Very Close to, if not actually in, the CD player:
seen/heard ° listen ° buy
seen/heard ° listen ° buy
seen/heard ° listen ° buy
"How Does It Feel to Be Loved, Assholes?" - Reggie Youngblood, Black Kids (CMJ 2007 Day 4, 10/19)
(Posting out of order, obvs. Will be back to fix stuff later. But for now, please enjoy my rough draft. Fuck it. It'll do.)
Brooklyn Vegan Day Thing @ R-Bar
R-Bar's one of those CMJ not-a-venues. Looks like some Tisch student's lo-budg version of soft-core hell. Red walls? Ironic stripper poles? There's a picture of Iggy Pop clutching his junk on the door to the men's room; someone has wisely scrawled "NO" on it.
Somebody in this city goes here by choice. This is somebody's place to hang. <shudder>
Also, the stage is a foot high, so sightlines are bad. Blah blah blah.
This didn't go well, and the band knew it. Haven't seen them for a couple years, but did enjoy them, then. They're best when heavy on the Gothy atmospherics; an early afternoon set-time and this perpetual summer don't do them any favors. Their video projection system crashed in the middle of the set, leaving the stage in near-total darkness for a couple songs. They probably appreciated that.
God, I wish I liked these guys more. I like so many things about them. It's a five-girl L.A. punk outfit, real sloppy shit, real high energy. There's not a whiff of bullshit about them, no hot chick stizz. The drummer, during a break, waved her arms and slurred "Woooo! Free Bloody Marys!" The guitarist asked the lighting guy to stop with the flashing stuff because it sort of freaked her out; "I'm a loser," she said from behind Rosanna Rosannadanna hair, "I know." She so totally isn't.
Mika (the name's apparently "Storytelling" in Japanese and "Vagina Vagina" in some South American language) has a brilliant conceit: Of the two lead singers, one uses a red telephone receiver as her mic. She's calling you up, yelling about shit, yelling shit at you. Plus, girls and phones.
The other singer sometimes skronks alto sax. The leads traded off banging a tambourine on the floor for the full first half of the set. They had half-assed kittycat whiskers smeared on their faces. Fun! But there's a reason every single write-up you see about these guys mentions their Misfits cover. Their own songs don't give you anything to sink your teeth into. Gets same-old same-old pretty quick.
YS' Cake Shop show on 9/27 was fucking Blogger Central. You couldn't spit without spraying a dozen URLs. And NO ONE (including yours truly, natch) WROTE IT UP. When I'm finally ripped from God's big blue Blogopolis, I'll mourn a little about (sigh) dayz gone by when we cared enough to give a shit. Or something.
I'd rather go back and revisit the Cake Shop show in another post since it was longer and better than this gig, but for now: There's both something legitimately good about this band, and a legitimate hesitancy to go nuts over them. The Fleetwood Mac + World Music thing is a good starting-point blurb, but the way the band incorporates its World rhythms and riffs is less appropriative than explorative; the songs where they go New Wave over (electronic) Native American beats keep the thing from settling into overthought mush. There's a lot going on in here, but on record there's always the threat that they might become Enigma. They have one great song - 2080, you've heard it by now - a few good ones, several shruggables. But they're better live than on their album because they're smart and they're expressive... when they're not all huddled over synthesizers nodding at playback.
By the way, Pitchfork Editor-in-Chief Ryan Schreiber stood at the front of the venue, arms crossed the whole set, a steadfast example of why music journalists make the worst fucking audience members ever. Maybe he was checking to see if the band used any effects processors he could plug on his site.
Black Kids (myspace)
This is going to be hyped into some bullshit Case Study in Hype by some short-sighted media journos - the "C" in CMJ stands for "short-sighted," right? - but that's sociological wankery for folks who don't really care about the tunes. The people who care about the tunes are going to leave this band alone for a while because they need a little less exposure and a lot more experience. Ain't many toddlers dragging NASCAR trophies around.
Way back in August (Of 2007! Whew!), buzz from Athens Popfest sploded all over Black Kids (which is not, thank God, all-white). The band gave away a four-song EP at their show, their first outside their native Florida; blog Cable and Tweed posted three of those songs on 8/11, including the undeniable "I'm Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You." In the following weeks, they got notice from NME and Vice; Pitchfork's Marc Hogan Forkcasted "Teach" on 9/21, then gave the four downloadable songs on the band's myspace (two of which were not on the Popfest EP) a Best New Music album nod on 10/5. The band signed with the same management company that handles Arcade Fire and Björk.
That's, like, the entire band's history.
Because the buzz came from a live festival, there was a tacit endorsement of the band's live act. Their CMJ appearances became must-sees.
This is hardly a must-see band. Yet.
You can't blame the Kids for striking while the press is hawt, but they're greengreengreen. The rhythm section's a fucking mess, the lead singer has zero vocal control. Most every song was sluggish, only coming to life when the two female keyboard players/vocalists - who are awesome - sassed and doo-wopped and whatnotted. This band needs to tour and tour and tour and tour, and then tour. And after that, tour. As a supporting act in tiny venues. In six months to a year, give ‘em a look-see.
Frontman Reggie Youngblood is smart enough to know he's being over-examined, smart enough to know that he's sort of failing right now. The band overapologized before playing a new song - Jesus, they're all still new - and celebrated when they made it through successfully. He made a pretty effective little speech mid-set, defusing the situation: "There's been a lot of hype... about how good-looking we are. But don't let that distract you. Just close your eyes, just listen to the tunes. They're worthy, I promise."
The songs are really fucking good. It's less Cure+Go! Team than it sounds on record because there's a whole lot more pop anthem bounce going on (the bouncing will be better once the band can handle a decent tempo). The last minute of "I've Underestimated My Charm" will be gangbusters, someday.
The songs are really fucking good, and it's understandable people want to get excited before the band playing them is any fucking good. But it ain't, not right now.
Hogan reviewed their first CMJ show, late Thursday night at The Annex, and said it "lived up to all the lofty expectations." That's total CYA BS unless he's got hideously low standards for a live act. I say this based not on The Annex gig - I wasn't there, I only got a half-dozen texts during the thing about how awful they were, one a list of people I know who'd walked out throughout the set - but based on Youngblood's assessment that the R-Bar show was the band's "best ever," and the appraisal from someone who'd sat through (and complained and complained about) The Annex set that the latter one was "10,000 times better."
And it wasn't really all that good, but it was very promising. So here's hoping the world backs off, leaves the kids alone so they can realize that promise.
Gothamist House @ White Rabbit:
I'd heard Beefheart-Beefheart-Beefheart about the Austin trio, but it's been a long time since I've tried to listen to any Beefheart. There are some great, eccentric reaches into blues and soul, but those are often spazzily cut off. That always frustrates me. No big jazzy or psychedelic asides - more tendency to punk things up, really - and no real guitar chops on display, but songs might have been abbreviated for this set. Bassist (who looks like he's twelve) is real sharp, though. Probably'll just wind up being Not My Cup of Tea.