And your eyes are slits in bags of fat

Disclaimer/Acknowledgement: This gig was ages ago. I have the same excuses every blogger has, so I won’t bore you with them.

Why? at Andrew’s Lane Theatre. Where have I heard that one before? Oh yeah, here. But lack of imagination notwithstanding, it was great to get a second visit off Joni and crew on what is essentially the same tour. Bands (Of Montreal, Deerhoof, Animal Collective) seem to have started skipping us over again this winter. Even if we’ve started to bleep on the radar of bands like this, the second sweep through Europe generally heads straight to the UK without so much as a cursory glance at “the best crowd in the world”.

On the evidence of this redux, however, it appears that good behaviour (i.e. loud cheering) has indeed yielded us the proverbial “nice things”. Hurray.

The set was essentially the same as last time, possibly in a different order. It’s amazing how good it was, given that fact. These songs in their live format don’t seem like they could ever be old. The arrangements are tense, much closer than the occasionally too-clean productions on the album, and needle-point tight. The clacking snare-rim beat of Crushed Bones (opening track on Elephant Eyelash), strewn with daydreamy arpeggios, provides the perfect tensile canvas for Joni to sing over. Or rap over? Speak over? Sing-rap-recite.

It’s hard to tell exactly what Joni is. There is definitely a literary character to what he does, almost like a novel full of fictionalised diary entries but with no clear conclusion. Musically, indie rock cannot fully claim him, because of the clear hip-hop influences, for example on the drums. But hip-hop doesn’t want him, as I found out on a rap forum I was lurking on while trying to find Pharaohe Monch’s album*. “Pussy-ass Jew boy bullshit”, or something to that effect.

It obviously doesn’t matter where he’s categorised. That’s a job for people like me on the midnight oil, and has no actual importance. The gig was (almost) as packed as last time, and the people there were (almost) as zealous as last time. And what was last time? I believe I concluded by literarily calling it “deadly” at the time. This was deadly too. Real atmosphere, real chemistry. But above all, great songs.

I’ll be right back with more Why?

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*the secondhand CD rack at ground level right in front of the counter in the new Freebird facing onto the Central Bank is THE source for every decent rap album since 1980.

**the picture is of Josiah Wolf, whose skill at playing glockenspiel and drums at the same time is beyond impressive***

***those two asterisks don’t refer back to anything specific in the text.

Dance of the Sugar Rush Fairy

Okay, back to do this after an absence due to dog ear haematoma removal. Let’s do this shit.

Grand Pocket Orchestra are back (i.e. I haven’t seen them in a while), and they’ve evolved (like a Pokémon) into something essentially the same but intangibly better. Boat loads of songs I hadn’t heard before were spilled out into Andrew’s Lane Theatre on Saturday with maximum aplomb. It wasn’t just that I hadn’t seen them performed before… they were songs I hadn’t heard before, a style that was new and different. Less finger-paint, more Jackson Pollock.

New single Ballet Shoes is an example of it, to an extent. Hearing that song makes me do the band-comparison stream in my head. Vampire Weekend? Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!? Built To Spill? Am I just going mad? Possible. But other songs, only experienced for their sub-two minute durations and then part-forgotten after they zoomed by, had even more of an impression. One of the songs, with no guitar in the intro, reminded me of something Sunset Rubdown might do. Another one didn’t remind me of anyone from America, and I can’t remember any details apart from thinking it was DEADLY.

In my last Fight Like Apes post, I finished saying something silly like “Grand Pocket Orchestra, step it up” or whatever. But I have to admit, as stupid a remark as that was, I was not fully expecting them to make a leap. I liked them, and I expected them to be as good as they were for a while yet. The kind of band I’d go to see at a festival, or at Whelans maybe if I had the money to spare. I’d buy what they put out, and use it in my CD alarm clock. But, to borrow Ian’s expression… shit just got real, yo. Excitement is kicking in. Genuinely anticipating their next EP. Waiting on an album. Wanting to see the songs that they played so briefly again, and get to know them. I can’t wait to watch this unfold.

Apart from intelligent and engaging new songs, Grand Pocket Orchestra still have: an ADD-esque mentaller for a singer, a lady with an octopus-like capacity for playing multiple instruments simultaneously, a vaguely unsettling guitarist and an excellent drummer with a mohawk. The live show has never been less than excellent with this combination. But imagine: GPO action figures… how is that not a good idea?

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Got up late, no room to breathe (Monday, pt. 2)

So The Mae Shi at Crawdaddy on Monday was really good. But the real reason I left the house on Monday was to go to Times New Viking. Whose new album I really like.

Long story short, there was a mix-up with times. We assumed the Mae Shi would be done early because they were a support act in a Pod venue where curfew is king.

And we assumed Times New Viking would start late. Because it was in Andrew’s Lane, which has a theatre licence. And because of an anonymous tip-off (probably not anonymous, I just don’t know who it was).

We left the Mae Shi at about 10.20, before they were finished. Thinking Times New Viking couldn’t have started earlier than 10, and more than likely would be a little late.

Plus, promoters were pretty accommodating about Sunset Rubdown/No Age and Liars/Thurston Moore. And The Mae Shi and Times New Viking seem like they would have a fairly big crossover. So it would be okay.

Not so.

It was raining. We ran all the way down Harcourt St.

We got there.

“SHIT! Is it over?!”

“Yeah dude, you guys missed it”, quoth the drummer from Times New Viking, smoking outside.

Fuck.

No More Pocket Combs

Singing along to Why? is like reading along to a short story. Nobody told that to pockets of devout fans in Andrew’s Lane last night though. While it’s a little awkward to see people pumping fists and shouting “I’LL SUCK THE MARROW OUT AND RAPE YOUR HOLLOW BONES YONI!” in any situation, never mind at a gig, the rock show contingent made things a little exciting if nothign else. It took Yoni about six songs to break out of his ultra-serious face, but once he acknowledged the several hundred people working themselves into a frenzy in front of him, the whole thing took on a sort of a personal colour.

Apart from the energy of the room, the gig itself was surprisingly excellent. I was expecting something much more lo-fi and… white-boy hip hop. It wasn’t like that at all, for better or for worse. They stuck mostly to Alopecia and played all the prominent songs from it. A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under was particularly impressive for Josiah’s ability to play breakneck vibraphone and drums at the same time. The Vowels allowed a bit of bobbing and was probably a highlight, though I have to say that they’re such a tight live band that the best songs on the night were just the best songs from the albums.

Which would mean Gemini obviously, being the aural proof that MOR can be good if it has great lyrics. Catching unconnected sentences of those great lyrics was the best part about seeing Why?. Even though the hair-cutted masses did their best to half-rap along, Why? is in essence the stream of consciousness of one guy from Cincinnati. It’s immune to outside circumstances, because it’s so self-absorbed. It’s like a diary. That’s why he’s so good.

They promised to come back soon, like everyone does. I’ll practice my words and my fist-pumping in the interim. I’ll definitely be there though, because this was deadly.

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