suit while crossing a busy Rio de Janeiro street.

These excerpts of Brazilian life are painted with a naive hand; expressing a directness of expression and lack of refinement in the stylistic tradition of a self-taught outsider artist. Although, technically, my work would fall into the category of Marginal Art; existing in that gray area of definition which lies between Outsider Art and normal mainstream art. However inaccurate, with regard to designating my work as such, the term outsider artist interests me because I am very much an outsider. Rooted in a kind of otherness, both stylistically and geographically, I am depicting a culture that I am ten thousand miles away from. Considering that I am a New Yorker, which is the polar opposite of the Brazilian landscape, it might even be argued that it is my very distance from my subject that makes my work interesting in the first place.

Yet, I feel terribly conflicted about the subjects I paint. Brazil is a country that is both beautiful and brutal. On the surface it may seem picturesque to see farmers, sometimes entire families, working in the canes. But if you scratch beneath the surface there lies a world of poverty and hunger.

The Indian boy I portrayed selling baskets by the side of the road is cast in a positive light against a radiant sky. Of course he is happy. He is happy to be alive. He can feed his family for several days on the ten reais I gave him for the turtle he carved out of a piece of driftwood.

I feel sadness for the little girl from Rocinha. Water is scarce in the favelas. And fewer and fewer cats. Churrasquinho de gato (Skewered Cat Barbeque) is no joke. The only thing they have in abundance in the favelas are guns. Health, Peace and Love is the slogan of the children’s slum association. Drug traffickers have other ideas.

But what do I know of this? It is just dumb luck that I was born in North America, in the very country, it can be argued, whose closely linked intervention and establishment of Brazil’s military dictatorship on December 13, 1968, and voracious appetite and consumption of natural resources, is a contributing factor to many of Brazil’s problems today. Ironically, I was reared in a suburb of Detroit, which was once one of the most affluent parts of the country. Such was the segregation that you could visibly see a dividing line between the city of Detroit and the landscaped suburban community of Grosse Pointe. I percieved this as a socially and politically motivated division between rich and poor, black and white. The analogy was not lost on me when transcribing my experiences in Brazil.

According to a World Bank study, Brazil has the most unequal distribution of wealth of any country. The fifth largest nation in the world, Brazil has a population of 180 million people. Approximately 24 million Brazilians live in extreme poverty and earn less than $1 a day while the minimum salary of $65 per month hasn't changed in 25 years.

So what are we to feel when we look at my paintings? Do my paintings evoke a sense of nostalgic longing for a pastoral lifestyle; or a sense of guilt and indignation towards the hardship suffered by what many consider a third world country? No matter how one might interpret my work, my intentions are first and foremost to communicate the charm and beauty of the Brazilian people. My paintings speak from my personal vision, experience, and memory and not any compulsion towards what is stylistically in vogue; or even this obsession that we have to sugar coat everything with a thin veil of political correctness.

Of course, I recognize that as an artist, your work exists in the context of the real world and does not retain autonomy. Or to borrow a Brazilian expression, “What do mothers ever know about their children?” Perhaps you know better than I what my intentions are. Art has a life of its own. And others can find in them meanings unsuspected by the artist himself. It is only when someone understands a work of art in a certain way that it becomes controversial. Having never exhibited my work in Brazil it remains to be seen whether it would be viewed as a social commentary or seen merely as a collection of snapshots culled from a tourist’s memories. You may come from somewhere else and bring your own relationship to the work. Everyone is right. --Dane LaChiusa

You can see some of Dane's paintings until March 10th, 2007, in Greenpointe, Brooklyn:

The Shins, McCarren Park Pool, 8.23.06

2006-08-24T10:23:00.000-04:00

By Charlotte Deaver

After enduring one of the worst opening acts I've seen in a long time, Dinosoar Jr.'s J Mascis, the ever-geeky and practically middle-aged-by-now Shins pumped out a tight, fiery, crowd-pleasing "Kissing the Lipless." Finally! Musical happiness.

The Shins understand how to keep an audience interested. Their melodies are addictive, their arrangements so solid and clean, and their songs are at times practically Lennon-McCartney perfect. It’s no wonder the Pool was jammed.

But The Shins are, by now, consummate professionals. Their ease on stage seemed partly due to the joy of the music, but also came across as a little studied. And the drummer looked positively bored. This is one of the consequences of live shows that are organized around short, sweet, delightful songs, ones we've listened to over and over again, in our cars, on our mp3 players, in our bedrooms and living rooms, ones we know all the words and melodies to. The band is too aware of the effect their songs can create, and too ready to offer the same dish, because they do it so well live. It's as if they've never strayed from their tidy craft. And why should they? Why delve into dense, confusing underbrush when the clean and well-lighted path is so damn pleasing?

I remember going to see Elvis Costello for the first time, years and years ago. He and his band played every song from recordings we all knew bt heart, but with different arrangements, different tempos, even different melodies at times. He didn't play into ready-made expectations, and however disconcerting and even disappointing it was at first, by the end of the show I was blown away. And I will never forget, or stop talking about, seeing Elvis Costello live.

I might, however, not remember much about the The Shins' live performance. But it won't matter. I have all the CDs. I'll still buy the new one, coming out in January (as they announced, and played cuts from Wednesday night). I'll still sing all their songs, know all the words, the melodies, and the harmonies. And I'll still -- always -- love them in my car.

Mew, Secret Machines, and Bloc Party, 8.29.06, McCarran Park Pool

2006-08-01T10:17:00.000-04:00

PHOTO CREDIT

by Charlotte Deaver

Although I showed up especially for Secret Machines (rather than for the otherwise welcome headliner that most everybody else came for, Bloc Party), a band from Denmark, Mew, impressed me most this past Saturday night at my first trip to McCarran Park Pool.

Apocolyptic, psychedelic, mathematical, surrealistic, these boys can sing to the heavens like angels while hammering out demonic guitar and bass riffs. Sometimes they'll sound like Tool, other times like early Genesis, or any other number of bands, but all in shifting segments of the same song. I love how their music is both tight and intricate, but also expansive, and always manages to sustain rock and roll as its focus, without becoming too cerebral or conceptual.

And the vocals are stunning: lead singer Jonas Bjerre, apparently not yet 20, still sounds like a choirboy, hitting clear, gorgeous high notes well inside a soprano's range, but with a post-puberty adam's apple.

Needless to say, this band is extremely young, and although they have a couple of albums out already, it's hard to tell which direction they're heading. Especially with a name like "Mew!" A reference to Pokemon, perhaps?! To the all-powerful, mysterious, embryonic creature created by a multi-billion dollar global franchise?

For now, they're worth hanging out with, even if it's in their little playground. With their album Mew and the Glass Handed Kites just released, and a tour with Bloc Party, they're sure to make some impressions as they travel on.
Mew's MySpace site. See photos and read another review of the show at The Oh So Quiet Show, who I thank for the photo at the top of the page. See more photos and read a review of Mew's Hiro Ballroom performance last week at Brooklyn Vegan. And read articles about the band here and here.

PHOTO CREDIT

The Secret Machines started out the set with "Nowhere Again," one of my favorite songs of theirs from Now Here Is Nowhere.

I'm always amazed by trios that get that much meat and power to their sound, as this band does. That's partly due to Brandon Curtis's electronics, who plays bass and other parts and effects (mainly) on a keyboard, and the drummer, who thrashes his gorgeous, pearl-blue drum kit like we're all gonna die before the song is over. Meanwhile, Ben Curtis plays his Les Paul (or the likes) kind of clean, at least in terms of notes, allowing the guitar parts to breath and be heard on their own. Unless, of course, the song calls for psychedelic distortion and string-bending contortion, when he'll go as crazy as the next guy. But mostly the intensity of the guitar is conveyed through contraint and simple, but rhythmical and melodic lines. Even his eighth-note riffs, that in lesser hands come across as ubiquitous and repetitive, will drive a song someplace off-center, but still urgent.

On Saturday night, their set was short (that super-tight time schedule at McCarran Pool doesn't do much for opening acts, I have to say), and they played one song that seemed to go on forever, without building in intensity, as seemed to be the desired effect. It might have, had we been listening to it at home, alone, with headphones and our anti-drug of choice.

In this public, raucous setting, however, which lends itself more to public hysteria than private pain, the band sort of lost us, I think, and should have kept to shorter, better-known songs (like "Better Bring Your Friends," which would have just destroyed this pool party crowd). Or, as I had hoped, at least had time to also play "Now Here Is Nowhere," which at nearly nine minutes on the CD, shifts modalities so brilliantly that it has earned a place in my (as yet unwritten) "Best-Songs-Over- Eight-Minutes" EVER category. I realized they might not have played that song in deference to Mew, who have clearly listened to the Secret Machines a lot. Or, if they haven't, they should!

I look forward to seeing the Secret Machines headline somewhere -- SOON. They're one of my favorite new bands, and I only "discovered" them recently, missing out on their tour for their April, 2006 release of Ten Silver Drops.

Head on over to Fresh Bread for more photos and another review of the Secret Machines and Bloc Party.

Village Indian also has a review and pics.

PHOTO CREDIT

Bloc Party's music is not about the voice, or "the long song," or even the melody. This is a smart kid's party band, as the waving arms and jumping bodies crowded well into the the deep end of the pool confirmed. I was disappointed by the vocals, which were yelp-y and tuneless, but not by the atmosphere of a "happy-people-party" this band sustained throughout the night. Despite the beer-lines that apparently thwarted some attendees' potential for fun (I didn't notice at the time, not a big beer-drinker, myself), the crowd seemed very happy, and after two intense, edgy, dreamy rock and roll bands, Bloc Party seemed like a perfect summer dessert. Like a lemon tart, or strawberry shortcake, or Key Lime pie or something. No, really, they were great. I only left a little early, and only because I'd been standing since six o'clock, and had lost my spot in the front. And by the time Bloc Party came on, all those people waiting in the beer lines surged forward, with six or seven beers in their hands EACH. I couldn't imagine wading through a pool empty of water yet rapidly filling up with BEER (oh, and people, too), so I hung back and enjoyed the revelry from afar. Not a bad sight, or sound (if you stand near the center) at McCarran Pool, I must say. I'll be back, for sure. At least for The Shins!

Brooklyn Vegan has great photos, like the one above, of the show.

August 1st report: a recap of . . . June!

2006-07-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Oh, it's so divine having internet service. And yet so sad not having a decent camera -- still!

I saw a whole mess of shows in June that I was unable to post on, due to an extended battle with my unnameable, horrendous DSL server. Band of Horses was by far the best of the bunch. I really could have skipped the others altogether, although the Arctic Monkeys would have been great had they not been playing the (grr! ugh!) Roseland. And I can say nothing bad about the Pink Mountaintops. I just can't jump up and down, either, but for moments of jumping up and down (actually, I don't do that annoying jump-up-and-down thing. I'll rock out, hoot and holler, shake my head, hands, hips, and other body parts, but try, unless moshing or crowd-surfing, to keep at least one foot on the floor). All that said, here's a list of what I did see, oh, way back in the day:

1. Nellie McKay
2. Tapes n' Tapes
3. Pink Mountaintops
4. Arctic Monkeys
5. Band of Horses

5. Band of Horses, 6.16.06, Bowery Ballroom

That's Ben Bridwell there, with his hand on the mic, covering all identifying facial (but not other key) characteristics (I planned that shot well, didn't I?). I loved the intensity of this band, Ben's in particular. It's not that I was swooning just like a groupie, which is otherwise certainly possible, but his seeming openness and friendliness to band members, sound people, club employees, and to the audience, of course, is as appealing as it is infectious.

And then there's Bridwell's voice, his wail, his focus and immediacy that is guaranteed, unless you're clad in medieval body armor, to suck you right into his world. This guy wants to feel the good stuff, and if you're here to see his band play, you're most likely part of it. Even as he's turning further inward, closing his eyes into the mic, howling into the lights above, he wants you right there with him.

Band of Horse's songs are wholly derivative of mostly '70s southern and jam rock and roll, yet also fully individualized, mostly by the uniqueness of the vocals and lyrics. The photo (below) of the set list and chords, written in a collage-style notebook and placed right beneath the pedal steel (played by Ben for about half the set), was not adhered to. But it made for a nice visual and tactile accompaniment to the welcome -- and welcoming -- atmosphere the band achieved on stage.

4. Arctic Monkeys, 6.14.06, Roseland

What a sucky venue Roseland is! I had never been, so I had no idea there were whole sections of the club without articulate sound! Or visual access to the stage! Who knew that music venues use, as a selling point, the effin' blocking of sound and sight?!

Not able to position myself strategically for this show, the Arctic Monkeys left no lasting impression on me, even though I liked, from a great distance, with no view, and through horrible sound (mixed, I might add, with equally horrible frat and other drunken audience dither), what I could gather might have been a good performance from a hot band with a scathing live attitude and some damn good songs. Enough said . . . ROSELAND SUCKS!!!

3. Pink Mountaintops, 6.8.06, Southpaw

The first three songs the Pink Mountaintops played had me completely gone -- lost in rock heaven. Thinking something really special was happening, the gentle tumble the band quickly took, into mediocrity and, albeit, a pleasant vibe of sweetness and harmony, was a little disappointing (as too was the extremely sloppy and probably stoned crowd of admirers).

An encore assembly of over twenty friends/musicians, playing every kind of shaker, snare, and pot and pan, was quite the playful mess, but I still wanted more rock and roll. Led by yet another Canadian woodsman-looking, '70s-leaning guitarist and songwriter, the stage was full at all times (even before half of Williamsburg joined them onstage) with guitarists and keyboardists who constantly interchanged instruments with other guitarists and keyboardists. Yes, great fun was had by all. But I still wanted more rock and roll (did I say that already?!).

2. Tapes n' Tapes, 6.6.06 Bowery Ballroom

I was so underwhelmed by this band that I didn't even bother to take pictures (with my lousy camera, I must add). Hype abounds for Tapes n' Tapes, but I guess I missed the sway of that hype. What do they do that's so worthy of raves? A tight trio, even with their new bass player, they were serviceable at best. Nothing caught my ear, or my eye, nor did I understand what it COULD be that would award them such praise among press and bloggers. Ah well. Not to worry. There's much to enjoy elsewhere. . .

Nellie McKay, 6.4.06, Joe's Pub

Although I didn't know exactly what to expect from Nellie McKay, there were warning signs that could have caught my eye and ear: Broadway, nightclubs, the sway of a bombshell chanteuse, the certain cuteness of a girl at her piano, and, (ah yes) more Broadway. Having read about her recent label-dumping from Sony, due to marketing and other difficulties, she had my full sympathy and attention. But that wasn't enough to transcend the "must-leave-club-NOW" irritation I felt during many of her songs and verbal interludes. This is a woman who has both an alluring schtick as well as talent. But mostly, she's a natural performer, someone whose curious confidence can only be attributed to the psychological benefits of having every word, action, and note be utterly adored from birth. I guess I have issues with that which we won't get into here. Let's just say she's not my "type." And I should have figured that out all on my own beforehand.

Haitus: July 4th, 2006

2006-07-09T03:16:00.002-04:00

Asobi Seksu, 6.1.06, Joe's Pub

2006-06-02T20:50:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Asobi Seksu surprised the hell out of me at their record-release party for their second CD, Citrus, at Joe's Pub. Lead singer Yuki Chikudate sings her ass off, but in a way I wasn't expecting. On many songs she sounds very much like an Asian pop singer (she is, in fact, Japanese-American, and the band is Brooklyn-based), but at a deeper listening of the record and at Thursday's live performance I heard vocal registers and textures other than the high, girly, airy and swooping voices typical of many asian female pop singers.

When Yuki throws her head around (her long black hair flying into the lights) and rocks her slight, lean frame against her keyboard, you know you're in the presence of one poised and forceful performer. And along with those striking vocals, the band plays loud, hard, driving, yet also potentially intricate rock and roll. Their performance was spot-on, clean and very loud (I had never heard really loud, raucous music at Joe's Pub before!), and the band has a new fan in me. I also love their name, Asobi Seksu, which is made up of two Japanese words: asobi = fun, or playful, and seksu = sex, i.e. the act. Yes. Playful sex. Sounds great. And indeed they do.

I still have no camera, and I couldn't find any pictures on the web of the band's performance that night, but you can see photos and stream the new CD at their website and at My Space.

Listen to the single:Thursday (mp3).

Read reviews of the CD at OneLouder, Crackers United, and Stereoactivenyc.

Laurie Anderson, Joe's Pub, 5.31.06

2006-06-01T19:22:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Laurie Anderson's performance last Wednesday night at Joe's Pub did little to change my view of her work, a view that has been both mixed and fixed. Appealing to what I'll call, oxymoronically, progressive elitists, it suits the lofty-minded, the educated, and the privileged. I don't care what anyone says, but as championing of the "good" and "just" as she can be, this woman does not get down and funky, and for that reason, does not challenge the status quo in the least bit. Rather, her music, texts, and art operate wholly within the realm of the very power structures (media, politics) she critiques.

One reason, I believe, her work is not liberatory or transgressive is partly because it remains at arm's length to the body, that crucial core from which music, or the liberatory aspect of music, emerges. That said, when she's interesting, she does get somewhere, body or not, worth a close listen. I found myself sleepy when she hurled high, girlish notes into the air and stroked her electronic violin, and found myself having to wipe off a snobbish, knowing, smirk on my face (old habit - shed, or so I thought, long ago) when she whispered witticisms and clever comments into the audience's cultured ears. But as she speaks, interspersing narrative with commentary, and then more commentary, the richness and musicality of her voice take over her elfishness, and she is able to hit a kind of home rarely reached by other conceptual musicians.

Her best, most mesmerizing piece of the evening, to my mind, included the telling of a myth about flocks of birds flying in space before time and the earth existed. They just flew around and around in empty space, until one day a father bird died, to the great sorrow of his children and family. They didn't know what to do with the body of their dead father, so finally, one of the larks decided to bury it in the back of her head. And this was the beginning of memory. Before this, time was just flying around in huge circles.

Other interesting pieces included a story about a dream she had of a naked man playing flute in a recording studio, who looked like he was covered in flies, but in fact, upon closer scrutiny, the flies were actually tiny microphones. And in another work, she paraphrased ideas from George W. S. Trow's loved/hated essay from 1978, "Within the Context of No Context. Describing the conflicts between the "grid of the individual" and the "grid of the media," her commentary found its way to narrative poetry, as is part of her genre, I suppose, and she ended the piece by moving from theoretical to metaphorical abstraction by drawing a verbal picture of a housewife sitting in her kitchen, eating cherry pie, "with topping made from offal and animal screams."

I also liked her piece about how "starting equals stuttering; that's where the fear is, at the start. At the end, there's no longer a reason to be afraid -- there are only the regrets" [please note that these quotes are taken from my notes, and are by no means exact].

In another mythic tale, she described her awe of the colossal Underwear Gods that lounge around all over large buildings in New York. Eventually they step down from their perches and walk through the streets, as all the imperfect humans below must shuffle out of their way.

Although one instrumental piece was truly gorgeous, drawing its influences from early chamber music and the obvious 20th-century sources, the music was generally disappointing. But, actually, I did expect that, being as drawn to rhythm, rock, and soul as I am. Her voice, too, is best in its deepest registers, which she uses mostly for speaking. Because her high notes grate, her "high" range works best when they refer to ideas, and not to music.

Thomas Dolby, 5.03.06, Joe's Pub

2006-05-31T13:28:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Twenty-five years after his hit record, The Golden Age of Wireless, and over fifteen years after releasing much music at all other than ringtones, Thomas Dolby is once again on tour. Performing mostly old (but some newer) material at Joe's Pub last month, he sang as he twirled around numerous buttons and knobs for a loyal audience of once-and-long-time fans.

Even if you don't know the name of the song, most of us have heard his hit from the early 1980s, "She Blinded Me With Science." I remember the entire record, though, so it was fun to hear all those songs, like "One Of Our Submarines" and "Radio Silence."

Thomas Dolby wants to show us that he's a conceptual artist, but his music is pure pop. And there's something super pretentious about that. Clearly a shy sort of fellow, he comes across as one who doesn't get out of his basement or behind the great curtain very often. What would his body do on stage without all that equiptment? It's practically prosthetic, he's so tethered to it. He presents himself as some kind of technological Nordic wizard, wearing a huge, burdensome trenchcoat, which he shed, thankfully, mid-set. And all the while, let's face it: he's going for the rock beat, and so are we. He made a big deal about wishing he didn't have to play his major hit, kind of complaining about it a bit. But why? That's his bread and butter! That's his gift horse. I just wanted to shout, "Get over your ass and PLAY THE SONG!" (Some friends of mine will be pleased to hear that I did NOT, in fact, shout anything to the performer that night.)

And all those machines: what are they? In an interview for NPR he explained that although the sound source for most of the music was his computer, he has a "fetish for big dials and knobs." Taking old field measurement equipment from royal navy or us airforce, including an Ascylascope from the 1940s, he "gutted them out and retro-fitted them for midi."

Because he's all alone up there on stage, looking slightly freaky and uncomfortable, (playing with himself, playing with his toys) I found myself wondering what kind of music he listens to, if he goes to see live music, if he's married and if his wife brings him dinner everynight in his vast, sprawling (I imagined) basement, like the scientist in the movie "The Fly." A shortish, stocky guy, he definitely works out a lot (but not, of course, at a public gym (I'm making this up completely): he's got more equipment in his basement for that).

It's as though he really WANTS to get funky, but can't quite do it, socially; he has to do it by himself. This is a guy who's got a lot more fetishes, or SHOULD have a lot more fetishes, than for just dials and knobs. He's not someone who would ever tour with a band, even though some fat bass and guitars would generate a lot of heat for an otherwise dry, masterbatory, and even perhaps narcissistic performance that is geared towards nostalgia, and not, unfortunately, for immediacy.

"We Love Illegal Cheese!"

2006-05-27T23:09:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

We do. We really love illegal cheese.

At a recent magical evening in an East Village community garden, a few friends presented a dinner offering of some diving illegal cheese. As I recall, this cheese hailed from Italy, and its delicious and illicit presence made its mark on the entire evening -- the flowers, the green, the lights, the families and friends enjoying themselves amidst this tiny, idyllic spot buried in the heart of the East Village, and the crazy sculpture made out of exotic found objects. . .

"What shall I love if not the enigma?" (Georgio de Chirico, in contemplation of Nietzsche, 1911).

"When you have found a sign, turn it backwards and forwards on all sides; look at it full face and in profile, three-quarter face and foreshortened; make it disappear and notice what shape is assumed in its place by the memory of its appearance" (de Chirco).

"I have often meditated on this strange phenomenon of human absence in the metaphysical aspect. Every profound work of art contains two solitudes: one which can be called "plastic solitude," which is that contemplative pleasure derived from the happy construction and combination of forms (dead-live of live-dead elements or materials; the second life of the nature morte still-lifes considered not in the sense of a pictorial subject but as the spectral aspect, might apply as well to a supposedly living figure). The second solitude is that of signs, an eminently metaphysical solitude for which all logical possibility of visual or psychological education is automatically excluded (de Chirico, "On Metaphysical Art," 1919).

"[A] new sort of air has flooded into my soul. I have heard a new song, and the whole world now seems completely transformed to me. The autumn afternoon has arrived with its long shadows, clear air, and cloudless sky. In a word, Zarathustra has arrived" (Nietzsche).

Mark Kozelek, Bowery Ballroom, 5.24.06

2006-05-25T11:07:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Mark Kozelek's last CD, Tiny Cities, was released as a Sun Kil Moon effort, but for marketing purposes only: a Sun Kil Moon title, apparently, sells better than one by Mark Kozelek. The tour, however, was billed as a solo act, with Red House Painters' guitarist Phil Carney as Mark's only accompaniment at the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday night.

Playing solo here about a year ago, Mark was a pill. Never one to pull out the charm, he kvetched and moaned all night before practically stalking off stage abruptly. I had been blown away by the Ghosts of the Great Highway tour, which included several guitarists and strings and such, but solo, he disappointed, especially because of how easily annoyed and sour he could become. Ultimately a solo show by Mark Kozelek is still worth it, for any number of brilliant versions of songs he might play. And besides, as I've written elsewhere on this site, his brooding darkness is a major part of his appeal.

Wednesday night, however, Mark had no problem making music and enjoying himself. The audience was still, rapt. We were in his pocket from his first stride on stage, and we stayed right with him the entire set, which lasted about an hour and forty-five minutes.

I love the way Mark Kozelek finds his way into a song, like he's underwater, making his way to the surface, groping for light and air through the murky bottom of a river. With his eyes closed (always), he'll start a piece by singing a few opening notes, way back from the mic, like a test. Is my voice there? Have we repeated the intro chords for long enough? Are we feeling this song and this music enough yet to drive it home?

Finally, the answer is "yes." And the music is on.

No pictures, as I lost my camera last week, and also know that Mark hates pictures, even without flash. Having parked myself right at the center of the stage wall, I was able to scribble down the set list by using the monitors as a desk:

1. Michigan - unrecognizable as such until the first vocal and lyric.
2. Trucker's Atlas
3. Tiny Cities
4. Down Colorful Hill
5. Make Like Paper -- he warned us that we'd be blown away by this one, and he was right.
6. Glenn Tipton
7. Cruiser
8. Salvador Sanchez
9. Convenient Parking
10. Duk Koo Kim
11. Jesus Christ Was An Only Child
12. Carry My Ohio

The two encores were mysteries to me and the surrounding listeners I asked, the lyrics of which included something about salt water taffy and the Jersey Shore, and also a window that looked out onto Church Street. Mention was made of Williamsburg (where, Mark noted, one is not allowed to enter over the age of twenty-five. He's just figuring that out, I guess because, as he announced, he doesn't have a myspace site, he doesn't drink, and he doesn't do drugs). Lyrics to the second encore included the lines: "breathe, my love, wake my love . . . we spread her around."

I remember thinking last time that it would be great if Mark could feed a little more off the love he gets from his audience, and not insist on being so pissy. Sure, he can be however he wants and we'll still show up at his performances and buy his CDs and appreciate his irascible qualities. But why not show up for the love, too? I think he left the stage a little happier this time, and I know I and many others left the club equally charged.

Susana Baca, Joe's Pub, 5.19.06

2006-05-21T17:14:00.000-04:00

(photos: Ana de Orbegoso)

by Charlotte Deaver

Last Thursday night Peruvian singer Susana Baca performed at Joe's Pub. I went with a large group of people, several of whom are also Peruvian and had been supporting and loving her music for years. Clearly, Susana had many admirers in the audience, as many an "Eso!" indicated. Although some songs are so heartbreaking and deeply moving that it seemed no one breathed at all, other times everyone in the club was on their feet, reveling in the raucous festivities.

When Susana dances, always barefoot, of course, she's so physically riveting you can't take your eyes off of her. And that sensuality translates directly through her voice, which was not as "on," though, in this live performance, as her body and her band were. Her pitch and texture are not as accurate or full as on recordings, but her smoking-hot, power quartet know exactly how to highlight the best of her musicianship, which includes the way she moves on stage.

I didn't know much about Peruvian music, so I kept hearing some flamenco influences. Afterwards I learned that the influence was in fact Peruvian, when that crucial instrument, the cajon, a kind of box drum that the musician both sits and plays upon, was introduced to Spain via Peru.

As wonderful as Susana was, I really fell in love with the band, the cajon-player (Juan "Cotito" Medrano) and guitarist (Rafael Munoz, I believe) in particular. And the arrangements were amazing, which I later learned are to be credited to bassist David Pinto.

The new CD, Travesias, is out on the Luakabop label, and it's magic. Mark Ribot is the guitarist on the CD, but I think I'd rather see the not-so-famous guitarist she tours with that I mentioned above. This band is a real unit, not simply accompanists or soloists, and they are the reason Susana Baca achieves such a dreamy, participatory, shared experience when she performs. Like a true community, there is no music without all the separate parts, integrated into one experience.

Listen to "Guillermina," from Susana Baca's new CD, Travesias: Guillermina (mp3)

Art Brut & We Are Scientists, Knitting Factory, 5.17.06

2006-05-21T14:24:00.000-04:00

Are there any new great things to say about Art Brut? They're all over the place these days, and I just saw them last month at Southpaw. Never a band to disappoint, though, they seemed to rock even harder and at the same time more playfully this time. Guitarists Ian Catskilkin and Jasper Future spaz out just beautifully together, and man does Freddy Feedback love her bass. I must have finally truly heard her for the first time the other night because her arrangements and fat sounds kept sounding better and better with every song.

The more I see Art Brut, the more I understand their ethics and rhetoric. They inspire their audience not just to grab onto joy, but to use that joy to create something with it. Eddie ends every show by asking us what we've been up to creatively since we saw him last, sounding like a new breed of punk Charismatic for the ecstasy generation. Have we made anything? Written something? Played any music, he asks? You certainly don't have to take him seriously - this is, after all, rock and roll. But choose to, and you might welcome the wee little nudge.

When, before the show, I talked to Eddie and asked him if he would describe his music as punk (not a very riveting question, I know), of course he said yes. But a friendly kind of punk, he said, or something close to that. I called it "pure punk love" (as I had in my last post on Art Brut) and he seemed to like that fine. I also told him he looked like he'd lost some weight and he seemed to like that even better (see picture's from last November's show at Northsix for proof!). He told us excitedly that the band would be playing a brand new song tonight, but also expressed the slightest hint of first-time jitters regarding the unvieling of new material for the first time.

Eddie's childlike nervousness and his gleeful, over-stimulated mode of overcoming it are part of his charm ("I know I can, I know I can. It doesn'’t mean that I don'’t love you, one more try with me above you," from "Rusted Guns of Milan"). He was actually quite generous with his time, especially considering that he was trying to be a good date to his gorgeous wife, to whom he seems adorably (and understandably!) devoted, and at the same time be the gracious curator. And he definitely was. He was also just as funny as he is on stage, but even sweeter. No airs. Just pure punk love.

Several bands opened and played downstairs in the Tap Room, all part of the Eddie-Argos-curated evening at the Knitting Factory. Art Brut 47, a.k.a. We Are Scientists, were the surprise openers upstairs in the mainspace. I had never seen them before, and they reminded me how full-sounding and elemental a tight trio can sound. I love all the extras in a band, but strip down to guitar, bass and drums, add some smart, melodic songs and good voices, and be sure to supply a guitarist who needs no help cranking out intricate riffs and thick chords, and there's not much more rock and roll will ever need.

Unfortunately, I lost my camera that night, and offer none of my own pictures. Amrit has pics and review at Stereogum, and Brooklyn Vegan has lots of pics and links to more reviews.

Home Sweet Home: Photographs by Beth Fladung, May 4 - June 10, Redux Gallery

2006-05-15T09:33:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

If you are in or near New York City, don't miss Beth Fladung's photography exhibition at Redux Gallery (116 East 16th Street, just off of Union Square, 12th floor). The show will be up until June 10th.

Beth's been photographing motels and their long-term residents for several years now, having first taken notice of this largely unrecognized and marginalized sector of American society while living in L. A. in 1999. Although I've seen many of the photographs along the way, viewing them together and all in one room creates an effect much larger and more powerful than the individual pictures can do on their own, as a friend of Beth's noted at the show's opening.

What I think becomes evident in the photos is Beth's gift of combining her aesthetic eye with her social conscience, and using her unmistakable love for people and life in general to not just "capture" an image, but to encourage an audience's engagement with the photograghs and the subjects within them. For me, her pictures work to lessen the often distancing subject/object relationship that's inherent in all photographs. In Beth's photos, the viewer is beckoned, not pushed cooley back. Her work invites us into see the humanity in places many would turn their eyes away from, even though (or precisely because) we could all be in similar situations were it not in large part for good luck and fortune. "Come look," her pictures say: "There are amazing people and lives in here. Let's get to know them." Some of the residents are welfare recipients, but most of them are low-wage workers, families, children, grandparents, and students who pay lots of money to live week-to-week in these run-down motels. Many who can't scrape together the savings for first and last month's rent, therefore, find themselves in motels, struggling "to make a home and to create comfort and stability for themselves and their families in spaces that signify transience" (press release).

In participation with Redux Gallery this exhibition was presented by FADER magazine, the May Photography issue of which contains a several page spread on Beth's work. You can also see more pictures at her website, www.mosbef.com. Below are some pictures of Beth and friends at the gallery opening on May 4th.

Pinback to back: 5.9.06, Northsix and 5.10.06, Irving Plaza

2006-05-11T10:42:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

After two nights of Pinback, and all the great shows I've seen in the past month, I might not be able to handle much more excitement. Pinback has been one of my favorite bands for a couple of years -- I happened to download some songs from iTunes one day in search of some new music (didn't know about music blogs back then!) and within days I bought all their CDs.

As a hard-core guitar girl, I love the sounds they get from their instruments, the way they attack the strings, how they seem to base melody upon what the guitars can do, rhythmically and sonically, and still make it drive hard and sweet. This is a band that intuits what the body wants from its rock and roll, and what it wants, I discovered on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, is a bass that's played like a Les Paul. Seeing them live, I finally understood what they actually do with their guitars: Rob Crow, who usually plays a Les Paul, also sometimes foregoes his six-string to accompany Zach (Armistead Burwell) Smith IV on bass. Rather than thump along with bottom notes, though, Zach in particular plays intricate chords, rythyms, and melodies on his bass, often doubling up what Rob is doing, but octaves below. You can hear the effect of this technique on songs like "Prog," which killed live, and "Soaked," whose lovely funkiness was just stunning: "surprised by joy," I was, just like the poet said.

At Northsix I noticed that they played all my favorite songs, like "Fortress," "AFK," "Non-Photo Blue," and "Prog" much faster than on their recordings. After the initial adjustment to the quicker tempos, I realized this is obviously quite intentional. They want a song to be fast and madcap, like it's running away from itself. The precision of their string-picking and plucking is, at least to me, almost scary. I have a hard enough time staying on the beat with a simple arpeggio - while they never once skipped or lulled. Not one mistake. Now, mistakes are fine -- you know, like that old Lovin Spoonful song "You didn't have to be so nice [or f&@k*ng perfect, Zach and Rob], I woulda liked you anyway" -- but they just don't make them!

The Irving Plaza show was better, I think. The sound was both cleaner and thicker, and although Pinback is not a very demonstrative band (but intense, gentle), you could tell they were feeding off the larger, rowdier crowd (a little frat, unfortunately - one reason to stick with Northsix!). The people way up front were very nice, though, and I met a great girl with a camera and some excellent tatoos (she's blogging on this too, so go check out her blog and her myspace site.

Rob rarely spoke to the audience, although at Northsix he took a bathroom break, running through the crowd to the back of the club and then running back quickly to get on the with the music. "At least I didn't do what GG Allin did," he said with a shit-eatin' grin (pun intended). Other than a moment here or there, the band's energy was entirely focused on the music -- no thank you's, no introductions, no crowd-teasers. I was up front for both shows, and yelled some compliment to them after a particularly rocking song at Irving Plaza. Those of us close enough to the stage could hear Zach squeak out a little smile and a "thank you," and we laughed, happy for those little shared moments of band/audience love. And of course, that was the only time he talked the whole night. But he wasn't, after all, on stage, with his band, his bass, and a swarm of fans, there to have a conversation. At least, not a verbal one.

Check out more excellent photos at Brooklyn Vegan.

At Northsix:

At Irving Plaza:

Scissor Sisters, 4.23.06, Bowery Ballroom

2006-04-24T10:29:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

This was the best show I've ever been to. No exaggeration. The Scissor Sisters are in my life forever, and in attitude, spirit, and sexual/political ethics, the world would be a very different and much better place if they were in everyone's life.

Last night the band was so hot, as they always are (apparently -- this was my first time seeing them) and the crowd was on. We couldn't get enough of them, and they were just loving us back. Every song ripped. I was so gone, just high with life and music, dancing my ass off. Ana, my new goddess, singled me out of the audience and said something like "you, miss thing, are having the best time, aren't you?" "Me?!" I squeaked. "Yes, you. Everyone, give it up for the lady in the black glasses." I hooted and hollered as I twirled around to get my props.

Of course I fell in love with Jack, too, who is just a beautiful force of nature. Between the two of them, what more could anyone want? Except more, of course. They really do share the stage, create one huge, throbbing force field of music and energy. And the sexual empowerment they generate is crazy. I can see how their shows could truly be life-transforming and liberating. "We have to exercise our rights!" as Ana says. Yes, ma'am. Looking forward. . .

And below, the amazing Leslie Hall, Keeper of the Gems.

The Weepies, 4.22.06, Living Room

2006-04-23T15:28:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

I was so excited about seeing Deb Talan for the first time a couple of years ago, having recently discovered her first two CDs and being astonished that she wasn't more popular. The show back then was a bit of a letdown, as I wrote about here, because she played only a few of her songs and put most of her effort into supporting the band she was opening for, The Weepies, fronted by Steve Tannen.

This time around, though, now that they really are one band (and one couple, btw), these two just seemed amazingly tuned in to each others' voices and musicianship. Deb has transformed both her own and the band's music by incorporating her solo stuff, as well as Steve's, into their live performances. Their songs are delicate, lilting, Deb's voice is charged and full, but subtle, all about texture, and about stroking the melody with her voice, and their harmonies simply melt into one another. Deb also happens to look great -- gorgeous and sexy, something I hadn't particularly noticed before, and has lost a lot of the girlishness she's demonstrated in the past.

With their recent release, Say I Am You, these two singer/songwriters have made deeply emotional, tender music that displays their combined respect for the simple structures of "the popular song" (Joni, Free Man in Paris), but also for nuance. While they rely upon folk/pop, singer/songwriter devices and conventions, their melodic and tonal shadings are just magical. I've been listening to the songs "The World Spins Madly On" and "Gotta Have You" since their release a few months ago and love them, but I just got the full CD. And it does not disappoint. There are lots of great songs on it, including "Riga Girls," "Suicide Blonde," "Love Doesn't Last," and "Take It From Me."

Check out their myspace site, listen to their interview on WNYC, and Buy their CD here.

Elbow, 4.20.06, Webster Hall

2006-04-23T09:28:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Elbow might seem a little too slick for some. They can come across as such stable fellows, such mature pros, and their songs require precision from each instrument for their music to be as effective as it can. This is partly because although you want to notice the band, what you really want to do is close your eyes and focus on Guy Garvey's voice. I think he might have the most beautiful, perfect male voice on the planet. Okay, hyperbole, I know, but this is a blog, for god's sake! And that's how it feels when I'm listening to him. His voice just kills me.

Elbow's set at Webster Hall on Thursday night was very similar to the one at Hiro Ballroom last year (read my post from November here). This time, though, Guy was ambulatory (he had hurt his leg and was using a cane last time, when he walked at all), and the venue was, of course, completely different. Hiro is pretty small, more of a showcase venue, and allows for intimacy that a band isn't going to play Webster to achieve, while Webster is closer to an arena-type venue. It's kind of merciless; it likes to swallow bands up, which it often does, but if you get over at Webster you can probably play anywhere.

It didn't, as I was a little concerned might happen, swallow up Elbow. They had us hollaring for more, from way up front to way, way back. I was lucky enough to make the rounds of the club throughout the set, and except for one moment when Guy tried to get everyone clapping (I winced a little at that), their performance, their material, and Guy's voice were making our little world inside Webster Hall that night very happy.

Antietam, 4.14.06, Mercury Lounge

2006-04-21T18:03:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

I'm getting to this a week late (!), but last Friday night I saw one of my favorite bands, Antietam, at Mercury Lounge.

I love them mostly because of the axis around which they revolve: guitar "goddess," Tara Key. This woman is deeply connected to her guitar -- to its sounds and touch, how it rocks and jams, how it distorts, the nice, high Les Paul neck. Watching her and listening to her play, it's easy to fall into "Tara worship," revering an amazing woman who plays guitar like no-one else, and who has held a band together for decades. But that rock star reverence is diffused, nicely and appropriately, by her whole musical sensibility, which is about participating in the pleasure, not idolizing it.

This sensibility was particularly evident on Friday night because the entire line up of bands and musicians have known each other and played together for years. Red Eyed Legends, a punk band from Chicago, are friends with the evening's headliner, Eleventh Dream Day, as CD hawker and bassist Jason Dummeldinger told me. Headed by Tara's old friend and collaborator, Rick Rizzo, Eleventh Dream Day followed Antietam with hard, jamming, Zuma-like rock and roll. Their set felt like one long "Cortez the Killer," only live and playful.

Both Tara and Rick play Les Pauls, so it was fun watching them duel it out together, as the bands interchanged members throughout the evening. Sue Garner also helped out Antietam with keys and vocals, adding to the spirit of community generated by so much camaraderie. But don't think that the night was all about peace, love, and understanding -- oh no. These bands were here to play.

Last week in the Sunday New York Times, Bruce Springsteen makes an implicit distinction between rock and roll as he's trying to describe his current band: "There's no straight two-and-four, no rock tempos. This band rolls." Antietam does both, I think, and that's one of the reason they are so good. Some songs display crafted riffs and melodies, cutting to the quick in driving 2/4, while others maintain extended grooves that allow for Tara to blaze away, sometimes soloing madly, but often just stretching a single note until, to borrow another's lines, "it sounds the way she feels."

Next time I see them, I'm taking my own damn pictures (I forgot my camera! Thank you, Dawn Madell, for this picture of Tara at SXSW!) and posting the very same night! If, after getting blown away by both the rock AND the roll, I can still see straight.

86 Noodles, Urban Glass, 4.15.06

2006-04-18T14:16:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

I discovered that Chris Gordon was a poet when I first saw him front his band, St. Christopher and the Sleeping Doormen, where he integrates different musical styles including punk, rock and some nice, long, funky rhymes. I also knew he performed in another hip hop group, 86 Noodles, with DJ Bobafet on beats, and T-Nasty and Skitzofrenik the Crazy working the rhymes.

Skitzo, of course, might prefer MF Doom and the Beastie Boys, while St. Christopher goes for Art Brut and The Ramones, and reconciling these somewhat opposite musical genres is, of course, simply out of the question. Why? Well, because Chris's world seems to be populated by many personas. He jumps around from "self" to "self," character to character, like a big, long theater piece. And why not? Why settle on some idea of a core identity? Why do we often think identity needs to be easily discernible, consistent, and safe?

I'm riffing here a little much, I know, on an idea that doesn't really have much to do with 86 Noodles, who just want to funk and rhyme, and get the audience to shake their butts. Which they did last Saturday night at Urban Glass. Although I think only two of us actually danced (what can I say for us white people?!), everyone was, yet again, having a great time.

Live Girls!!!, a crazy-ass punk band, played before 86 Noodles. The three guys in the band wore dresses and huge, messy wigs, while the two front women on guitars had, by the end of the set, ripped their clothes off, simulated sexual acts, and trashed their equipment. Nice. I wasn't expecting that, and I dug it. Thanks, Live Girls!!!

Art Brut, 4.11.06, Southpaw

2006-04-12T01:24:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Before each upcoming song, after having chatted about it a bit, Eddie Argos turns to his band and asks, "Ready, Art Brut? Ready, Jasper?" Okay, c'mon now. Let's go, then, Art Brut."

These are rhetorical questions, of course, because Art Brut could not be more ready. And neither could its fans. Last night at Southpaw, there was moshing, crowd-surfing, insane fist-pumping and shouting along with the lyrics, and of course, the now-expected tour through the audience by Unstoppable, Top-Of-The-Pops Eddie.

It was a night of pure punk love.

Art Brut was great the last time I saw them, in November at Northsix. I missed the Bowery shows due to scheduling conflicts, but the word is that if you were only able to catch them play once this time around, the Southpaw gig certainly did the trick.

The difference between Art Brut last year and Art Brut now is not too vast. If they've changed much, after their label-signing, increased popularity, and mad touring schedule, they've changed for the better. The band is even tighter and more dynamic, with Ian Catskilkin and Jasper Future flying about the stage as they hold onto clean, spiky guitar licks. And unlike many acrobatic musicians, they don't come across as posers; these are sincere punk antics -- not angry, but jubilant. They are simply spending their youth, and spending it well. Bassist Freddy Feedback stands much steadier, as does Mikey D, the drummer (and, as you might notice from the photos, he really does stand!), in respectful service to rhythm and bottom.

I was right underneath Eddie for the first half (now, now, it's not like that) and moved back just in time to be swept up into all the moshing and surfing. At first I resisted a little, not quite sure if I wanted to get killed by a swarm of thrashing youth. But then I let myself go. I felt a guy's body above me (really, it's not like that!) and passed him along happily, as I continued to smash into the kids and howl, as we all were, for more and more.

One of the great things about Art Brut is their lack of bullshit, cynicism, and snobbery. They are clever, but don't assume that annoying air of being hipper-than-thou: "And yes, this is my singing voice, it's not irony, it's not Rock and Roll, we're just talking, to the Kids." When I was buying a t-shirt earlier from Jasper, I accidentally knocked into some guy with my elbow. Realizing that it was the same guy I had knocked into on my way in, of course I apologized, although it was a harmless bump in an extremely crowded club. But the guy snapped something nasty back at me, like "watch your elbows." I just smiled, inside wishing I hadn't, after all, apologized, and Jasper gave me the sweetest conspiratorial wink, along with two thumbs up, as I left the table. As I said, this band is definitely not from Williamsburg. (Wait, is that what I said?!)

Towards the end of the set (the last encore maybe? Did they do "Formed a Band" for their second encore? Oy. I just can't be certain), Eddie asked the audience if we remembered that last year he "ordered" each one of us to form a band. He has a very good memory, he threatened. And now he's back. And he wants to know, "Are you in a band?" "Are YOU in a band?" "And YOU?" "ARE YOU IN A BAND??!!" Well, are you?

Returning to Sun Kil Moon, Red House Painters, and all things Mark Kozelek

2006-04-10T00:10:00.000-04:00

By Charlotte Deaver

I'm sorry, but I can't wait until May 24th (Bowery Ballroom) to write about Mark Kozelek.

Every few months or so (sometimes less) I get into a listening groove that carries only the music of his various bands and solo efforts. It wasn't even very long ago that I got into his stuff, for years not having listened to much new music that wasn't radio-friendly. Tim, who usually prefers other kinds of music (e.g. salsa, gospel, renaissance choral music), came home with "Songs from a Blue Guitar" one night, having fallen for it hard at his yoga class. I was pretty dismissive at first (something he never lets me forget!). Such boy bands as Incubus, Chevelle, Vertical Horizon, John Mayer, Nickelback, and Tool had been holding my attention at the time. (Now, to an Indie lover, I have just outed myself BIG time. But I continue to stand by my pop and adolescent sensibilities. A good song will always be a good song, indie or otherwise, and I've never claimed to be hip. Just passionate.) I finally gave Red House Painters another listen, and this time, the floodgates opened quickly and furiously.

We tracked down just about every recording we could find, and saw Sun Kil Moon play an amazing show at Bowery Ballroom for the "Ghosts of the Great Highway" tour. Already melancholy, swooning music, at least three guitars and two other stringed instruments would hold on to the same chord, with subtle variations, to create a heartbreakingly lush sound. They played until all hours of the night, and as snarky as Mark can be, he was not in too bad a mood. Sure, he threatened an audience-member who was taking pictures, and snapped caustically at us when he felt like it, but he also twinkled with wise-cracks and played just about every song the audience requested.

The next time I saw him play solo, though, he was quite the kvetch. He told us that he had thought he wouldn't have to do madcap solo gigs like this to earn a living anymore, and that he really had hoped he'd be famous by now (a sentiment he echoes in this interview and impromptu performance, video-taped by Culture Catch). I kept thinking, wait, you're complaining about filling up the Bowery Ballroom with people who adore your music? Huh? He seemed to be doing almost everything he could to alienate us, and ended up walking off stage a little irritated.

It was a little bit of a let down, especially after having seen him be both ornery AND so good in the past. But part of the appeal of Mark Kozelek's music is that there is something disturbing about his particular melancholy, his darkness. And you don't want to "fix" that. You want to leave him alone and hope that he keeps moaning into the microphone and playing those alternate tunings on his guitar, "until it sounds the way [he feels]," as he says in the opening lyrics to "Void":

Find another corner of the house
When you need to get away
Her guitar leans against the couch
Sometimes I pick it up and play
Loosen and stretch its ancient strings
Until it sounds the way I feel

Mark Kozelek is not, of course, alone as a performer who resists, resents, and disparages his audience. Punk rock is defined partly by its anti-fan attitude, and who can forget Nirvana's "stupid and contagious" fans with guns, demanding to be entertained, in "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Indie audiences, on the other hand, seem to be all about the joy. This is the ecstasy generation. Some of the very sensibilities that punk rockers were reacting to, including the '60s hippies' love-in attitudes, have returned, reshaped, of course, by the specific influences of the current moment in time and history. Where the music industry worships the false idols of orgiastic corporatism and a ruthless bottom line, independent labels try to make money too, but without completely selling their souls (although, I wouldn't overestimate such a romantic view of independent labels). Bands do it out of love of the music, the life, and the performance. (And, of course, to get laid.)

As I am relatively new to the world of indie music and to small, intimate live music experiences (read here for an explanation of this trajectory), I have found the lack of cynicism in this band-audience bonding refreshing, if not inspiring. My own gigs (back in the day) were often nightmares, with the industry breathing down my back, offering no sense of sincere support and camaraderie. A sycophantic, "kiss-kiss" culture, the music business was all about "career" (not unlike my academic life, now!) and image, and it terrified me. Liberation from the painful emotional vestiges of the industry world I was involved in years ago must be, therefore, one reason I find the energy, openness, and passion of indie and other contemporary music circuits so appealing.

Part of the success of indie music now is that it gestures toward, at least ideally, a sense of community and abundance. Music-sharing, live performances at small venues that encourage intimacy (yes, of all sorts), and the mass of music bloggers who support the music they love as well as each others' sites connect people, rather than alienate them. And it always seems as though there's plenty of good music, great shows, great photographs, and different tastes and to go around. I don't get an overt sense of protective stinginess or brutal competitiveness, of "that's MINE!" It's not like academia, a world often driven, because of so little money and so few new ideas and brilliant minds, by pettiness.

Popular music is a derivative art form, and does not hold itself to the standards of originality that academia (hmmm...) and the fine arts do (hmmmm...). What IS required, rather, is an intensity of experience. Sure, there is some cool music out there that you wouldn't want to dance to, but that you could talk about and sound smart and critically distant. But that's not the kind of music that fuels this sub-culture.

Although Mark Kozelek's live performances do not arouse the same kind of group-happiness that other mostly younger and less gifted musicians do, his music satisfies the criteria of all the best rock and roll, I would say, because of the emotional potency it generates. Think of what it was like listening to Neil Young, for instance, in your basement or bedroom, over and over again, so that even to this day you remember every word of every song. No matter whether you were a part of the early or late generation of Neil Young, or of any other fierce band, you were changed by that music. Everyone's life is shaped by adolescent and early adulthood experiences: family relationships, the charge of blossoming individuality and newness, a first love, high school insecurities, and maybe even college manias. These experiences are so profoundly forged into your biological and psychic being during adolescence that all later experiences are marked by what happens to you at this time. It's a phenomenon Mark Kozelek tries to never let you forget:

When we were kids
We hated things our parents did
We listened low
To Casey Kasem's radio show
That's when friends were nice
To think of them just makes you feel nice
The smell of grass in Spring
And October leaves cover everything ("Have You Forgotten")

St. Christopher & the Sleeping Doormen 4.06.06, R & R

2006-04-07T11:03:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Chris Gordon really knows how to throw a party. Sure, it's a cash bar, there's no food, and you have to supply your own recreational drugs. But you are guaranteed to meet some interesting people, laugh your ass off, get rocked and hip-hopped, and leave the party dancing.

This is the third time I've seen St. Christopher and the Sleeping Doormen, and whether or not it was the very best yet, I certainly had as much fun at this show as a girl should reasonably have. The more performances of his I've been to, the more familiar I've become with his audience, his wonderfully crazy friends and fans, who are, in a way, an extension of the band. They're certainly part of the act, the whole Chris-Gordon-hilarity-party-scene, and one of the reasons his gigs are such a pleasure.

The music punks a little, hip-hops a little, and rocks sometimes jaggedly, sometimes fiercely. All the while, Chris entertains, sings, raps (go hear him rhyme with his other group, 86 Noodles), tells stories about his cats, and dedicates songs to people he loves. He'll use different voices and accents tailored for different songs and remarks, which is part of his humor. He'll repeat a line over and over until it shatters. He'll never let you stay still. And you'll never be sure how far off the path you might be taken.

Each band member, too, is distinctive in his own way. Dan Lubell is just sweet on keys and backing vocals. He opts to round out the band's otherwise spare sound with melodic riffs, rather than using the keyboard as filler. The guitarist, Nick Zarin-Ackerman, is adorable (very Jake Gyllenhaal, which now has many meanings, I know, but the adorable part is all I mean). I think Nick plays well too (but I wasn't listening), and drums and bass were solid. I have lots of pictures of all the band members laughing as they're playing. Like I said, adorable (or did I say distinctive?).

Read my last post on St. Christopher & the Sleeping Doormen and see lots more pictures of the band here.

Joni Mitchell, pilgrimage, wilderness: daylight savings and the Appalachian Trail, 4.2.06

2006-04-02T22:13:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Yesterday I hiked for about six hours in the Bear Mountain State Park, spending most of my time on the Appalachian Trail while I pretended I was on a pilgrimage, which in a sense I was. I had been listening to Joni Mitchell's Hejira in the car on the way up Palisades Parkway.

"I'm traveling in some vehicle . . . porous with travel fever."

If I had high hopes for the inward and spiritual journey I would be taking along these trails, those hopes were soon replaced with such practical matters as huffing, puffing, slipping, falling, nose-blowing, direction-finding, and leg-trembling. I got lost, oh, at least twice, making my trek three hours longer than I knew this shapeless self was physically capable of.

Naturally, I cannot walk today. In fact, I will probably do no walking for several days.

But back to Joni. There is no way, being alone in the wilderness for that many hours, not to get a little reflective (I mean, look what happened to Jesus, although I prefer to imagine Dante's lost fugitive soul: "Midway in our life's journey I went astray/ from the straight road and woke to find myself/ alone in a dark wood." The Inferno, Canto I).

I was too happy, though, for melancholy, too invigorated for sober, personal inventory. I just kept walking. And when I realized I had strayed, I laughed (while my thighs, of course, cried). Had the paths been less steep and slippery (they were covered in last Fall's dead leaves), a six hour walk would not have been so debilitating. But I encountered mountain after mountain (okay, but they ARE called mountains), to the point of exhaustion. When I realized I was another two hours away from where my car was parked, Dante came to mind again: "I found myself before a little hill/ and lifted up my eyes. Its shoulders glowed . . . And there I lay to rest from my heart's race/ till calm and breath returned to me. Then rose/ and pushed up that dead slope at such a pace/ each footfall rose above the last."

I would rather have imagined the robust and visionary Wordsworth ascending Mount Snowdon: "With forehead bent/ Earthward, as if in opposition set/ Against the enemy, I panted up/ With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts." He cruises up that mountain (a true mountain, mind you) and is immediately rewarded with a f*@k%ng vision: mist and moonlight that transform into an experience of the sublime:

". . . a blue chasm, a fracture in the vapour,
A deep and gloomy breathing-place, through which
Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams
Innumberable, roaring with one voice.
The universal spectacle throughout
Was shaped for admiration and delight,
Grand in itself alone, but in that breach
Through which the homeless voice of waters rose,
That dark deep thoroughfare, had Nature lodged
The soul, the imagination of the whole." (The Prelude, Book Fourteenth)

What did I get at the top, finally, of my hill? Some guy, sitting on a rock with his guitar, bellowing out Radiohead's "I'm A Creep."

I liked it, though. At least it wasn't a John Denver song. I've never identified with Wordsworth, anyway -- only worshipped/cherished/swooned over his poetry, while resenting him for his perfect psychic and physical health. Radiohead and I, on the other hand, have a lot in common.

But back to Joni, with whom I identify the most. I love Hejira because of the way, along with being breathtaking musically (her voice! those chords!), it knocks metaphor against deep, personal revelation:

"I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl . . .

You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line . . .

I know - no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone

Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tribute to finality - to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality . . .

We're only particles of change I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Waving truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room . . ."

And below, Saturday night, with map, preparing for pilgrimage:

Snow Patrol, 3.28.06, Bowery Ballroom

2006-03-29T15:05:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

I live for rock and roll experiences like this. No, I live for any experience like this: "If it looks like it works and it feels like it works then it works," sings lead singer/songwriter/cutie Gary Lightbody. And it really does.

Snow Patrol works for me because they do everything I want a band to do. I want to be rocked, first, in that fist-pumping, body-jamming, and yes, head-banging way. That means there almost always must be at least one guitar on top, the thicker and crunchier the better, and a fat, thumping rhythm section on the bottom, to keep the beats steady yet forward-driving.

Playing elemental chord progressions, Snow Patrol transforms rather basic songs into compelling rock and roll by attending to texture as much as structure, an affect that begins with Gary Lightbody's voice. With a Scottish accent and diction, his mid-depth baritone is filtered through a compressor that amplifies the breathiness of his voice, which seems to coax the lyrics into simple melodies.

The effects used for their guitars also work really well to compliment and create an individual sound -- not quite a uniquely "Snow Patrol" guitar sound, but close. I think of a band like U2, who play three or four-chord songs with repetitive lyrics and melodies, and have been doing that for thirty years now. They are successful at it, in part, because The Edge has perfected his sound not only through his playing (bars and bars of eighth or sixteenth notes, usually) but also largely through his effect pedals, which includes some combination of distortion, compression, sustain, delay, and who knows what other synthetic effects.

Snow Patrol's guitars are not nearly as distinctive as U2's, but they are rich, dense, sensual, and chiseled, and reflect their passion for how certain guitar sounds resonate in a rock song. Listen to how the song "Wow" begins, one guitar at a time, with a doubled acoustic guitar strumming one chord over some introductory scratches that announce the presence of much more amplification to come. Another top layer strums the same chord in a higher register for a few bars, until the song breaks open into the first verse with a deeper, chunkier guitar and slightly more syncopated rhythm.

On Tuesday night at the Bowery Ballroom, the band opened with "Wow," and they never let up in intensity and joy, from the second they opened with those chords. Gary and bassist Paul Wilson seemed especially happy to be on stage, sharing infectious smiles, and often looking as if they couldn't quite believe they, and we, were having this much fun. Gary moves well, using his hands and body a little like a less scrawny or affected Mick Jagger. (And he doesn't do Mick's chicken-strut thing, thank god!)

Although I was familiar with all the material already released, the band unveiled most of their new record, due out at the end of April. Some of the new stuff was great, but I can't remember the names of most the songs. If a few of them sounded a bit too pop and generic at their start, they would always settle into a great groove and then take off somewhere exciting and unexpected.

Martha Wainwright made a guest appearance and blew away one of their new songs, " Set the Fire to the Third Bar." I've only recently taken notice of Martha, especially the excellent and wonderfullly apt "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole," a song about her father. Oh is that song cathartic. For any of you who have issues with authority figures, go check it out.

I like the lyrics of Snow Patrol's first single, "Hands Open," which you can link to at Stereogum:

"I wanna hear you laugh like you really mean it.
Collapse into me tired with joy.
Put Sufjan Stevens on,
And we'll play your favorite song."

Read about the upcoming release of "Eyes Open" here. I never got any decent photos because I was too far back and was having too much fun to care, but you can see more pictures of that night and read another's view at Chris's Music Snobbery. As for the pictures I stole, see this site.

Maybe The Welders, 3.26.06, Dillon's

2006-03-27T15:06:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Rock and roll! After a quiet, peaceful weekend, I finally made it out of the house to check out a new local band. Playing late on a Sunday night, in a vast back room of a bar across the street from the old Studio 54, Maybe The Welders made their fans feel at home, as if they were entertaining us in the basement rec room of their parents' house.

Together only a few months now, this is a band that aims to please. Playing sturdy and nicely-outfitted rock and roll, the two lead singers and songwriters Greg Campbell and Declan Collins are backed by Dan Mitchell on guitar and Pitti (pronounced "Peachie") on drums.

Their songs range form ironic teasers, like "Married Men," and the manic, punk-infused "Nightlife." Although all suited up, the band knows how to let its hair down. When Greg and Declan scramble out into the audience, roll around on the floor, and howl about subjects like making babies, it's only regrettable that a larger crowd couldn't be there to share the fun.

Greg's voice, guitar, and songwriting style sound a little like a cross between David Byrne of Talking Heads days and Eddie Argos of Art Brut. Declan is slightly more subdued, focusing more on the meat of a song's chords and melody. Pitti, on drums, is both precise and fiery. He ignites the band with solid beats that do their job of gluing (welding?) the rhythm section together.

Go check them out at Trash Bar in Williamsburg on April 13!

My dear old friend from high school (!), Dane LaChiusa . . .

. . . and my dear new friend, the handsome and rockin' Pitti.

Animal Collective, 3.23.06, Webster Hall

2006-03-24T16:22:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Attracted. Repulsed. Charmed. Annoyed. Curious. Bored. All night, I couldn't decide. No, I could decide, but only for a moment, and then I'd all of a sudden flip to the opposite view.

When we walked in the first band, (Nix Noltes) was stretched in a long line across the stage, each musician banging his or her head up and down in self-satisfactory showmanship (or some other autoerotic maneuver). They seemed very pleased with themselves, and at times I could see why. But then they said goodnight and I was glad.

Twenty minutes later, however, they were still playing their Bulgarian accordion-and-tuba-enhanced wedding music, and I was confused. I looked around to see if others were with them, if I was just missing something. Were people happy that the band they didn't come to see was doing a four hour encore without being asked and without ever having left the stage? At one point I looked at my friend and asked, "should we be angry?" "No, No," he answered quickly, as if just a little worried I might make a scene.

Finally, it was over, and the next band meandered on stage, one instrument at a time. I don't know Animal Collective well, and I was open to being taken in. The music began seductively: a pulsing synthetic beat, dense chords sustained by abundant reverb and distortion, and layer upon layer of amorphous electronic sounds. It was compelling media, if nothing else.

But it was something else. Not quite rock and roll, it wasn't song-oriented either (unlike the CDs), since each piece, in electronica fashion, blended in with the next, so that it was never obvious when one song ended or another began. This psychedelic swirl, punctuated by delay-laden yelps sometimes masquerading as melodies, worked magically when all four band members chanted, barked, and growled together, as if after a large feeding. When they assumed their ritualistic, forest animal positions, synched up their echoes perfectly, and pounded out a strong, dark beat, attraction was operating. I would vacillate, though, between sensing something almost entrancingly predatory about them, and something utterly benign. When they were off, for instance, they just came across as four tantrummy, suburban boys, and repulsion loomed.

Never settling enough into tribal mode, my (mysterious) friend and I left after half an hour or forty-five minutes, a little, I think, relieved. I had a great if unsteady time, but would have liked it better had I been challenged more, and been conflicted not because of a band's sloppiness and annoying qualities (like the miner's Cyclops headlight worn by one of the Animals, or the excessive hair-waving by the Nix Noltes), but because of strengths that were simply unfamiliar to me. The demands of the (rock) genre can become tiresome, and while both these bands play music that is outside of that genre, and therefore disregard those demands to a degree, they are still hoping for, yet only occasionally achieve, the same effect.

.

José González, 3.22.06 Joe's Pub (9:30 show)

2006-03-23T12:33:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

After walking out on stage as unobtrusively as possible, tuning his guitar for a bit, Jose Gonzalez shuts his eyes as the notes he has adjusted begin to take on a steady beat, then a recognizable melody, "Deadweight On Velveteen" (I think). Already, he seems as mesmerized as we are. Delicate, full, softly-colored sounds waft in and out of his mouth almost indiscernibly, and the richness of his classical guitar ground the deeper tonalities of his music.

Jose Gonzalez exudes both a hushed restraint and extreme expressivity, which partly describes the beauty of a song like "Crosses," or his interpretation of "Heartbeats." Equally important, though, is the confluence of musical styles, including, notably, flamenco, multiple alternate tunings of the guitars, traditional folk finger-picking, and a hyper-sensitivity for melody and popular song structures. All of this, among other influences, is played out with a deliberate emphasis on solitude and inwardness. He's shy, but present. Private, but giving.

We were all, I believe, taken in from the first moment, but by the fourth song, the gorgeous "Sensing Owls," I was a goner: rapt, utterly tuned in, and excited in that inarticulate, slightly gurgly sort of way (think pre-verbal, happy, cooing baby), and my friend was in pretty much the same shape.

I don't think I would want to see Jose Gonzalez perform in a setting that did not allow for the kind of intimacy his music generates. Since his recent record label signing, although I can't say how he will tour in the future, I predict he will be "marketed" heavily. He may be ready for his close up, but we had ours last night. Lucky us.

The Wooster Group: Kate Valk in Emperor Jones

2006-03-20T15:03:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

This is the third time I've seen this performance in ten years, and each is as amazing as the last. I can actually say that The Wooster Group's Emperor Jones is my favorite theatrical experience ever.

To be even more specific, I anticipate, with chills, a dance that occurs twice during the play. Kate Valk, tarred in blackface, dressed in folds of Kabuki-like garments and Lower East Side biker boots, and Smithers (played in the past by Willem DeFoe, currently by others) lock eyes, ready their feet, and sweep side by side indescribably for mere seconds, riveting themselves, or so it seems, as much as the audience in their rhythmic, angular choreography.

The dance is over almost as quickly as it begins, and seems to serve no other purpose than to divert us as slight shifts in the set are performed by a stagehand. If much of the play keeps us equally enchanted and disturbed, the twinkle in Kate Valk's eyes as she readies for the dance offers relief from the burden of the play's emotional and social significance. Physically, too, throughout the play she's weighed down, laden with grease paint, layers of thick fabric, a bellowing voice, and dark, piercing eyes. The moment she dances, though, suddenly, and ephemerally, her body is free, her feet light, her eyes sparkling, her movements joyful.

For an excellent review of the play, see The New York Times.

spots of time . . .

2006-03-15T09:46:00.000-05:00

There are in our existence spots of time,
With which distinct preeminence retain
A renovating virtue . . .

Such moments, worthy of all gratitude,
Are scattered everywhere, taking their date
From our first childhood . . . (William Wordsworth, The Prelude)

I have always had a poor memory for my childhood, remembering only isolated, dreamy (or nightmarish) bits of certain events and people. Unless I am reminded, most details escape me. And I don't think it is because those moments are the "cotton wool" of memory, as Virginia Woolf calls it, the dull and fuzzy stuff that surrounds rare, extraordinary moments. When my family or friends tell me something I've forgotten, sometimes quite surprising bits spill forth: how my dad used to drill us with flash cards before breakfast, or how my mom okayed a beer party in our house when I was only a junior in high school.

On the one hand I embrace this gap of knowledge because it renders childhood a perpetual dream, as I believe we do experience it. On the other hand it's understandably frustrating when important pieces of one's past are simply missing.

Recently I've been reconnecting with friends from high school and earlier who are helping me fill in some of those gaps. I found a few photos that capture significant details: our vast house, my record collection and bedroom, above; 50s Day in 8th grade below (I'm on the far right in red, with Sally Russell, Barbara Marsden, and I think either Kim Jewell or Vinnie Tocco to my right. Bonnie Hawkins is seated, right-of-center, with glasses and red hair parted in the middle. Dave Poole (first kiss!) is top left in blue, and I think Tom Wisely, Dane LaChiusa, and Rich Harrison are above and next to him). And the last picture was taken in November of freshman year, when Bonnie introduced me to my first boyfriend (Brian Pearce) at Chris Lafler's going-away party.

Nada Surf and Rogue Wave, 3.8.06 Webster Hall

2006-03-09T10:17:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Webster Hall has good lighting. But other than that, the place is beginning to get to me. We are so spoiled in New York, with places like the Bowery Ballroom, Northsix, and Mercury Lounge, which hold so many fewer indie kids -- oops -- I mean people, that no matter where you are in the club you are guaranteed access to whatever energy and intimacy the band is creating. Not so at Webster, where it's possible to get lost in its maze of stairwells, off-limits VIP balconies, and no-access, under-staffed bars.

Nada Surf played the venue last night for the first time, according to lead singer and songwriter Matthew Caws, who announced that he hadn't actually been in the building for twenty years, when it was still called the Ritz.

Compared to Rogue Wave, the opening act, Nada Surf's songwriting, stage presence, and sheer likability absolutely soar. I like Rogue Wave's recordings, and their songs "Catform" and "Publish My Love" are worthy of repeated listenings, but on stage the four-man band just cried out for some personality, some idiosyncrasy, something to take them out of their mediocre servicability and set them apart from the average white band. (No, not THE Average White Band.) Too bad. I was looking forward to their show.

Nada Surf charged ahead, though, wiping the slate clean with shiny convex mirrors and a single six-string guitar (a crisp Gibson). Often playing only as a trio, the bass player Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot (who apparently lost his virginity at Webster Hall. Oh my. Perhaps it was also called the Ritz then, too? He'll never tell) supply a big sound, with intricate, subtle, yet ever-slammin' rock and roll tunes. We just love that, don't we?! Sometimes, too, a keyboard player filled in a riff or chord. And once, during the cathartic "Blankest Year," which begins abruptly with the lines, "oh fuck it/ I'm going to have a party," all the members from the two opening acts came on stage to sing harmonies and dance. I took pictures of that, but I had already moved back from the stage becuase Daniel the bass player was smoking so many cigarettes I was actually choking a little (for the record, I wholly endorse indoor smoking). Although my pictures are awful, I thought I'd slap them up here anyway. I like the shapes the bodies take on the colorfully lighted stage. The last photo is of Rogue Wave's (well-lighted) frontman.

Weekend in Southern CA, 3.2.06 - 3.5.06

2006-03-08T11:09:00.000-05:00

As we drove down the coast from LA to Laguna Beach we were both shocked and underwhelmed at the same time: oil rigs and off-shore drilling to one side, the sea-side, and row after row of ticky-tacky, identical, dead-looking houses on the other. This is not the California of my imagination, or even of my recent past. Nothing seems to have been built more than five years ago. The pier above looked like it might have been the oldest structure we encountered.

Inland was just as bad. The campus at UC Irvine sprawled across several acres unremarkably. I was inside most of the time, listening and contributing to two days of talks, so granted my experience was limited. Charlotte from Melbourne and two wonderful Berliners, among others, tried to stifle their amazement at California's offerings thus far. I assured them LA would be better. The blue lights of the UC Irvine Arts building caught my eye as I left the campus for the last time.

Tim went to the Salk Institute in La Jolla, designed by Louis Kahn, while I attended the conference. We had been there before years ago, and he loved it so much he wanted to go back, in part just to see if he would appreciate it as much the second time. He did.

Below are lights from one of the smaller refinery cities we passed on our way in and out of LA.

Zomboid! (Film/Performance Project #1) written and directed by Richard Foreman

2006-02-20T15:18:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

At this time last year, Richard Foreman announced that he would no longer produce plays, but was shifting his medium to film. It was pretty shocking news, considering that he has been presenting theater annually in New York City since 1968. Due to the exuberant influence of my husband I've been attending his plays since Film is Evil: Radio is Good in 1987.

With NYC boasting The Wooster Group, Robert Wilson, Meredith Monk, and John Jesurun, among many others, avant garde theater is well represented here. But were we to think, with the crushing news of Foreman's abandonment of the stage last year, that we might be losing one of our most loyal participants?

As it turns out, the answer is both yes and no.

Zomboid!, Foreman's current work, is indeed partly film. Playing in the Theater at St. Mark's, for years the home of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, it is also in many ways like Foreman's other plays: spatial orientation is distorted by glass partitions that reflect the audience, wires strung throughout both theater and stage, and light-bulbs that snap randomly and jarringly; music and spoken-word loops recall echoes of old radio shows and Cagean experimentalism; the set, too, remains crowded, intense, and laden with hand-made props such as large eyeballs, candles, chalkboards, stuffed animals, and oil paintings.

The incorporation of film (two large screens set at right angles), however, changes the effect of the set dramatically. By opening it up, expanding it out into the world, the sense of mystery and dread is all but eliminated. At the expense of the usually claustrophobic, densely psychological atmosphere evoked by the set, the Australian sun pours through windows in the films, which portray severe-looking, Euro-chic actors who dress like antiseptic architects from Brussels, move very little, and occasionally repeat hypothetical propositions (none of which I can recall, or I would recite them here).

Previously, actors would wander the stage in a Foreman play, bewildered and lost, teased and tempted, offering abstruse yet provocative verbal gems. In this performance, several actresses stalk the stage, sometimes as sex kitten/victims, sometimes as dominatrix/aggressors, as one lumbering, leather-bound actor, tall and dark, fields their affection or abuse. While this is a typical dynamic for Foreman’s characters, the tension between them seems lost in this new, austere, diffused language of film and live theater.

As with all of Foreman's work, there (absolutely and defiantly) is no plot. If the plays have been, in fact, *about* something, it is of elemental philosophical questions of being, desire, impulse, the relationship between the mind and reality, and language. The script, untethered by narrative, is as abstract as consciousness itself. In Zomboid!, however, the verbal text is even more minimal than usual. As if to explain, the cover of the program reads:

"Mostly -- people are interested in 'events'. But I find more potent, the time between events, the oscillation of the field -- in this case that potent "staging area" in front of filmed tableaux, in which the archetypically 'blindfolded' hover like semi-visible Gods -- semi-controlling the wobble of 'blind' impulsive behavior on the stage below."

Unfortunately, the "events" in Zomboid! between which we "wobble" are too flat, are not quizzical enough, making that desired "oscillation" vibrate only a little. As an idea, it is compelling, and in Foreman's theater, usually equally so. With this newer "performance," though, staging and film don't quite live up to the concept.

State Radio 2.18.06 Bowery Ballroom

2006-02-19T01:13:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

In some ways, State Radio is hard to describe: leftist headbangers meet ska-frats? Surfer dudes meet vanilla hip hop? One Love meets Move On? At the same time, although several musical and other styles do collide, the band has a clear, even simple agenda: rock out and speak out.

Like other political artists such as Billy Bragg and Steve Earle, this band mixes their music with their message. Unlike Billy and Steve, though, every single song is political. Ranging from war crimes to the plight of a waitress, each song is a battle-cry against some infringement upon democracy at home and abroad.

Although State Radio's lyrics play to a working class culture and an ethics of dissent, their fans at the Bowery Ballroom on Saturday night resembled nothing of the sort. Rather, they evoked middle America’s frightening and deceptive normalcy, the very status quo from which I recoil. These suburban teenagers, not old enough to wear wristbands, instead wore their baseball caps on backwards and chanted what sounded like R.O.T.C. mantras. For a second we thought we were at a high school football game.

If I seem to be dwelling on the crowd, it’s only because they helped set the tone for the night: while the politics and music were well-intentioned, something about the squeaky-clean, adolescent whiteness of the audience matched perfectly with the supposedly anti-establishment music and messages. As sweet and earnest as lead singer and guitarist Chad Urmston is, he’s not very articulate or inspiring, which severely undercuts his desire for dialogue, education, and challenge to the status quo. Were he more biting and edgy, or a real threat to America's wayward ways, the parents of his fans would probably be less likely to have let their kids out of the suburbs for a night!

The evening did offer some great moments, all of which were musical. I especially loved it when the band's crunchy metal riffs chugged along with its thick-bassed reggae rhythms. That convergence of acid guitars and rock-solid beats is what State Radio does best. I could have done without the orchestrated sing-alongs and Pavlovian, fist-pumping call-and-responses, but maybe I should be grateful that these kids are getting drawn into something, perhaps witlessly, larger than they anticipated. And if all they get out of it is a rockin’ night away from mom and dad, they're still doing alright.

Camilo, a song about a U.S. soldier who left Iraq as a conscientious objector and was court-martialed and imprisoned upon his return, is playing to your right. As ever, please support the band by purchasing their music.

A perfect day in New York 2.04.06

2006-02-05T00:40:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

This painting, "The Virgin Annunciate," by Antonello da Messina, was the sole reason we visited the Met today. Circling the Upper East Side for parking, traipsing through the rain, we felt like we were on holiday, tourists in our own city. Having often in the past combined vacation and pilgrimage, this journey had that wonderful sense of being at once familiar and new.

A young Sicilian girl looks off into the distance, her hands slightly raised, as if to both acknowledge and halt the viewer. She is the one being viewed, imposed upon. In this case, she has just been notified by the most consequential of all curriers, the angel Gabriel, that she will bear the son of god. Weighty news, indeed.

Most Annunciations I've seen are sweeping, abundant, magical scenes. Mary bows as Gabriel delivers his solemn message. Witnesses gather. Wings and lilies abound. It is the spectacle of miracle.

Here, rather than a slight, submissive profile kneeling before the awesome figure of Gabriel, a mind, a complicated intelligence, is being confronted. The look of recognition on her face is mixed with distraction and resignation. Yes, I am coming. Give me a moment. Centuries later, we find her still.

Then, after a walk through glistening streets and the best cappucino in town, I sing Tallis and Arcadelt in a Catholic Church while parishioners play bingo in the basement. No, no, I'm not Catholic.

But I am, clearly, Italian.

Broken Social Scene 1.26.06 Webster Hall

2006-01-27T10:57:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

This show started off really badly -- for me. When I got up to door of the club I couldn't find either driver's license or credit card, so I spent the next hour in search of these essentials, held back a few tears (silly me), and ended up finding my license in the pocket of my car door. Still no credit card, but it was a relief.

By the time I finally got inside, the band had already been playing for a long time. About eight, long BSS songs, someone told me, and this next song was sounding very much like an encore already. Again, I almost cried! My emotions, alas, know no perspective -- Alito, global warming, and being late for a show -- these are troubled times.

After several songs it became clear the show was not over, and all was right in the musical universe -- or nearly so. The band sounded sloppy, which might be expected from a band that calls itself a "collective" (but not from one this popular and one in the middle of a tour).

Their messiness, however, is part of their appeal. As all-over-the-place a song may begin, a lengthy vamp out gives the musicians enough time to synch up with each other. And that's when the payoff begins. Many of their songs are kind of sprawling already, and the musicians -- five or six guitars, five horns, a bunch of singers and guest performers, and one violin -- take up a lot of space on stage, so the most satisfying live moments occur when they all finally get together for these extended grooves.

There's also something slacker-sexy about them, which is probably partly due to some of their sexually explicit lyrics. Nor does it hurt that the stage is crowded with such a great number and variety of gender-bending, band-hopping, hipster musicians from the ever-cool Canada. So when, during "Lover's Spit," singer Kevin Drew slipped into the audience without fanfare, I regretted I wasn't stage-hugging that night.

Broken Social Scene is one of those bands that was so over-hyped for a while that they are already inching to the other side of the hype-hill. Not a blogger yet myself, I (luckily) didn't know that, and fell in love with them through one song, "I'm Still Your Fag," which they did not, unfortunately, play on Thursday night. You can listen to it (for a few days) on the Audioblogger bar to your right. If you like the song, you'll understand one thing that is great about this band. If not, you won't like Brokeback Mountain, either.

Dan Lubell 1.24.06 Lakeside Lounge

2006-01-25T14:09:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

The only way to do this band justice is to be as funny, clever, and appealing as Dan Lubell himself is. You know, have the form itself reflect the content, blah blah blah.

But my goodness. What pressure. Dan Lubell is really funny and talented (so much so that I had trouble deciding which word should come first: talented or funny). His music is smart, playful, melodic, and between songs he can riff on just about any subject and have the audience howling (Brokeback Mountain and the James Frey scandal got a lot of mileage).

While the songs are deceptively simple, the lyrics give them their real charge. Like Dan's stage presence, they play with humor and irony, but can also be bracingly honest and direct. Through revelations about relationships, sex, or growing older, some of the songs seem almost earnest, despite themselves. All the while, of course, the audience hoots and hollers, loving not just Dan, but the connections he's making.

I can't imagine anyone not having a good time at this show. The band was solid -- Lance Doss was especially good on electric guitar, and the bass player's hat rocked -- and the audience, myself included, was particularly attentive.

And none of this wonderful night, by the way, was at all compromised by Dan's hair. His hair was great. Just great.

Serena-Maneesh 1.21.06 and a night with Pica

2006-01-22T15:11:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

After racing down Avenue A to make the 12 am show at the Mercury Lounge, I waited another half an hour before the band began to play. I was late (or, so it turned out, not) because of an amazing dinner with friends. Although plagued with a bit of "double-book" anxiety, I was mighty sad to leave them.

But the band finally started playing -- a simple kick-drum pulse and single, throbbing eight-notes on guitar and bass, which built up nicely in volume and pressure -- and we all forgot how long it took them to begin. This was rock and roll, the two-generations-ago kind, replete with psychedelics, pirate (gypsy?) costumes, and a tattooed Twiggy.

The band looked so cool. Too cool, you'd think, but for some reason they weren't. Twiggy thumped her bass (strapped hip-hugger low), transmitted not a word or smile from her beautiful stone-face, and only occasionally moved her hair away from her forehead. Usually someone like that would annoy the heck out of me. When I moved in closer to get pictures I had to push ahead of many-a-gawker. "I just want to get one shot of her," I said to this one guy, who just smiled and said wistfully, "Yeah. Me too." She was sexy, I have to admit, in that kind of inapproachable, passive way. And I loved it. See some great pics of the entire band at Brooklyn Vegan.

The leader of the band, though, was the true attraction. (And he's short.) He writes and plays just about everything on the record, and was so excited to be here, playing live to a sold out crowd in NYC, that he could hardly speak. For all the band's "affect," he seemed wholly invested in its music (as retro, in a way, as it is), as well as in its style and effect. His muteness was captivating, and his shyness endearing, not distancing. Yes, he was inarticulate, and he and his sister's vocals were practically indiscernible (just wisps of air and breath), but they are, in fact, simply Norwegian. This is a Norwegian, family affair.

So, as Norwegians, as guests in this country of war and hypocrisy, as far as I'm concerned, they can do whatever the F#@k they want and it'll be okay by me.

It will, and it was.

And did I say that the dinner was amazing? xo

I do love how the "World Spins Madly On."

2006-01-11T15:13:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Although resisting her alliance with The Weepies until now, I've been a big fan of Deb Talan for a while. Like many others, I heard her song "Forgiven" trail with the credits of the movie "Lovely and Amazing," and was smitten by her unusual voice: a striking, intimate soprano, lilting and sugar sweet -- not candy-sugar, though, but granular, even pebbley.

I saw her at the Bitter End, oh, over a year ago, and was a bit disappointed by the band she was travelling with, which included her partner, Steve Tannen. I felt she was overshadowed by them. I wanted all Deb, and got this whole collective band thing. Imagine!

But now, with their latest digital pre-release, "Say I Am You," I am happy to report that this band thing really works! You can only download the CD via iTunes, but a hard-copy is on the way. Of course, I immediately downloaded two songs, both of which I love: "World Spins Madly On" and "Gotta Have You." Gorgeous. Glorious. Deb is back! With a band! Imagine.

New music, new year, and a few family photos.

2006-01-08T16:13:00.000-05:00

Praise Janus, the god of beginnings! It is finally the friggin' new year. Halleluia. The end of 2005 sort of sucked, what with tending to my mom and overloading elsewhere. And making no headway on my dissertation. Not to mention Katrina, the tsunami, and continued, totally avoidable bloodshed in Iraq, thanks to the most vile and deplorable president in the world, ever. You get the picture.

So here we are, in 2006. Christmas was nice (the niece in orange agrees), New Years sparkled (see right), and Pablo and Rickie continue to bathe (see below) and adore each other adorably.

And finally, I have a whole new list of shows to see, which have been added to the sidebar.

The other Rickie

2005-12-09T12:08:00.000-05:00

The Dandy Warhols were great. The Magic Numbers were great. My concert and birthday were great. But the real magic arrived a few weeks ago, the same day I went to see Rickie Lee Jones. We have a new little member of the family, who we named after the illustruous singer/songwriter. It's a good thing we gave "her" a gender-neutral name, becuase "she" turned out to be a boy. Pablo and he adore each other already. Rickie follows him everywhere, and they do everything together --play, sleep, eat, groom. It's adorable!

Magic Numbers 11.28.05 Bowery Ballroom

2005-11-29T16:28:00.000-05:00

Ooooo. Fun show. More later, as I'm off to the Dandy Warhols tonight! xo

Say Hi To Your Mom and American Analog Set 11.18.05 Southpaw

2005-11-25T20:19:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Is late better than never? Do I just skip over last week’s shows? Hell no! But since it has been a whole week, I shall replace immediacy with brevity.

Last Friday night I went to see American Analog Set, a lush, melodic electronica band from Austin, TX, who have recently announced that this will be their last tour.

But opening for them was a band I prefer, Say Hi To Your Mom, who I have been touting for months now. (I’ve probably listened to the song “Laundry,” honestly, about 300 times. I love singing along with lead singer/ producer/songwriter Eric Elbogen, to the girl he’s so psyched to see at the Laundromat, the one with “with chopsticks in her hair:” “Do you come here all the time? Why are yours fluffier than mine?” Apparently he digs her “soap technique.”) The lyrics are smart and the grooves are body-healing -- sustained long enough to catch hold, but not too long to dull.

AAS was the obvious headliner, but they are so mellow and geeky that they’re not exactly a band you want to wait hours for (as we did). Saved by their full, richly-toned layers of sound, however, they didn’t entirely disappoint. They just didn’t rip the stage apart; they’re a band that wants vibe and tech to intersect keenly and smoothly, which I believe they do. And, apparently, they’re a great band to have sex to (so a friend of a friend told me), but no one’s really going to do that on the dance floor of Southpaw. So, barring that, they’make music that's good enough to sway to. Not swoon, but sway. Big difference.

Rickie Lee Jones 11.19.05 Tribeca Arts Center

2005-11-20T14:54:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

I used to try to sing like Rickie Lee Jones. Ha. Needless to say, never in my wildest dreams could I have sung like her. It used to make me feel bad, though, like I was a terrible singer because I couldn’t hit the high notes or sing and write songs with that much exposed emotion. But that was a long time ago, when, even more so than now, everything referred back to myself.

Last Saturday night, however, it was all about Rickie, who I now know no one can sing like. Her voice, her songs, her expression, her energy, and her particular blues are all her own. And she sends it out into the world like an urgent messenger.

Her performance at the Tribeca Arts Center was mesmerizing, and it was partly because she herself seemed mesmerized, rapt, like Kubla Kahn and his floating hair, or the visionary damsel with a dulcimer who drew him into such state of heavenly dread. Every song seemed to ring out in generous waves of sound and feeling, her voice pouring forth not only in expression, but in giving.

But what could we give back? We were like the chorus in an ancient Greek tragedy, speaking the obvious and dumb from the sidelines. If the goal of tragedy is to evoke empathy from its audience, than I might be able to say that there is something tragic about Rickie Lee Jones’ music (bear with me, if you would). She is an intense performer not simply because she’s confessional, or bruised, or much older than most other pop performers and both more wearied and grateful because of it. She is able to slice through and spill over the way she does because something large and fallen and errant looms about her. We see that, and we empathize. That’s what she gives us -- she offers bits of darkness and beauty, with a worldly angel’s voice, and reminds us of our capacity to feel.

Check out her website on community and politics, too: Furniture For the People

What happens when you open Pandora's Box? You get your own radio station!

2005-11-19T00:44:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

I kind of get the metaphor, but I also kinda don't. And frankly, it doesn't matter, because this website, www.pandora.com, is amazing enough to overlook the rhetorical flaw. My nephew made mention of this website on his blog (Quality Peoples) a few days ago; I have been listening as often as I can ever since, and I'm hooked.

Pandora was created by the The Music Genome Project as a way for music-lovers to seek out new music they might like, based on music they already know they like. So all you have to do is register (free), start entering your favorite song titles or artists, and a pseudo "radio station" is created for you, based on your tastes. When you don't like a song, you tell the "box" and it removes it from its files, and when you do like a song a lot, you say so and it includes more music with those characteristics. It's very cool. You can also create a "favorites" page, for referring back to music you liked a lot. I was impressed by how many artists and songs are in the database. Only one artist I added was not available, but the pop-up said something like "We can't find blah-di-blah, but we're always looking for new music, so we'll check it out."

It's very easy to use. In just a few minutes you can have your own radio station, tailored specifically to your likes. You'll hear the stuff you entered, along with a lot of music you probably don't know and are apt to like. Or you might hear music by artists you've heard of, but didn't know you liked.

Art Brut 11.11.05 Northsix, with Test Icicles. And a birthday celebration between sets!

2005-11-13T10:30:00.000-05:00

Photo by Danakavm

by Charlotte Deaver

In Brit-speak, this was a fookin' great show. What we used to call "a riot." Art Brut was the headliner, and definitely the better band. But what Test Icicles lacked in subtlety of sound, they made up for with (lovable) adolescent insanity.

Punk rock is not what it used to be. I still love its contemporary descendents, though, like Art Brut. This band gets that we can never go back again, but that's not going to keep them from putting on a good show of it. Although Art Brut gets some flak for being too clever and arty, too cheeky and ironic, too "meta," in their live performance they were not seeking smirky distance from anything; immediacy was their aim.

Yes, their songs are limited, musically, with threadbare arrangements of well-worn chord progressions. But what makes this an original band is its lyricism, in the sense that lead singer and songwriter Eddie Argos seems to have discovered the right voice for himself. When he announced, for instance, that the next song was about being afraid of sex, you knew he meant it. He's a funny looking guy with a flopping belly and a bad haircut, not the kind of person who seems over-confident in his own skin. But the art-punk persona is not one of erotic failure, so it might be easy to think that he's being, well, cocky.

In "Formed a Band," it is true that Eddie Argos comes across as both sarcastic and sincere when he sing-speaks his wish to write a song "that makes Israel and Palestine get along," one that's "going to make sure that everybody knows that everything is going to be okay." Of course this is disingenuous, but I also can't help but fall for the sentiment. Who wouldn't want to be able to write a song as powerful as that? But, duh, who ever could?

"Formed a Band" is playing to your right. It's a perfect example of Art Brut's mix of rock, punk, play, talk, and song. Please listen, and as ever, please support the band by buying their music!

I was able to scrunch right up front and lean on the stage for both bands. Considering how crowded it was it's a mystery to me that I was able to do that so easily, especially when I left for an hour and a half in between the two sets while another band played.

For Test Icicles, the proximity to the stage enhanced the experience by strides. When a fourteen year old boy came out to test some equipment, my jaw dropped. "Are you sixteen yet?" I asked. He looked a bit offended, and responded proudly that he had just turned twenty. I laughed and said, in my best British accent, "I'm old enough to be your mum!"

Oops. He turned out to be one of the lead singers of Test Icicles. Never piss off a wanna-be-punk band. I got swiped in the head and had water splattered all over me, not necessarily due to special attention, but possibly (and you know I loved every minute of it).

This band consists of three bursting, spurting, maniacal, messy, tantrummy boys, who scream as loudly as they can and raunch out on two guitars, a keyboard, and an iPod. They really, really WANT to be angry, but don't seem to have much to be angry about. They would rant a bit about how one or the other was an asshole (how cute!), jump into the crowd occasionally, and roar into the mic ferociously, but apart from the inadvertent(?) slap on the head, they lacked the aggression they seemed to imagine they were displaying. They were just boys playing with toys. Wait. They were BRITISH boys, cute British boys, playing with toys. And how much fun is that?!!!

I met a very nice young woman who was taking pictures of the lead singer of Test Icicles for a friend. I've included some of her pictures. (Thanks, Danakavm!)

Above two photos by Danakavm

And below is a picture of the very happy birthday girl and her friends, with whom I celebrated between sets.

Spoon 11.06.05. Warsaw

2005-11-07T00:38:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

I did take pictures of this show, but I'm not going to post them. It's the New Warsaw Bakery that takes the cake, so to speak.

Spoon was disappointing, so I hesitated to even write about them. Let's just say the band was solid. Had this been a rehearsal for a recording session, we'd all be impressed by how well-prepared they were.

But hey! What about us! Hello, boys. There are people out here!

I actually think they forgot that they were performing in front of real human beings. And it's not that they were nervous or unsteady; this band was on the ball. They knew their material, their licks, their moves -- no, they had no moves -- their transitions between songs, like nobody's business.

The club might have had something to do with it. Warsaw is a Polish theater/dance hall sort of place, the kind of space at which a high school prom might otherwise be held. To me it felt like being crammed into the bottom of a very tall cake box with a thousand other people. We could stare up into all that open space above us, while hardly being able to see the stage.

Warsaw is not an intimate space, nor is it an arena. Perhaps it could have been transformed into either, had the band made any attempt to connect with its audience. I think they spoke to us twice -- some banalities about being in Greenpoint and selling out the club. Otherwise, they shifted from song to song with impressive accuracy, but little charm.

My friends (below), however, are very charming, so the evening was by no means a loss. And the little spark of magic that we didn't find inside, instead we found outside, by the New Warsaw Bakery, as the morning bread was baking.

St. Christopher and the Sleeping Doormen 11.04.05. Don Hill's

2005-11-05T03:30:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

I love this band. Led by Chris Gordon (the tall guy with the nice legs!) they play tight, funky, slightly wacky songs, and they're funny as shit.

It doesn't hurt, either, that Chris Gordon is a poet. He sees the world in altered frequencies, coordinating them with our planet just enough for us to get it. Sometimes he transmits his universe to us with a sweet bounce, sometimes in speedy jolts, but the music and words are always driving and playful.

In one of his songs, "Babies," he captures that infant essence. I can't remember any of the words, but the song kind of rocks on your knee like a little baby, adorable yet unruly and spastic. On the other hand, "Everybody Hop on the Cock!" is practically a protest song, a call to arms against increasing censorship and fascism. That's my interpretation, of course, but I like to think that the band is presenting an implicit politics of disobedience. It's not punk music, but a punk ethic. It's not hip hop, but it is about telling, and about keepin' it real.

Best of all, though, it's fun. This band makes it clear that it's good to be alive. And at my age, any band that can make it worth being up at 2:30 in the morning has to be doing a lot of things right!

It was also an added pleasure to see the folks at Don Hill's again, where I used to play (long ago). I will definitely be back to say hello and hear more music.

Elbow: leaders of the free world! 11.03.05. Hiro Ballroom

2005-11-04T16:05:00.000-05:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Even though I didn't know their music well, I was really excited about seeing Elbow live. First of all, they don't play in the U.S. that often -- they're Brits, from Manchester. I see a lot of bands that are so damn young, and have the indie-kid cool thing that is all well and good, but can get clique-ish and tiresome. And this band just seemed smart. Not intellectual or overconceived, but thoughtful, soulful.

In some ways Elbow compares to many other old school-style British invasion bands, with moody layers of sound and classic keyboard and guitar arrangements -- nothing too out of bounds or experimental. The lead singer's voice is even slightly familiar (he sounds, among others, like Paul Carrack of Squeeze and Mike + the Mechanics).

But this is not an ordinary British band. If they do comply with some classic British rock standards, they also exceed them. They may draw us in with those familiar sounds, but they will then take us elsewhere, veer us off track, as each song seeks yet another tone, atmosphere, or mood. Guy Garvey, the lead songwriter and singer, writes melodies for and with his main instrument, his voice. And what a voice! It's full, sexy, textured, emotional, and spot on key.

I was flying solo that night, and felt a tinge of social awkwardness as I waited for the band to come on stage. I had arrived early, so I just parked myself right in front of the stage and waited it out. Of course, I ended up chatting with many of the other first-row fans, who were much more familiar with Elbow's music than I was. The only song I knew when I bought my ticket last month was "Buttons and Zips," although I had recently listened to several more, including "Scattered Black and Whites," the song that had me crying during all those hormonal days last week.

They began the set with "Station Approach," a song that drives an insistent, pulsing beat for several verses and then cracks open in the middle. They had us hooked from the first note and never let go. Needless to say, we were quite the adoring audience.

Guy came out on stage walking with a cane, and sat on a stool for most of the show, which I thought was interesting. He later made reference to a mysterious injury, inquiring why no one had asked him about his foot. He chattered a lot with the audience, actually, asking many questions and making everyone laugh. During a technical difficulty, he started a little question and answer that earned him a few dances and a date. Even made him blush.

Throughout the set, several of us begged for "Scattered Black and Whites," which I knew was not on the set list. When we finally got the song, I felt like one of those girls in a Beatles movie who faints with joy and over-excitement. Don't worry -- I restrained myself. Next time they play here, though, I make no promises.

OK Go.10.26.05.Irving Plaza

2005-10-27T00:42:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

When I first saw this band back in April, I felt as though we, the entire audience and I, were witnessing a moment in history. You know -- Prague Spring, Kennedy's assassination, the first walk on the moon -- something like that. A little over the top, you say? I know, but I was ecstatic. Gone. Hooked.

Ok Go was the band that started it all for me, this rock and roll kick I'm on. I began to see a lot of live music after that night, something I didn't think I enjoyed too much anymore. This was partly due to the performance spaces themselves; they were safe, controlled environments -- the civilized kind, with seat numbers and ushers.

Now I want nothing other than General Admission. I want arm-waving, body-jamming, high-decibel cheering, and if I'’m lucky, some crowd surfing. I want the band spitting on me (not on purpose, of course).

Which brings me back to OK Go, a glam-boy, cock-rock kind of band. These boys play neatly crafted rock and roll songs with quite the rousing mix of accuracy and energy. When a band promises as much rock and roll and fun as this band does, the crowd will follow eagerly, provided there are no sloppy distractions. And this is a tight, clean, band. They rock precisely as they churn and sweat, and I like that. (All rock and roll bands must sweat. A lot. Never trust a band that doesn'’t sweat.)

On Wednesday night, we (my friends and I) agreed that this performance paled in comparison to their April show at Northsix. Playing here at Irving Plaza, a larger space, and performing new material from their second CD, Oh No, they seemed spread out, flatter.

We wanted that compact, exploding package they were before.

But instead, we got gift wrap.

One problem, I think, was that they assumed too much from their audience. First, they made us wait forever before coming on stage (BIG mistake, boys). Then, they complained about being sick, and about how they always get sick in New York. Wait. Do you not get that we are New Yorkers? And did you just (sort of) insult our city? Do not say ANYthing about this town. And while I'm at it (rage), we don't really care if you're sick!

So, it was a bad start. But then they pulled and pulled, worked their tight little chords, ground out the bass lines (really nice), got their vocal mix together (ow! ow! ow! ow!), and Damian finally started feeling the effects of his Tylanol 3 or whatever. He jumped and hollered a-plenty, they did their adorable dance number for an encore (see the last four photos), and all was right in the world.

But for that gift-wrap. The band presented the audience a nicely designed package, like the alternating William Morris wallpaper that continually flashed onto the stage's backdrop.

But I wanted them to tear the paper off like Christmas morning. No, I wanted more than that. I wanted shards and ashes. I wanted the whole damn stage to blow up in my face.

What. Am I asking too much?

Wolf Parade.10.25.05.Northsix

2005-10-26T01:32:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

In the indie music world, this band is hot-hot-hot. To my ears last night -- not so hot. It's because of the popularity of a band like this that I wonder not just a little about the indie music scene. What is it that people like so much about an OK band like this? And, I have to ask, do they REALLY like them that much? Did the audience come away from the show last night charged, or smitten?

Their sound, to me, lacked body, fullness, partly because the bass is often played electronically and barely audibly by the gimmicky keyboardist (he plays his wee-little-keys over his head and doesn't even think he's Jimmy Hendrix), but also because one of the lead singers (there are two) sings with a yelp-y, pitchless voice. How can a voice like that get under your skin, except in a bad way? I did like the lead guitarist a lot, who also sang lead. Points against: he looked very much like Anton Newcombe from Brian Jonestown Massacre and, like Anton, doesn't sing very well. Points for: he seemed to be, unlike Anton, a sweetheart. He was, unlike -- oh, nevermind -- VERY nice to the audience.

chained melody: a night in the ER

2005-10-21T10:24:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

This is supposed to be a blog about music. But sometimes life intervenes. I haven't posted in the past few days, and I missed Tim and Tara of Antietam play last night because I've been, lets say, pre-occu-pied.

My mom never goes to hospitals. (Don't worry. This is not a photo of my mom.) She complains a LOT, but never about her health. She'll complain about the state of health care in America, and about how doctors mis-diagnose or want to cut you up right away. She'll complain about how inadequate, smarmy, and rich doctors can be. She will, at times, hail the benefits of cabbage, honey, and sea air. But that's about as close to medical attention as she'll get.

Until Wednesday night.

My mom spent sixteen hours on the floor of her apartment before four handsome, strapping firemen and two of the sweetest EMS guys (Mario and Jimmy) broke into her apartment and got her onto a gurney.

She still didn't want to go to the hospital (and, I should note, she hadn't wanted me to call 911, either!). But off we went, my poor, exhausted, crumpled mother, Mario, Jimmy, and I, to the local Emergency Room.

In time, I'm pretty sure my mom will be okay. She's in the hospital now and will need a lot of physical therapy so that she can get strong enough to walk again without pain. Hopefully. But we spent nine hours in the ER that night before they admitted her. Nine hours! It was crazy and scary, but also fascinating. Every "bed" has a story, several of which I heard as I waited. The man in the photo (which I had to take surreptitiously and without flash), who is cuffed on both wrists AND ankles, intrigued me the most.

When I wasn't with mom, who often slept in between tests, I spent most of my time with the cops. They were very friendly and liked to talk. Apparently, this chained delinquent was so violent that the police had to bag him with a blanket and keep him wrapped in it until they could cuff his arms and legs. He had completely destroyed someone's apartment and beat up on a guy, but had also been beaten up himself. As he lay there in a hallway--all night--he would continually pull on his handcuffs and try to get up, but his eyes never opened and he never actually said anything.

There was something about his bound, bare feet, his tattoo (Betty Boop), and the way he was so "caught" that I was drawn to. I tried to get a picture, just of his feet, but his police escort was too close and too attentive. An ER is by definition a place where the weak and the strong collide, where uniforms -- the firemen, the EMS guys, the cops, the doctors, all heroic types -- do their best to rescue people like my diminished mother, the depressive who had stopped taking his medication, the drunk who snored, and the lady who wanted to sleep with her cane. But our criminal friend was clearly strong and physically able, weakened only by drugs and in bed only because of three pairs of handcuffs.

My mom, on the other hand, might be in the hospital and/or rehab for weeks, and might not be able to walk for a long time. I hesitate to call attention to the chain metaphor, but in one way, it's apt. I just hope it's not too apt, because I have a lot of music to go to and write about! Oh -- yeah, and a dissertation to finish.

José, José, I missed you.

2005-10-19T10:20:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Last night José González played at the Living Room, and I —— missed it. I didn't even know about it. I had googled him and searched for shows he might be doing, and all I read was that he was touring Australia. So, for all my efforts to see and hear music I love "and listen to obsessively," I get nada. Nada.

Yes, I really am crushed.

He plays classical and flamenco-style guitar and his voice is sincere and unaffected. When "All You Deliver" begins you honestly may think it's Nick Drake (an overdone comparison, I know, I know! But really!), and then one flamenco-brush of the hand across the strings announces another kind of player (like one from, well, Sweden, as he is. Sweden?). Although this is "quiet" music, and by no means rock and roll, the songs feel urgent, propel forward and out, and rustle up surprising energy.

If I knew how and had permission, I would stream his song "Crosses" here. So go download it from iTunes, or buy his first U.S. release, Veneer.

homey pigeons in park slope

2005-10-17T21:57:00.001-04:00

There is someone whistling to these pigeons on the roof.

The pigeons circle around and around him, and when they stray too far he whistles louder.

He keeps waving his flag as his flock swoops and turns.

If you look closely at the last picture you can see him.

When he whistles at them it looks like they are trying to back up - in mid air! - in response to his call. I watched them for over an hour.

Is he letting them out of his rooftop coop for "a fly?" I don't know, but thanks, pigeon-man. That was lovely.

smiles out of nowhere. honest.

2005-10-16T20:36:00.000-04:00

say hi to his mom

2005-10-15T14:13:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

It has finally stopped raining (a 9-inch, Garcia Marquez rain, it was) and we’re doing last April’s taxes. Yes, for 2004. I’m listening to Nada Surf — “Fruit Fly” is playing back and forth, over and over again. The song builds pretty quietly, acoustically, but then breaks in the middle, driving into its electrically hard, pulsing, objective correlative (fruit fly = emotional state).

I went to see Nada Surf at the Bowery Ballroom last week by accident. I had actually gone to see Say Hi To Your Mom, an essentially one-man studio band (Eric Elbogen) who assembles musicians together for live performances.
He was unsteady and retreating live, and was playing with two brand-new band members that night. (But check out his songs “Laundry” and “Dimensions and Verticals” to get what’s great about his music.) Nada Surf, however, know how bring the stage alive. Strangely, one of my professors from graduate school is the lead singer’s mom. Very strange, indeed. The Surrealist Queen of Academia is perched up in the fancy balcony seats with her professor friends, some of whom I also knew, overlooking these wild youth (hey—say hi to his mom!), and I’m down below, arms waving, entranced by mere guitars.

romantic musings: thoughts on categories

2005-10-15T12:17:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

For some reason — our cultural interests, I suppose — my husband and I often find ourselves ‘arguing’ about the varying definitions of modernism, romanticism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. (I’m writing a dissertation in romantic literature, Tim is an extremely romantic advocate for Modernism, capital “M.”) Although we usually treat these categories as more aesthetic than historical (or linguistic, re poststructuralism), we derive the principals that help dictate the terms from historically Modernist artists: e.g. Joyce, Kafka, Proust, Matisse, Hopper, Mondrian, etc.

I realized last night that I view modernism as conflating the intensity of romantic feeling with the fragmentary aspect of postmodernism. The fragment is celebrated by the modernist palette and pen, but not at the cost of emotional heft. Postmodernism, however, uses the fragment for the purposes of irony and distance. Cool trumps warmth. The spectacle trumps the authentic.

While I’m not willing to assert, as per my current definition, that modernism is “better,” I am saying that emotional intensity is better — feeling, meaning, heat, sincerity — and in categorical terms, these are qualities I associate with romanticism. So I’ll also say that modernist texts I love are essentially romantic. And I’ll even go so far as to say that anything I love is essentially romantic. So there.

Now for the music ahead. . .

2005-10-15T01:06:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

10.25.05 Wolf Parade (Northsix)
10.26.05 Ok Go (Irving Plaza)
11.03.05 Elbow (Hiro Ballroom)
11.04.05 St. Christopher and the Sleeping Doormen (Don Hill's)
11.06.05 Spoon (Warsaw)
11.11.05 Art Brut (Northsix)
11.17.05 Matt Pond PA (Mercury Lounge)
11.18.05 American Analog Set (Southpaw)
11.19.05 Rickie Lee Jones (Tribeca Arts Center)
11.28.05 Magic Numbers (Bowery Ballroom)
11.29.05 The Dandy Warhols (Webster Hall)

music of late. . .

2005-10-15T00:20:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

Since I began this blog out of an urge to write about bands I've seen this year, here's a list of some of the shows at which I've been having such a good time:

(This has become the list replacing the books-I've-read-this-year list that I haven't made in years. PriORITIES, folks.)

Nada Surf, Say Hi to Your Mom (Bowery Ballroom) 10.06. 05***
Robbers on High Street (Mercury Lounge) 10.07.05
Deerhoof, Lavender Diamond (Northsix) 9.28.05
Thunderbirds Are Now! Mommy and Daddy (Mercury Lounge) 9.21.05
St. Christopher and the Sleeping Doormen (Urban Glass) 9.16.05***
Vertical Horizon (Irving Plaza) 8.12.05***
Voxtrot (Magnetic Field) 8.11.05
Willowz, Dead Meadow (Knitting Factory) 8.04.05
Brian Jonestown Massacre (Bowery Ballroom) 7.31.05
Broken Social Scene, Dinosaur Jr. (Central Park Summerstage) 7.14.05
New Pornographers (Park Slope Bandshell) 6.25.05
The Get Up Kids (Webster Hall) 6.24.05
Rickie Lee Jones (Park Slope Bandshell) 6.15.05***
Patty Griffin (Webster Hall) 5.07.05
Phantom Planet (Knitting Factory) 4.30.05***
OK Go (Northsix) 4.09.05***

Somewhere in there were also Smoosh and the Theramin girl (forgot her name), and anything else I'm forgetting. Andrew Bird. The Badgers :). Opening acts whose names I forget.

***so good.

Ah. Dear Emily helps me with a blog title.

2005-10-14T14:35:00.000-04:00

by Charlotte Deaver

I started this blog because I have been going to see a lot of live music lately, mostly rock and roll, about which I plan to post photos and comments. I might also use this site to cry about my dissertation that is currently not being written.