Three tired bands, one set

Momentary bursts of excitement were the order of the evening at the Logan Square Auditorium Sunday during the round-robin set by Deerhunter, No Age, and Dan Deacon. The three bands co-headlined the bill and appeared onstage all at once, trading off songs and occasionally playing together. As all three bands had previously played sets at Lollapalooza, the constantly rotating format allowed them to lighten the burden of entertaining the audience, still thirsty after an intense weekend of music at Grant Park. Fortunately, all three bands, who share a reputation as adventurous live acts, were game for both the challenge of one-upping each other and showing their appreciation for each other's successes.

One effect of the unique setup both heightened the tension and broke it. There were often lags between songs, as bands repositioned themselves and their equipment, and the audience shifted its focus from the main stage, featuring No Age and Deerhunter, and a DJ booth on one side of the room, where Dan Deacon had set up. The bands seemed to move slowly between songs, especially a tired-looking Deerhunter, who had played only four hours earlier at Lollapalooza. The band's frontman, the usually irrepressible Bradford Cox, sat in a chair onstage draped in towels and alluded to having the flu. (What he actually said, in response to an ecstatic Dan Deacon song, was, "you cured my flu!") Randy Randall of No Age sat as well, with his arm in a sling from a recent collarbone injury. Before one song, he said, "I'm still trying to figure out how to play this one sitting down."

The revolving format complimented the short bursts of attention the audience seemed to prefer giving. At every turn for No Age, as if on cue, about twenty young people suddenly charged into a vigorous mosh pit, several crowd surfers ascended, and photographers swooped in to take pictures of the suddenly riveting scene. Then the songs ended and the tide of chaos receded.

The crowd's enthusiasm, initially divided among the various groups who had come drawn by one band, soon coalesced into buzzing excitement at every turn, as the bands upped the ante. Dan Deacon led the charge with spontaneous calls for audience participation and some intensely catchy tunes that swept the crowd away completely. He also lent some visuals to the occasion, featuring a pyramid of What Cheer? brass band members playing along, and calling for opener Ed Schrader to lead the crowd in an interpretive dance to one of his tunes.

The audience was kept constantly on their toes, as the bands seemed to be too- by the end of the night, none of them were sure when they were supposed to stop playing until they ended with a rascous No Age number featuring Dean Spunt singing atop his drum throne, Deacon manipulating guitar knobs for Randall, and Randall's guitar finally being fed to the audience (after which it was, surprisingly, returned to the stage in one piece).

Amidst the chaos and sweaty exhaustion of the Lollapalooza weekend, the three bands delivered all the excitement and intensity they've all become known for.

Listening to music, not making it

Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt of Sea and Cake are, collectively, one of the greatest guitar duos in music. Their interplay, completely intuitive logic, and tonal compliments are unparalelled and put them on par with Verlaine/Lloyd, Downing/Tipton, and even the two guitarists from Deerhoof. As the Bad Plus (whom I recently saw as well) once described, it's the sound of the instruments each doing something separate and immersing, but somehow clicking at the same time. And Prewitt's jazzy logic dazzled me.

Headliners Mountains took a moment to get going and had to contend with the visual clutter of themselves onstage reaching for several different instruments and then digitally knob-twiddling. But their layering of noise was masterful and by the end of the show I was having visions of my future life and domestic destiny. I also found it appealing that they didn't have visual projections or other distractions, although I can see those working very well in some context with their music.

Extra Golden and Icy Demons rocked me over this period of time, as well as Cave.

Fleet Foxes are men

Daniel and I worked all afternoon and evening and got some good takes--including a surprisingly subdued turn on 'God the Architect'/'Pirates.' Mike will come in soon and fill out the percussion on that tune. We also took care of all instrumentation on 'Call Me, K--' and it sounds great, huge and wide, expansive compared to the squashed mono boxiness of the demo. The intricate vocal figure will be done using Pro Tools instead of the analog machine--with the benefit of undos and editing, we can much more quickly get usable versions of those tricky parts that way. Vocals will be an adventure, though. I'm not too insecure about my voice, but I do know its many limitations. Still waiting to revisit 'We've Been Working So Long.'

The idea has been floating around to conceptualize the recording project not as an album, but two EPs. That way there will be a steady stream of new material as it becomes available, and two sets of art direction and whatnot. The recording will be ongoing, but once the first five or so songs are done, they'll become the first EP, and the rest will become the second one. I'll look into this more, as I'm one of those who's generally biased against buying EPs for some reason, but it makes sense for this project.

Speaking of EPs, I've been listening to the Fleet Foxes' 'Sun Giant' EP for a couple of days and have been pretty blown away by it. The tunes are quite simply there and great, but what's really impressive as well is the coherency of the vision--art direction, production values, lyrics, instrumentation, arrangements, and even the band name all fit together into this entity that makes sense and is clear and appealing. Although the music itself is complex and a bit mysterious, the fact that everything works like this makes the band direct in a refreshing way. How to describe this? Mystical, timeless (as in outside of time), spiritual, passionate, powerful, benign, natural...and so on.

I mentioned this record to a friend who doesn't know of the band, and she asked if the Fleet Foxes were women. I said they weren't as far as I knew, but then got to thinking about what she had asked. The more I think about it, the more I start to see their music as quite masculine, in the sense of being aware and engaged with the world, a sort of restrained but acknowledged power that comes through. I guess everyone has an image of what they think masculinity and femininity are--at least in my life the positive aspects of femininity are discussed far more often than masculinity, and I just find this music to be in line with what is good about being male in some way.

Finland keeps squeezing its way into my thoughts. Something about nature, gentleness.

Unhinged

Team Band played at Ronny's last Friday. It was a cassette release show, as Team Band now has a cassette through Fast Geek Empire, limited to 100 copies...we wanted to mark the event with some rowdiness.

Ronny's is one of those small Chicago venues which doesn't even register for some people because they rarely have "bigger" shows. Ronny's bar is run by the eponymous Ronny and his wife, who blast Spanish language soap operas, sell only PBR, and are generally rather cranky and tired-looking. However, it's a lovely place to play, a converted garage with no stage and monitors strapped to cinder blocks. A ceiling fan creaks and dangles dangerously low over the crowd--I once saw a guy being body passed whose leg almost knocked the whole apparatus down--and the soundboard is covered by a tropical-looking thatched roof. Ronny's is a place that you don't mind getting a little crazy at.

The Cathy Santonies opened with a fast-paced and intense set, featuring what I thought were some interesting leads by the lead guitarist. True to form, the sound bounced all over the walls of the garage and made the music even more cacauphanous than it already was. Next came Rooftop Vigilantes from Lawrence, Kansas, featuring a beautiful red Farfisa and two riotous guitarist/bassists who managed to combine extreme intensity and theatrics with pretty accurate playing--something I certainly value. Oscar--I think it was Oscar--fell into the drum set at the end of the show.

We opened our set by offering a free case of PBR (bought at a discount from Ronny) to the crowd. It was devoured instantly and we were off. Highlights included--Greg being tackled by a few audience members while singing--me wrestling mid-song with Evan--the usual audience-played percussion. Then the strap lock somehow slipped off my guitar strap, leaving the guitar more or less unstrapped, even while motionless. In addition, I had decided to use pedals during this show, and they predictably became a mess of overturned and unplugged objects, so I yanked the cable and plugged directly into my guitar amp, trying to find the right volume level. This didn't happen and I erred on the side of being too loud, so I abandoned the guitar, sang "Fight Song" with Greg, kicked over an auxiliary drum, and then attempted to play the final tune, a cover of "Any Way You Want It" incorporating "Three Day Weekend." Greg knocked that one out of the park, I think.

All in all...a success, minus some bruising and my bleeding toe from kicking the drum. And people kept referring to me all night as the "new guitarist" in Team Band...

Noise at Bottle Monday

This week brought me finally to the Empty Bottle for the free Monday shows, to see Lichens, someone I know little about but whose international buzz (though he's a Chicago local) packed the house. This night was also a listening party for the "Dark Was the Night" CD compilation release. The Bottle is really a lovely venue when it's not crowded, empty as it was when we arrived, all dark and dingy and displaying its past triumphs proudly like any respectable venue should--posters, grafitti, and the like. The bizarre L-shaped room is unique among music joints in these parts, although it totally makes sense and provides a nice sort of seclusion between the crowded bar and the piles of gear and soundboard that are just perched among the patrons. On this night, free PBR tall boys were offered in celebration of the release, although the bartender said it was for a Matador listening party and no one mentioned the CD or its issue-raising agenda or anything like that. I'm just not sure how these things work.

The first group to play were a noise quartet consisting of drums, guitar, and bari and tenor sax. The group set up in the middle of the floor and played an intense set. The set itself was intricately arranged while still retaining the spontaneous feel of improvised music. The two unamplified saxes played a lot of dissonant harmonies, squeals, and tastefully terrifying lines, and both players contorted and swayed like two snakes as they wrenched as much volume as they could from their instruments.

The rhythm section was less impressive. The drumming was predictably busy, purposefully devoid of time signature, and anti-groove. The guitar playing was the most irritating, displaying what Evan and I felt was a lack of development and ambition. The guitarist played a Strat straight through a Fender Deluxe turned up to an excruciating volume, and played what is basically the usual thing for this type of music--open-string extended chords, anti-solo blasts on the high strings, and extreme bending, all with little or no regard for time, key, or logic. I know this is in some way the goal of noise music--to destroy these conventions and assault the listener with extreme, sometimes discomforting use of sound--but there's something else to it than this. It felt like an imitation of noise, devoid of dynamics, development, or catharsis. Without those things, there's no way for the listener to engage, and the musical journey, while taking place in a public space ostensibly for public use, is completely private and appears arbitrary to any listener. The journey is solely for the musicians themselves.

Of course, one can minimize content with the goal of forcing boredom upon the listener, done so well in the early films of Andy Warhol. But with so much actual content--not to say musical content, but notes, volume, and movement--this doesn't seem to be the case. Hence my disappointment, augmented by fascination.

The second group to play, Extra Life from New York City, were exceptionally talented musicians who seemed to be overthinking things. The singer was a twee, impeccably coiffed bird of a figure who sang with a pre-Renaissance clarity and a tonality that reminded me of Morrissey. The band behind him played meticulously arranged, clangy progressive-goth progressions featuring unusual instruments like an electronic clarinet and a Danelectro baritone guitar. The music was interesting enough, but I don't usually go for such hyper-arrangements and fantasy-inspired lyrics. Banter of the set--"stick around for Larkin Grimm. They gave me a really positive Tarot reading before the show."

The third band, Larkin Grimm, featured a songwriter from elsewhere, a Joanna Newsom-like autoharpist who sang in the far reaches of soprano, a violinist who tastefully functioned as a melodic counterpoint, and a Chinese harpist (the only male in the group). The group had some good harmonies, but were undercut by the persona of their lead singer and guitarist, whose generally self-important air chafed me often. Between songs, directed at the soundman--"could I get more of everything in the monitors? Because I can't hear ANYTHING up here." Later, directed at the audience--"we're one of those softcore lesbian porn bands." The sort of comments, generally, that are only one step short of, "damn right you should be applauding, these songs are IMPORTANT and so am I." Common lyrical threads included the Earth extracting brutal revenge on humanity, and being really angry at someone and wishing bad upon them. I know there are different personality styles, but people act ridiculous when they get onstage. Count me in on that one too, I guess.

We didn't stay for Lichens, tired and beaten by the misguided music of these young people.

Recording is on hold for this week as Katri makes her visit from Finland. We will resume with renewed zeal next week.

Fighting guitars

Fingerpicking has to be precise if it is to function properly. We made a second try on "We've Been Working So Long," which features a soft bed of fingerpicked guitar and banjo. Unfortunately I was fighting the Martin and so even though the notes are there, the dynamics and timing aren't. We're going to have to make a third try at it. I think we'll move on to something else in the meantime. I think I'll start practicing with a metronome, perhaps at double time to iron this out. I want it to be smooth as glass, like Mark Kozelek's playing on April or Ghosts of the Great Highway.

Recording is already giving me a much deeper idea of what musicianship means. Not only hitting notes, but having some kind of dynamic feeling and having precise timing, which are concepts that don't mean anything until you hear yourself on a recording. Then there's the trick of actually being able to do this on record, which almost never captures the "best" performance.

I have a friend who studies classical guitar, and his teacher refers occasionally to the concept of "musical content"--more than just hitting the right notes but mastering the notes such that one can actually put some feeling on them. This is what needs to be developed.

Another thing my friend's teacher said was something like, "if it's not easy, it's impossible." I am finding that this is true especially in a recording situation, not only in live performance.

It was 65 and sunny yesterday, 45 and rainy today. Unseasonable, abominable, incredible.

Irony bikes

Today is already legendary in Chicago, and it's barely afternoon. It's 45 degrees, unseasonably and suddenly warm. I had been looking forward to riding my bike comfortably around the city, but it's so friendly outside that I've been walking it from place to place.

Last night was a double feature of concerts, a rare treat. I went with Evan to the Gene Siskel Film Center to see a short program that paired local video artists with local experimental noise groups, including Interbellum and Haptic. As is the case with a lot of noise/drone shows I've seen, there were fleeting moments of hair-raising precision and intensity, interspersed with only somewhat compelling passages. I suppose this is how drone works for me- the performance is a search for the optimal moment to hit a musical peak of volume and intensity. Stripped of tools like melody and harmonic structural integrity, it's just that much more bare. I'm looking forward to the days when Evan can get his setup in order and begin performing his dense, powerful, and abrasive sound-art pieces. I'd like him to play in a rock band someday.

Later, we saw Tortoise at the Empty Bottle. Their musicianship was of course unparalleled, as was their gear. Jeff Parker appeared to be using a genuine ES-335 dot neck, a gutsy choice for onstage use. Also on display were a 50s-style P-bass that sounded great--an early-60s P-bass, slightly more clear and punchy--a 60s Jazzmaster, which contrasted brilliantly with the 335--and an original Fender Bass VI, still one of the coolest electric instruments ever made in my opinion. Monophonic synths crushed listeners with pounding melodies, polyphonic ones rounded it out. Thax was there and read "Tortoise #8" before the show. The older stuff they played seemed more inspired somehow, less precise. The players have reached such high levels of musicianship that they seem to be unable to avoid more defined structures at this point. Which suits some stuff, but not other stuff. There wasn't the same buzz around the band members that I imagined before. At one point Evan turned to me and asked if I thought the players felt weird that their scene has passed them by, with so many people having left and moved on. I guess we'll find out someday.