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Photograph by Tara McNally

Cross-pollination show 124: January 9 at Piano's

What do you get when you cross-pollinate a singer and a fool? One hell of a night that would make even the birds and the bees jealous.

Matt Singer's (myspace.com/mattsingermusic) lyrics are the cat's pajamas. *Meow* don't let his wholesome, boy-next-door façade fool you. Once he picks up his guitar and opens his mouth, no scandalous or political figure is safe, including the White House idiot or the carnal abuses of the Catholic Church.

Delivered like a rapping storyteller, his sardonic, side-spilting, politically-infused lyrics - thinly veiled in catchy melodic, folksy hooks - make you ask, "did he really just say that?;" usually followed by an uncontrollable, belly-aching laugh. Plus, he can whistle like a piping hot tea kettle. How coolio is that?

Matt plays Bar Four (Brooklyn) January 19; Joe's Pub (with The Undisputed Heavyweights - yeah!) January 25; Freddy's (Brooklyn) January 28; February 11 (Sidewalk's Antifolk Festival - yeah!) February 11; and Makor February 20.

The Fools (myspace.com/thefools_lostandfound) are the symbolic motivation as to why I started a blog (myspace.com/mymusicalcrush); to spread the word about unknown, amazing musicians.

They are unequivocally one of those buried treasures that have yet to be fully unearthed. How do i know this? A: have you ever heard of them?; And B: their MySpace profile views are considerably lacking, which i find mind-numbing. So, grab your shovels and dig in.

Lead singer Jenn Tobin's voice, supported by bassist Uchenna Bright, is so incredibly rich and captivating that it unnoticeably consumes you with little effort.

The highlight of the evening was when Matt, Jen and Uchenna shared the stage to deliver a cover of Nirvana's 'Dumb' that would have even moved Courtney in ways she never knew.

The Fools play Sidewalk Cafe January 20; Mopitkins January 30; Sidewalk Cafe (Antifolk - Festival - yeah!) February 16; and Laila Lounge (brooklyn) March 14.

Pics from the show can be found at flickr.com/photos/mymusicalcrush

What the heck is cross-pollination?

For those of you who are 'cross-pollination' virgins, it is one of those rare, magical, music treats that hasn't seeped out so much so that the atmosphere is more like Madison Square Garden than sitting in your living room listening to your friends play. Every Tuesday evening on the lower east side, with a few exceptions, two talented singer/songwriters are invited to play together acoustically, who haven't necessarily done so before. Both of them play one set solo and then for the third they 'cross-pollinate' with each other. Yeah, it's f***ing brilliant and provides a venue for local artists to perform and stretch musically with other like-minds. Kudos to Wes (myspace.com/wesverhoeve) and Jay (myspace.com/jaymankind) for keeping it strong 123 shows and counting.

xo,
mymusicalcrush

The Invincible Gods

This post is a bit overdue! Back in October, just before Halloween, I got to see three excellent performances by Brunswick's Screaming Females and The Measure [sa], and Brooklyn's The Invincible Gods.

First, I should like to say that I have really been digging how Asbury Lanes has been putting on these shows featuring only two bands in an evening, and that it usually starts sometime after 10pm. It's a good vibe and it's nice to have an event that doesn't have 6 bands, but gives two complementing acts a lot of time to really cut loose.

I had not really gotten a chance to listen to the Gods last time I saw them at The Parlor in New Brunswick, so I was really stoked for this show. The band is a three-piece (Jim Testa has some excellent background and things to say about them here), with Candace on vocals, Sean on guitar and vocals, and Nick on drums. Invincible Gods is the phoenix rising from the ashes of The Atomic Missiles (some of the story of this band includes a humourously told tale of an insane roommate out in Los Angeles who was in large part responsible for their defection from that west coast badland of people who will forever wait tables waiting to get famous; it just wasn't for them).

Despite the lack of a bassist, with guitar running into both bass and guitar amps, the band played very dynamic less-is-more rippin dance and pop tunes, and kicked out some seriously Pissed At Current Events lyrics that had the small crowd at Asbury Lanes immediately in love, captivated until the end of the set. I must confess that I was a foot tapper and till about late in the set when I just couldn't help it and had to dance like a freak. Not many bands can make me dance like a freak! It was punk ass, it was Candace bopping around, it was amazing vocal interplay between herself and Sean, it was really tight drumming by Nick that was in lock step with Sean who was not even a little bit afraid of leaving the rhythm duty to rip fills and solos. The sound is complex and sparse, it's a very naked performance done with complete confidence. I love this band. They don't need a bassist, but they would be Even Better if they did have someone filling in that tamber for them.

Screaming Females fucking rocked. Not a surprise. The band is getting tighter while also getting looser with their stage performance. Marissa seems to be trying to literally bludgeoning pop music when she jumps on top of her strat and starts beating the thing! Songs kinda fall apart and stop on purpose only to come ripping back into a surprise final chorus with a killer hook. The band is playing with the confidence of people who know what they're capable of, and who've taken it on the road and earned it. I picked up their 7" for only $5 bucks, and it's beautiful, although I have yet to go over to Adam's house to listen to it on his Hi-Fi (I own no record player). I'm literally fiending to hear it. The individual made canvas sleeves of the 100 copies are at once fun and silly, and harrowing and frightening "dear god hide me under the bed, don't let her find me," reads mine! I love the soviet red vinyl. I fucking love it.

Screaming Females

On some of the newer material the screa-males are playing, I'm noticing that bassist King Mike is starting to dig funkier, more complex grooves with drummer Jarrett Dougherty, riffs that saw him working his fingers like I've not seen him work them before, grooves that have Jarrett kicking it tight and fast, the band just holding on while Marissa shreds away.

The last band of the evening was The Measure [SA], also hailing from New Brunswick, NJ. Kicking a pop-punk meets cowpunk and some fast brunswick hardcore punk, they were really quite an entertaining group. One of the highlights of the set was when singer and guitarist Mike Regrets proposed to his girlfriend after abruptly stopping the second song, much to everyone's shock! (For the record, she said, "yes"). The band was absolutely infectious, especially kicking the single from their new LP / 7", Union Pool (check it out on their myspace page!). "Meet me there on Sundaaaaaay! Cuz you got me!" Singer and guitarist Lauren Measure has such a powerful stage presence being tall and lean and throwing out a rockin sweet voice. I was also very impressed with their rhythm section. The drummer worked his ass off while managing to sing lead on a couple of tunes himself. I'm really looking forward to catching these folks again.

The Measure [SA] has a show coming up at The Court Tavern in New Brunswick next week, Wed the 22nd of November. Screaming Females have their next show at The Parlor (233 Hamilton Street) in New Brunswick on Saturday December 9th, another basement jam and a birthday party! I don't know when The Invincible Gods are playing next (can't seem to find an Upcoming Shows listing for them anywhere), but I'm keeping an eye out.

I've got a few more pictures over here, but I'm noticing that I need to spend a little time changing how I'm using flash at night indoors, because it's Not Good right now. I regretfully took no pictures of The Measure [sa]. (a couple of photos were taken by Mike from My Punk, but I can't remember which ones! Help, Mike!)

The Screaming Females aren't the sort of band that needs to use nudity as a gimmick; only together for less then a year and a half, they've been packing New Brunswick basements for most of that time. No, one can only assume that drummer Jarrett was overcome by the moment, his bands funked out power trio assault, or perhaps the drunken, sweaty, exuberant, packed like sardines Parlor crowd.

Nudity was only a footnote to yet another night of Scremales basement insanity at 233 Hamilton St. Gigging regularly here over the past few months and bringing along for the ride a handful of great bands, some local, some not, the Females have established themselves as THEE New Brunswick band of the moment. Never disappointing, this band refuses to stand still and continues to bring it forward riding a wave of musical inertia that shows no signs of slackening.

Mixing in several new songs and a couple reworked faves, the Females enraptured the crowd with what may not have been their tightest set ever, but certainly one of the most fun. Not a band afraid to take chances they opened with newer song Real Mothers featuring an intense full on screaming Marissa P. chorus, really letting it belt. A funked up Dinosaurs followed, and from there the band mixed in a few staples from their self-made debut Baby Teeth, the B-side of their new amazing sounding 7'inch Zoo of Death featuring random kids rapping over the bridge was unique, but perhaps a bit much, a couple more newbies, their own Freebird the unstoppably hummable Jonah, and encoring with a cover of Body Drop by the legendary Atomic Missles.

Brooklyn's Man In Gray were second from the top and eagerly awaited by many, already hipped to their propulsive daring sound. The word was this band is shit hot, and god damn, they didn't disappoint! A rhythm section like a cement mixer, charismatic front woman, and some bad ass scratchy Brooklyn guitars. These folks took it to the Brunz and the HubCitians responded in kind, no straggler too cool for the room kids hanging outside for this band! A great set, and hopefully they'll be back in a Brunswick basement near you real soon, and if not, well worth a trip anywhere in the metro area to go see, trust me.

Also on the bill where fellow Brooklyners, drum and guitar duo The Volunteers who banged out some solid Back in Black style damage complete with shout along choruses, seemed to go over well.

Openers Pineapple Island Tribesman confounded some with their mix of jarring zig zag guitar noise and somewhat proggy raga chants, but I'd be curious to see them again.

All in all another great night of fun and musical adventure at the Parlor, we do this around twice a month, come see us sometime!

This is the start of a long overdue recap of some of the shows that have gone on in New Brunswick over the last month. In the future I will try to get these up quicker. A month is a bit long, don’t ya think? More up soon.

September 15th (I think?) - Pony Pants
So I had run across this band a few times. They seemed have a pretty cool thing going on. I had thought of them as kind of a Le Tigre dance-y electronic punk project. Their pictures showed a slightly androgynous front woman and two guitarist that looked like they could be playing for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sounds strange? Well if you take into account that they are from Philly it makes perfect sense. I was delighted to notice flyers around town announcing they would be playing their fall tour kick off in New Brunswick at a house on the corner of Louis St and Hamilton St.

The pre-show environment at the house was very pleasant. Everyone was hanging out in the kitchen, eating food that the house had prepared for the crowd and the bands. Beers seemed easily available and one wonderful young man insisted on asking everyone if they needed a mojito. The show would take place in the attic which had been setup with couches and lights, making a great show setting. There were sure signs that this house was not experienced at putting on shows. Attics shoot sound out onto the street, the 9:00 pm start time for a three act bill, the open windows to the street for the sound to blast out of. Oh well, just had to cross the fingers and hope for the best.

First on was Mincemeat or Tenspeed. This guy had at least 20 effects pedals on a table through which he was running some fun dance beats. Knob twiddling galore! He had obviously learned to work the setup really well and the performance was fun. A good way to start the night and get some bodies moving. Next up was Foxy Lady and The Pretty LA Women. There set went on a long time. It consisted of a lot of cheesy, factory settings Casio beats and yelling and some badly replicated Biggy Smalls verses. During this set I had a great conversation with Pony Pants’ front women Emily. It was during this conversation that I realized that I had placed Pony Pants into that section of music that is fun but not serious about the art. Speaking with Emily made me reassess my preconceptions. The set that followed totally erased them!

The Lynyrd Skynyrd looking dudes flanked Emily, each having an Gibson SG and a sweet half stack to fill out the look. The play button of the backup beats Ipod was pushed and the set was on! The room immediately started rocking as the attic turned into a proper dance party. The guitarists ripped dual harmonizing lead lines that would make the metal gods proud. One of the guys even put his foot up on a prop where his monitor would be. God, these guys know how to rock an image, it was great! Emily bounced around belting out truly emotional lyrics that I had managed to overlook in my pre-show evaluation of the band. Aside from a few battles with the soundman (aren’t soundmen supposed to make things easier?), the set was going along real well. The show was building steam for both the band and the crowd with each song. Too bad the set ended at six songs with that, oh so lovely, announcement, “Get the hell out. The cops are here!”

Often when people decide to put a band together they come up with some plan as to what the sound will be. It usually goes something like, “How about Black Sabbath guitars over Black Flag drums and vocals with lyrics all about a Martian alien colony!?” or “Maybe some Dick Dale surf guitar over Dr. Dre beats with just a little bit of psychedelica?” These projects can be fun but are usually not more than the sum of their parts. Unconsciously I had pegged Pont Pants as on of these bands. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this band is much more than the sum of its parts. This is a band with catchy songs, emotional and provocative lyrics, and a killer live show. Hope the rest of their tour goes well. I bet we will see them back in New Brunswick soon enough.

September 22nd - Human Host, We Are The Seahorses
Last year Screaming Females inadvertently hung Human Host out to dry on a New Brunswick show. Two bills were combined and then us and Human Host were booted off at the last minute. We probably could have found another venue but at that point it was a god damned mess. So when We Are The Seahorses get in touch with me yelling, “Help! We were supposed to run a show for Human Host on Sept 22 but our rib shack basement venue was bought out and is now pay-to-play. Can you find us a place to play in New Brunswick?” I felt as though I had to do something.

Screaming Females wouldn’t be able to play (as we try our best not to play the Bruns more than once a month) but I would run the show at my house as a Avant Garde dance party. I bought beer, we tin foiled my basement (700 feet of foil looks pretty awesome), Reid Bingham produced a slightly disturbing video installation, and the bands played.

Human Host (Baltimore) are a band consisting of anywhere from one to about twenty members. They play most types of music as long as it is strange. On this day they played as a duo. The set opened with one of the guys on a beat up, cheap, incomplete drumset and the other guy running a didgeridoo through pedals. Out of this ambient noise the two broke into a bit more of a beat and song (with didgeridoo man now on guitar). Next up they played a song with true sections, words and maybe even a chorus. The progression from total noise to a rockin, yet strange, song was quick but seamless. This was the end of the live instrumentation. To fit with the dance party theme Human Host tapped an Ipod and went into their electronic, dance, craziness. The two guys went running around the room producing all kinds of interesting yells and woops and notes and vibrato from their voices. I believe some mistakenly self-inflected physical injury was sustained. Whole microphones were fit into mouths. There could have also been some James Brown type dance moves and splits involved.

We Are The Seahorse have a reputation that proceeds them. Rumor has it that they have been banned from most of New Jersey’s all ages venues. Needless to say I was psyched to have them play! Of course it was under one condition, “Don’t fuck my shit up!” Talk to the band and they will tell you that their reputation and bannings are largely exaggerated. Purely on a conversation with them you would get the impression that We Are The Seahorse are ready to play Sesame St. Well… its not quite like that.

The band lived up to the hype. When the Butthole Surfers are a number one influence you know there is going to be a crazy live show. To try to sum it up: tin foil dildo, nakedness, sweat, confetti, high powered light show, videos of robot sex and naked babies, sweat, spit, yelling at the crowd, thong, loud ass dance beats, sweat, homosexual love songs, ending with a noise set. Words will never do this band justice. See them before George Bush bans them from the country.

In an age were selling music is becoming a thing of the past, live shows are becoming the wave of the future. Human Host and We Are The Seahorses are two bands that will have no problem with that transition.

-Jarrett D

[mp3] 10,000 Horses - Rahim
[mp3] Thunderstruck / Punk As Fuck - Jai Alai Savant

I only managed to get that one post off when I was in SF, and it doesn't look like I'll be following up any time soon if I don't do it now, as I have a really busy week ahead of me with my own musical affairs. So. First I should say that the other club Adam and I made it out to was The Hemlock Tavern, an awesome bar in the Tenderloin 'hood.

Show details below the cut (click 'read more').

The first night we went there, we walked in during the set of a band called Rahim, who totally blew us away with their last three tunes. It was strange, it was like I was watching a young Travis Morrisson dance, shimmy and twitch about the stage as the band effortless shook our booties with some really funky and clever, methodical interplay between the bass, drums and guitar. I picked up their CD, which for some reason I'm having difficulty getting into, but I assure you that this band did in fact whip ass. It was an 'enlightning' set, as Adam put it. Their amazing musicianship aside, these guys are brewing an excellent, and positively fugazi influenced sound that is rapturous. Rahim is from New York City.

The band that followed Rahim that night was equally mind blowing: a band that you might consider a kind of blend of really dramatic punk rock and dub music - Jai Alai Savant. Taking their name from the Indian sport (that I had never heard of before the show), these guys have brilliant dynamics, and their live show was an awesome thing to behold. Dancing to their music was a necessary and irresistable thing. And there's just nothing quite so funky as a black man with an electric fro who plays ripping guitar and works a delay pedal like he was born listening to dub music.

I liked them so much I bought one of their Philadelphia Mastedons t-shirts. It is a mega mustard color and I love it very much. Their $5 EP is also pretty freaking rad, but falls short of their live show. Still, it's worth picking up, especially for the final track "Sugar Free," which is just beautiful with it's driving chorus line "you will be my bride when we step into the other side / you will be my date when we lay down and disintegrate...." The song was devastating, live. Jai Alai Savant is mosty from Philadelphia, but the singer lives in Chicago (that's gotta be difficult, makes you wonder how they were so tight live).

The third band, The Drift, was the talk of the house that night, but they bored Adam and I to tears and we left during the encore. I forget the genre that gets assigned to bands like this... post rock was it? It's the kind of thing that Zelda Pinwheel and Dub Nomads (two totally different bands) are amazing at, and The Drift was really just drifting along in tiring repetition. I realize that's not very coherent. Maybe Adam can do a better job describing them critically.

Adam and I hit up the Hemlock again the following night and it was terrible 70s inspired rock night and lame to a degree that will be funny to retell, but I don't have the time at the moment, so for now just enjoy the good stuff ;-)

The odd thing about all this is that of the three shows we went to, we didn't catch any of the decent bands of SF, and the two good bands we did see were our east coast brethren.

I will confess that since I got here to San Francisco on Monday (May 15th), I've found it really hard to get out and stay out late enough to catch some good live music. The time zone difference is three hours and I'm really here to attend a work-related conference during the day. This means that when I get out in the evenings, I've been ready to pass out around 8pm, especially after that first beer. And I need that first beer. Despite this, after our arrival at SFO Monday, Adam and I hopped a BART down to 16th and Mission and walked over to Elbo Room. It's a rad cool dive of a place with $1 PBR cans on Monday nights, and it was the kick-off of Elbo's participation in the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival, going on in clubs all over the city all week long.

The first band was really pretty interesting. Crime and Punishment is a kind of weird, super reverbed, surf-tinged, doomy goth rock opera 4-piece band. Very fun music, and the cleaniest most slapping reverb guitar music I've heard in a while. No distortion was used by the guitarist for the whole set. The singer is a strange egg. He was wearing a dress, high heels, and red lipstick, and had kinda Robert Smith hair, but that wasn't really the weird part. He actually had a very nice voice when he sung in his natural range, and it mixed very well with the music, but generally he preferred to shrill in a high falsetto, which, I will confess, does give one the urge to choke.

The singer of Crime and Punishment certainly had a great sense of humour. After a number of more slow, pensive dirges with the screeching he said to us, "we write really boring slow songs, I'm sorry, I don't know why we do that," after which the band launched into one of their faster numbers and got the room dancing. To their credit, the dirges often have a surprise in store with intense dynamic and tempo changes that pick everybody in the room back up. I suppose that's part of the Rock Opera in their sound.

The second band of the evening, Master Moth, was arguably the worst band I've ever seen, and I've been to Ozzfest. Adam described the singer as, "if Bob Dylan had an autistic son." Master Moth is a three piece (drummer, guitarist, singer) that showed an ability for the drummer and guitarist to hit some pretty good digs, but any redeeming value the band had in its music was blasted to oblivion by the entirely tuneless howling and yammering of the singer, who, it should be added, graced us with pants that were all too revealing of the shape and size of his genitalia. It was at this point that Adam and I were so tired we had to quit the joint (nearly chased about by Master Moth's caterwaul) to make it back to Civic Center without falling asleep.

* * * * *

There was a great show last night at Hemlock Tavern, also part of the Mission Creek M & A Fest, and I'll try to get that dispatch off later today, so stay tuned.

I think it's worth pausing to give this article a little context. San Francisco smells. As soon as you step off the BART, nay, as soon as you step into the train itself, your nose begins to fill with the smell of San Francisco: the acrid smell of homeless folks and people too crazy to remember to wash themselves, and the unmistakable reek of human urine. You walk down the streets and you smell it every five feet. You look to your left and there's a bum in front of the radio shack that's not open yet, adjusting his pants to unload on the storefront.

You begin to wonder if half the population isn't crazy, homeless, crippled, or some combination of the three. And you know, it's not like I'm a country bumpkin being exposed to the evils of the Big City for the first time. But the more I think about it, having been here all week, the more the place has grown on me, and while I'm not used to it, I'm starting to get a feel for this place where it seems all manner of folks of different class strata constantly mingle. No greater example of this than the Mission District itself, with its blend of rich yuppies, street punks, latino families, bums and crazies, and young poor folks, artists painting alleyway murals. And those big fucking burritos.

What did we do with the homeless of New York? I feel like a nimwit asking this (I am from Jersey, after all), but I remember when it was a regular thing to have people in NYC aggressively begging, following you around and spitting on you, when it seemed like the poor and fucked were everywhere. Did Giuliani kick them all out? Ship them off to Newark and Queens? San Francisco doesn't hide them. I have no doubt that the city has put money and people into an effort to help these folks, but there's only so much you can do with so many folks missing limbs and lobes -- you try to give them a meal and a roof at night. Hiding them doesn't help, but it makes some folks more comfortable.

I think the difference is that in NY, and it's more affluent suburbs, the thing to do about a "homeless problem" is not to take care of them, but to get them off the streets and out of the way so they don't bother us outside the cinema, or on the way to our expensive jobs in the financial district.

The younger guy (maybe 27 years old) outside my hotel was here last year, too. I had an extra apple from the conference I attended the other day, and I hooked him up with it. He was so surprised, and it made him happy. But you realize very quickly that you can't afford to buy an apple for each of the two hundred people like him you see walking down to the conference every morning. For many of them it's a profession, a way to get by and you are really being taken if you think that some of these folks have no other options.

This city is visceral, which is how Adam described the show we saw last night. It's heart-breaking and enchanting. It smells like a city should; there's no hiding here from reality.

Broken Social Scene
Webster Hall
Friday, 2006-01-27

What a show! Almost a month later I'm finally sitting down to recount it. I've got some bad camphone pics over here (the header image being one of them). I've been hesitant to write about it because, as either Dale or Michael Sylvester Seahorse said to me recently, "I feel like I've seen the most important artist of the era." It's hard to write about what you like without sounding like a gushing goofball. So here goes. Click here or Read More, below, to keep reading

I arrived at Webster Hall just after Broken Social Scene had started their set. Doors were at 6, it was unclear how long they had been playing, and who the opener was (if there was any). I try to get to shows early, but I have this funny little thing called a job.

When I came in, the band was pulsing and hypnotizing the packed house with "7/4 (Shoreline)" off of their new self-titled release. Were there a ton of people on stage? You know it. The number of people on stage fluctuated between 13 and 19 for the whole of the evening. The set was focused on the new record, playing just about everything on there, as well as harkening back to some hits from the older You Forgot It In People. Just like Broken Social Scene is a teeming and tempestuous mess of musicians and sound carefully layered and bursting out of your stereo, so was the performance at Webster Hall. I don't know who the sound guy was, but what a job he did mixing all the horns, three guitars, keyboards, violin, at times two drummers, and three to five vocalists!

The six horns (two sections of three) blasting away on "Ibi Dreams of Pavement", "Hotel", and the grand finale of the evening, "It's All Gonna Break," were staggering, utterly breath-takinig. It sounds amazing on the record, but there's no comparison to a big hall being blasted with brass instruments, the human soul breathed, squeezed into, and bursting out of the oldest amplifiers invented.

Drummer Justin Peroff was in peak form, keeping those tight, moderate pace grooves and strange off hits just right. From drums to guitars to violin to horns, the sprawling group on stage was able to manipulate dynamics as play-things, a particular talent that many three-piece rock acts can't manage.

Emily Haines (also of Metric) came out for a few tunes, most notably "Anthem For A Seventeen Year Old Girl" and "Swimmers," which just broke my heart. When the song ended with, "I never see you," the whole room sighed and sniffed back a tear, people went for hugs. "Anthem" made me realize how much I prefer her work with Metric, generally speaking, but "Swimmers" is one of the best songs on Broken Social Scene.

Leslie Feist was not at this performance, but there was no lacking of Feist-sung tunes in the set, performed beautifully by a shy young woman (who's name I have of course forgotten) with lost of help and accompaniement from the violinist (again, the name thing, I'm brain-dead). "Bandwitch," with it's "oo oo ah ah" refrain by the young ladies and drifting, mellow crooning of Kevin Drew was enchanting.

You'd think with all the instrumentation that it might have been hard to hear or understand vocals - nope. Not even a little. You could make it all out, and at times Drew was perhaps mixed a tad high.

I haven't been to a concert that was this well-orchestrated or heart-felt since I used to chase around after The Smashing Pumpkins. And one of the most notable things about this show was that while it rocked, it was still beautiful, lilting, dancing, and never really careening forward into that hell-bent frenzy of rocking out, but more of spinning around till you can't stop, the music was intoxicating and Broken Social Scene has a real talent for shaping the mood of the music and their audience by switching up the set.

If you have the chance to see this band, do not pass it up.

On the subject of Webster Hall - it was a nice place to see a show. $25 was steep for a ticket, but the sound was great, the atmosphere was great, I really have no complaints about the place itself; but I'll always prefer to go to Bowery, I really dig the more intimate setting.

I almost forgot about the grand finale of "It's All Gonna Break" - what a whooping good time. No fake exit for encore with this band, they played all night and then gave it everything they had for their last number, loved ones coming on stage and dancing and singing along, it was just fantastic. And in parting Kevin, who was pretty darn talkative all night, wished the audience a good night, "take care of yourselves, live your lives, and New York, take your city back!"

Bell Orchestre / Clogs
Bowery Ballroom
Jan. 22, 2006

I took to the front stairs of Bowery Ballroom just in time to catch Clogs setting up before their set. As I expected, their set - a mix of softly lulling chamber music and swirling percussion driven maelstroms - ended just as quietly as it began. The real surprise was the reverance of the usually talkative crowd at the ballroom. Between songs people clapped politely, and quietly awaited the next song.

Padma Newsome, violist and primary songwriter for Clogs is also known for his collaboration and live performance with The National. Bryce Dessner of The National plays guitar for clogs, Rachael Elliott on oboe and Thomas Kozumplik on drums and marimba round out the line up. Anyone familiar with The National may not be surprised with Clogs' sound, as some of it feels like the prettiest parts of Alligator drawn out and recontextualized. The rest throbs with unexpected primal energy, with Newsome whipping his viola about in a frenzy.

Bell Orchestre entered the room with lights attached to their bodies and the stage completely dark. Normally I wouldn't make mention of it except that their particularly self-serious, annoying entrance antics and stage garb distracted me for the first 2 or 3 songs. Whether it was an attempt to be "spooky" or "funny", I can't tell because it completely fell flat and made me wish the band hadn't wasted 20 minutes of my time drawing out their appearance. Let's be honest, I saw them in their plain clothes while they were setting up their instruments.

Wardrobe malfunctions aside, Bell shares members with Montreal's The Arcade Fire, so a more bombastic set was to be expected. Band leader Richard Reed Parry alternately bowed and strangled his upright bass, at times locking in precisely with drummer Stefan Schneider to - I kid you not - massive dance grooves. Sarah Neufeld attacked her violin as if it were cheating on her with a cello, while Kaveh Nabatian and Pietro Amato's horns were wrung through a myriad of delay pedals and effects like sonic squeegee mops.

The result was a group of people playing together who all had fresh interpretations of what they could do with their instruments. At one point, Nabatian was pulling and manipulating a live radio signal into a song, and at another Schneider left his kit to play an old manual typewriter. Bryce Dessner of Clogs even came out for some searing slide guitar. By the end of the evening, however, I was beginning to have enough of all this music with no singing - and despite their best efforts Bell's music began to sound like a soundtrack to modern interpretive dance (which I understand was the motivation behind the group's formation).

Already nursing a backache, and feeling a bit numbed from Bell's over-exuberance (members of Arcade Fire, right?) I stumbled out the door as they began their faux-encore. Can we cut the pretense out and just play, please?

Tapes 'N Tapes
The Mercury Lounge, NYC 2006-01-10

Performers (in order of appearance):

• The Twenty Twos
• The Soft Explosions
• Finian McKean
• Tapes 'N Tapes

This was my first time to The Mercury Lounge, venturing there with Adam C. of Sceneless and The Meltdowns. The show itself was $8 USD. Beers were around $5. $4 for PBR. But still, looking back, $8 for a night of rockingfuckingroll at a nice intimate club with great sound and a great atmosphere beats the living crap out of about $30 (inc. ticket fees and things) for a bigger show at Roseland or Webster Hall where the sound is always going to be a bit mush and the band will be far away.

But I digress. When we arrived and burst through the doors to the back room for the opening band, the place was packed. Not bodies on top of each other just yet, but enough that people were a bit prickly about moving around. When we payed at the door, we were among the five people who had arrived so far to see the opener, with some 30-odd slashes next to "The Twenty Twos." Lo, I am shameless, and worked my way up to the very front of the room, where there was a huge space in front of the stage - as though some invisible line kept the spectators back. But I am shameless, so this presented no problem for me.

The best line of the show had to be: "I've been a better lov-uh with your mutha"

I only caught the last two songs of the Twos's set, but it was impressive. The girls move about stage like cats, born to be rock stars (the annoying record exec and photographer up front, and their sony website are evidence of this), and their drummer was damn good. Only seeing the end of their set, it's hard to make a fair judgement of the band, but the songs I did catch didn't make me want to pick up a CD at the merch table.

Between bands, and even songs, for the whole night, the annoying older guy with the yuppie scarf who kept obviously making it known that he was a sony records guy. Weird. He eventually left. Moving on.

The next band up was The Soft Explosions. Here's a band that know how to mold a sound, take their time, catch your ears, slap you about, and make you dance, all without actually ever going faster than say 160bpm. The strength of this performance, in fact, the person who stole the whole show and everybody's heart that night, was the lead guitarist, a young woman with a whole lot of goddamn soul in her fingers.

letting the slide fall off her finger, discarding it like spent ammunition

She broke my heart and makes me want to quit my job and practice my guitar all the time. The band's songs were really good, but her accompaniements, Kim Deal-ish backing vocals (not quite so dry, far more melodic), her careful use of various effects and her instruments capabilities, and an ability to rip a slow shred, are what pushed this band's songs over the top.

To be fair, the lead singer of the group is quite charismatic, knows when to put down his guitar, pick up morracas, shake that shit, swing the microphone stand around, and sing rock and roll. In fact, it was specifically that combination for the Explosions's second or third song that got a normally non-mobile crowd shaking their hips and dancing awkwardly (including Shamus McShameless).

One particular highlight from their set was when the lead guitarist had her guitar howling along with a delay pedal and a metal slide, when she stomps another pedal to switch tone, and held her left hand out, letting the slide fall off her finger, discarding it like spent ammunition, grabbing the neck of her instrument and bending away into the next lick before the slide even hits the stage floor and rolls away unnoticed.

Damn.

There were more than three or four times during the Explosion's set where the crowd openly started cheering and hooting in the middle of the songs to get the excitement out, often as a result of the cool and blistering young woman on stage left.

Tough act to follow, especially when it's just you and your drummer. But Finean McKean steppd up to the plate and delivered. The guitar has a really interesting style of singing and playing his guitar at the same time, with a really muddy sound and an old Danelectro guitar amplifier with a serious tremelo effect. His drummer (also from the Push Kings like McKean) was the perfect accompaniement.

The songs grooved, picked up, slowed down, got the hips shaking, the drummer1 really driving all of the songs and giving them the life they needed. In fact, this helped cut through quite a bit of the mud on the guitar. At times during the set, I really wanted Finean to switch to another pickup or turn the freaking treble up, I want to HEAR that instrument screech! The drummer's backing vocals were really good and really well placed, few though they were.

Finean's guitar work is somewhere between old-school blues guitarist, and the kind of crunching chordal riffing you here on Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. Among my favorite things of his performance were how often he would cut loose and stomp across the stage banging away on his instrument. The drummer was constantly in a tight kind of mind-meld with Finean, following his every twist and stomp.

Finean is good and his songs are damn interesting. I'd love to see what he can do with a full band.

So, Tapes 'N Tapes. They were really good. The band is quite a bit more powerful than they let on in their recent release, The Loon. The drummer is this little guy who packs such a freaking whollop; it really caught me by suprise, and when I listen to the songs on the record now, I'm wishing that the producer did a better job with the drums. The guy is *powerful* and has a really good slight of hand (like the rapidfire rim-shot tapping on "Insistor"). Quite a number of tracks on the record seem a tad stuffy and awkward, and with the drummer so in-your-face live, I suddenly "got them," and ended up really feeling a couple of tunes.

"10 Gallon Ascots" was badass. "Cowbell" was disturbingly infectious and I suddenly realized that I knew all the words to the chorus and couldn't help but sing along with the rest of the room. The best line of the show had to be: "I've been a better lov-uh with your mutha", said in a vicious deadpan. The band played their hit "Insistor" as the third or fourth tune and anybody in the audience who was unfamiliar with the band was sold.

Did I mention what a good crowd was in the house that night? Just like with the Explosions, and during Finean's set, the crowd was not shy, letting loose howl's and woo's of approval EVERY SINGLE TIME the level of rock n roll exceeded 11.

The whole band was in great form. The singer has a persona that dominates the stage, and that kind of twitch that some jazz drummers have when they are really into a run. I really got a kick out of watching the multi-instrumentalist member of the band switch from tambourine to baritone horn (kinda like a smaller tuba) to keyboards2, stumble-dancing about the stage - perhaps the only person in the band who moved around so much. I wonder in retrospect if he had been perhaps a tad inebriated.

Tapes 'N Tapes performed with a nervous energy that worked really well with their material, and by the end of their set they had really loosened up, with the guitarist/lead singer showing off an unexpected proficiency with his instrument, ending the set with the catharctic and melancholy "Jakov's Suite," which found the room soberly swaying to the final lyric, "you don't move / you don't move / when you don't move / you don't move away."

All in all, I couldn't believe how good every single band was that night. Not one of the openers was a band you'd want to miss.

Common themes in the night were bands really taking the time to mold a sound, to take their time expressing themselves, make you wait, shake your hips, and then give you the rock. And every single band was full of talented musicians, especially the guitar players.

I wonder if 2006 is one of those years where we'll see a resurgence in really well-played guitar featuring prominently in rock music? Is this the year that rock music slows down and gets more soulful? Is this the year that the kids start dancing again?

I suppose we'll see!

1As usual, I have tragically forgotten his name. Of course, I did go hunting for it on Finean's website, but came up empty. Let that be a lesson to you! Fame and popularity can be YOURS if you INTERNETS! Something tells me his name was Peter Brennan, but it's foggy.

2The squeegee noises of "Illiad" still have me giggling