The Eyes That Saw The Glory Have Been Blinded By The Light

Basement Jaxx @ Webster Hall 10/11/2006
Good Luck / Romeo / Oh My Gosh / Right Here’s The Spot / Take Me Back To Your House / Do Your Thing / Hey U / Lights Go Down / Everybody / Jump ‘N’ Shout / Red Alert / Where’s Your Head At?!? // Bingo Bango

Basement Jaxx “Take Me Back To Your House” (Live in Cologne, youtube link) – One thing that you need to know about Basement Jaxx is that when they play live, they cut no corners, and they PERFORM. Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe are is flanked by a highly proficient band, and fronted by an array of charismatic and flamboyantly outfitted vocalists. Together they put on quite a spectacle, up to the point of bringing out dancers in gorilla suits for the climactic, ecstatic “Where’s Your Head At.” So basically, just as they make virtually everyone seem like flacid, lethargic chumps in the studio, they do the same thing live. The downside is that they really don’t play out very often, and this was one of only two North American shows on their itinerary for this year. (It wouldn’t be a bad idea to start up a petition for a larger US/Canadian tour for 2007, frankly.)

Basement Jaxx “Everybody” – Though I was a bit disappointed by it at first, Crazy Itch Radio has grown on me considerably. Though it has a few mis-steps in its running order, overall it is a very smart detour into relative subtlety following the jackhammer pop of their previous records, most especially its highly potent immediate predecessor Kish Kash. Aside from “Everybody,” which owes more to the tone of Remedy than anything else that they’ve done since 2001 and sounds like a guided tour of a (C&C?) music factory, the best cuts on the record tend to be the most intimate, whether it’s the chilled soul of “Keep Keep On” or the melancholy country-disco pop of “Take Me Back To Your House,” which modifies the lyrical gist of The Smiths’ “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” for modern dance clubs. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Jarvis Cocker “Black Magic” – “Black Magic,” or the song in which Jarvis Cocker dances with a familiar chord progression that sounds like a bolt from the heavens. At first the dance is tentative and hesitant with him singing behind its curve, but there’s a (err…) magical moment at the start of the second chorus when he anticipates the riff and takes the lead, spinning the song on its axis. It’s a song about faith in some ill-defined thing in the place of religion, and the glory of once-in-a-lifetime epiphanies that transform a person from the inside out, be it true love, a crucial change of perspective, or a revelation of something brilliant within or without one self. (Click here for some Jarvspace.)