Archive for July, 2011

Animal Collective @ Prospect Park Bandshell 7/12/2011 "Change" / "Stop Thinking" / Did You See the Words? / "Long Time Ago" / "Take This Weight" / "Knock You Down" / Brother Sport / "Mercury" / "Your Choice" / "Frights" / We Tigers / Summertime Clothes // "I'd Rather" / "Little Kid" / Taste

Animal Collective "Taste"

I knew that Animal Collective had been playing new material in their recent shows but had avoided actually listening to any of it because I knew a lot would get lost in shitty fan-shot YouTube clips, so I held out to either watch the music performed in person or hear the finished studio recordings. I'm glad I did. I quite enjoyed being surprised by these new compositions over the course of the show -- certainly much more so than I expected. A few notes on the new material: 1) The band set up is basically: Deakin on guitar and sometimes percussion, plus he sings lead on "Change." Geologist doing his regular Geologist things with electronic instruments that are not visible from the audience. Panda Bear on drums with a bit of keyboards and vocals. Avey Tare on keyboards, guitars and lead vocals. (Panda only sang lead on three of fifteen songs in this set: "Take This Weight," "Brother Sport" and "I'd Rather.") Though there was a lot of guitar being played, it very seldom sounded anything like a guitar. 2) Given that Avey has gone back to being the dominant vocal presence in the band and there are no harmony parts on the new tunes, it would be tempting to say that this batch of songs very Avey-centric. But it's not exactly true. Panda's percussion is crucial. Whereas Merriweather Post Pavilion was all about melody and harmony, this new record seems to be more about rhythm and groove. It sounds as though they are filtering elements of funk and R&B through their very distinct aesthetic. I am dying to hear how this stuff comes out in the studio -- specifically "Long Time Ago" and "I'd Rather," which struck me as rather incredible pop songs straight away. 3) Deakin's song was pretty good! Who knew? 4) Panda's "Take This Weight" was, at least tonight and for me, the dud of the bunch. Too droning, too Tomboy-ish. Doesn't really fit in with what they're doing on the other songs. Nearly two years ago I saw Animal Collective play at the same venue, and it was one of the most memorable concert experiences of my life for a handful of reasons. Mainly, the audience was wonderful. Joyful, energetic, totally passionate. This crowd was very much the opposite. No matter where I went in this audience, I was surrounded by chattering jerks who seemed to have almost zero interest in the performance. Well, aside from "Brother Sport" and "Summertime Clothes," that is -- the hits got people going. I totally understand wanting to hear your favorite songs at shows, but I don't get just talking through the entire set and generally showing no respect to the band or the people who really wanted to pay attention to the songs. As much as the audience from two years ago reaffirmed my faith in young music fans, this crowd just made me feel bitter and irritable. Buy it from Amazon.

R.E.M. "Just A Touch"

Somewhere on this planet (most likely in Missouri), there is a video cassette titled It Takes a Nation of Midgets to Hold Us Back. I filmed the majority of its contents on a camcorder in 1996, and it was intended to be a gift for an acquaintance of my friend Todd, who filmed everything else, and appears in most of the scenes. The idea was to show her around the Hudson Valley and (hopefully) to make her laugh. It’s a weird tape, full of goofy tangents and jokes that were probably only really funny to the two of us at that moment in time. She never actually received the tape. I held on to it for the longest time, and now Todd has it. He and I are not currently in touch, and I’ll probably never watch it again. I mention all of this because “Just A Touch” is very prominently featured at the beginning of the tape. We kick off the movie in the same way that we began all our little adventures — riding in Todd’s Suzuki Swift down Main Street in my home town. Normally, this part of Cold Spring is very quaint and bustling with tourists from the city shopping for antiques and whatnot, but on this particular winter day, the town looks miserable, grey, empty, and nearly inhabitable. “Just A Touch” plays over the car stereo — my selection, my tape — and the contrast between its wild, cheerful tone and the bleak imagery is (unintentionally) hilarious. “Just A Touch” is one of the rowdiest, most joyful numbers in the entire R.E.M. discography, and though it appears on 1986′s Lifes Rich Pageant, it actually dates back to their pre-Chronic Town period as a party band in Athens, Georgia. If I recall correctly, it’s got something to do with Michael Stipe’s confused recollection of the day Elvis Presley died, but the lyrics are besides the point — it’s all about the spirit of the performance, and the reckless enthusiasm expressed in every moment of the recording. Stipe sounds especially unhinged, particularly toward the end when he’s totally flipping out before seeming to fall over with his final shout: “I’m so goddamn young!!!” Few songs sound as fully alive as “Just A Touch,” and if the Presley thing is true, the King couldn’t have asked for a more fitting tribute. Buy it from Amazon. This review was originally posted April 2nd 2007 on Pop Songs 07-08, where I wrote about most every song in the R.E.M. discography through 2004.

Lady Gaga "Yoü and I"

“Yoü and I” isn’t merely a love song. It’s a grandiose display of affection; a monument to the man Gaga loves. It’s a power ballad about Gaga and her on-and-off boyfriend Lüc Carl, a guy who, by all accounts, is the love of her life. He’s a rocker dude, so it’s a big rock song. There’s a bit of Shania Twain country rock in the mix, but it’s mostly a pastiche of Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses and Queen. Since Gaga has the economic leverage to achieve stylistic verisimilitude through hiring her influences, Def Leppard/Shania mastermind Mutt Lange produced the track, which samples Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and features a guitar solo from Brian May. (Maybe an alternate version exists in which Axl Rose sings back-up vocals.) The song plays power chords and glam metal solos on my heart strings. I get totally overwhelmed by the starry-eyed passion expressed in this music. I feel her joy, but I also feel a pang of envy. “Yoü and I” makes me want to love someone this much. It makes me wonder what it must be like for someone to love you so much that they need to pay tribute to you with a stadium anthem. There’s an aspirational quality to this song. It’s a fantasy of something pure and wonderful, but also flawed. They break up, they screw up. She’s chasing him down for years and hoping that this time it might work out. This is the flip side of “Bad Romance;” the version where the drama and angst results in the happiest possible ending. In either case, Gaga presents her relationship as a narrative, an epic romance between two archetypes — the New York Woman and her Cool Nebraska Guy. As a result, her love life becomes a work of art as thoroughly aestheticized as any of her songs, outfits, videos or performances. Buy it from Amazon.

Gardens & Villa "Carrizo Plain"

I'm not usually into this sort of slow, sad, cinematic cowboy music but I find myself entranced by the way this unfolds over five minutes. The guitar, percussion and keyboard parts hang loosely in place, but suggest a heavy gravitational pull. The vocal melody winds around gently until it seems to knot like a noose on the repetition of the line "you and I are intertwined." A lot of bands try and fail to capture this sort of desperate, desolate vibe, but this is exactly right. It sounds sorta like the Shins dying slowly in the middle of an endless desert. Buy it from Amazon.

Charli XCX "Stay Away"

It's funny. Only a few months ago I was thinking about how T'Pau's "Heart and Soul" was rich enough with ideas to provide the basis for several other songs, and here comes along "Stay Away," a single that wears that influence on its sleeve with great pride. It goes to a darker place, though – whereas the T'Pau song is all about trying to draw in a big, big love, Charli XCX is pushing it away. It's pouty and a bit goth, but as much as it tries to put on a chilly front, the chorus can't help but betray some warmth. Buy it from Amazon UK.

Elvis Costello "Beyond Belief"

The lyrics of "Beyond Belief" undoubtedly rank among the finest ever penned for a rock song; Costello's words are so finely chosen and edited that a novel's worth of character and nuance gracefully unfold in just over a couple minutes. It's a miracle of lyrical economy and precision. I've been obsessing over this song for a few weeks, replaying it incessantly and alternately dissecting lines and taking in the seedy, desperate ambiance of the music. Costello's pick-up artist is bereft of soul but he's not a shallow caricature – more than anything, he seems bored senseless by the empty ritual of his predatory routine. The intensity of his self-loathing has totally soured whatever pleasure he gets from scoring with these women. The pick-up is equally ruthless and half-hearted; he's distracted during the actual sex act. One of the most stunning aspects of Costello's composition is that when the sex arrives in this narrative, the pace suddenly picks up and the sound builds to a brief, frantic peak. In a clever turn, all of the singer's metaphors contain vaginal imagery – fault lines, vaults, canals. But he's so lost in his angst and self-awareness that he seems even more alone. His voice changes in this section: more pinched, more hollow. The treble in the arrangement surges and then climaxes: "I come to you beyond belief." Climax, come. You get the idea. The song shifts back into its primary mode. It's like snapping back into reality. After that night's "Alice" is discarded, the character takes in the scene for a moment before getting sucked back into his head. The chorus finally comes at the end and repeats into fade-out, suggesting an endless loop. That's when you get a sense of consequence. This time the phrase "beyond belief" takes a slightly different meaning: "Once this seemed so appealing, now I am beyond belief." It could be the low moment that inspires him to change. Or he could just loop back to the start: "History repeats the old conceits." Buy it from Amazon.

John Maus "Believer"

I love the way John Maus gets the keyboards in this song to sound as though he's spraying the listener down with some kind of sparkle hose. The sparkly keyboard part nearly drowns out the rest of the arrangement, which seems to be the point – it's like how shoegazer bands foreground distorted guitar in order to simulate an overwhelming sensual experience. But whereas the best shoegazer music push the raw sexuality associated with guitar rock into soft focus, Maus' keyboards ring out with great clarity. He's not changing the way we think of this keyboard sound, only amping it up so that the dreamy romance we associate with synthpop is totally overpowering. Buy it from Amazon.

Sloan @ Knitting Factory 6/30/2011 Follow the Leader / The Answer Was You / Unkind / The Marquee and the Moon / Snowsuit Sound / 500 Up / Shadow of Love / Everything You've Done Wrong / Who Taught You to Live Like That? / Anyone Who's Anyone / She's Slowin' Down Again / Something Wrong / Traces / On the Horizon / It's Plain to See / Your Daddy Will Do / Don't You Believe A Word / I've Gotta Know / Coax Me / Beverly Terrace / Losing California // People of the Sky / C'mon C'mon / Underwhelmed / The Good in Everyone

Sloan "Beverly Terrace"

A lot of music culture, particularly music criticism, thrives on artists having some sort of narrative. I think that Sloan have suffered for this over the course of their career – they're consistently very good and entertaining, but it's surprisingly hard to sell people on "oh, this is a good rock band!" these days. You need an angle. So, with this in mind, Sloan are wise to emphasize their 20th anniversary as a band this year. It makes an asset of things that get taken for granted very easily: Longevity, having a large quantity of great tunes, somehow having the collective temperament to balance out the egos of four distinctly talented songwriters. This show at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn was, like all Sloan gigs, a no-frills rock party. But it was also a celebration of back catalog – they played a bit from most of their albums and dusted off a bunch of songs that had been out of rotation. Each of the band members went "off list" at some point in the performance and played a song they had not rehearsed. Patrick Pentland proposed at one point that their next tour in the fall should be entirely "off list," which is kind of a cool idea for them that takes advantage of their deep back catalog. I just hope that if they do that, it doesn't come at the expense of material from The Double Cross, which all comes across really well in concert. I was particularly impressed by "Beverly Terrace," which was a bit less refined, but emphasized a Spoon-like tension I had not really noticed up until just then. Buy it from Amazon.