4-8-15-16-23-42 (The Magic Numbers, Mercury Lounge)

Every time I see an article about The Magic Numbers, it begins by getting all agog over the fact that these are four British people making (gasp) lazy SoCal rock!

I know!  It blows me away, too!  Because that Thrills album happened almost, what, two whole years ago?!

The Numbers are a pair of brother-sister couplings – Romeo & Michele Stodart, Sean & Angela Gannon – making harmless pop that conjures up the occasional comparison (perhaps because it’s in their official bio) to the Mamas & Papas.  It’s thoroughly unexciting stuff; the band isn’t even interesting enough to conjure up some PR-friendly BobTedCarolAlice-type sibling revelry amongst itself.

Can you hear me yawning from there?

This is music for folks whose doctors have warned them away from spicy foods, folks whose idea of living on the edge is popping an extra Lipitor.  Folks that wish every night was Prom Night ’72, and that every dance was a slow one.  Folks with a drawerful of unfilled Viagra prescriptions.

You know:  Your folks.  There’s a reason the Numbers’ CD (which you can stream, song-by-song, here) is hanging around Rolling Stone’s “Best New Music” section:  Everyone at Rolling Stone is old and (except David Fricke) useless.  (And as for their review... is insouciant ever a compliment when you’re talking about music?)

Somewhere, Teri Garr is getting her neutral-colored couch all moist over The Magic Numbers.

Oh, it’s not really bad music... because it’s not really anything music.  There are undeniably pretty moments when the harmonies manage to interweave properly, when a tune manages to latch on to a bit of – whoa – momentum; but every triumph is short-lived, every reward not worth the battle.  Take “This Love:”  It comes to a very sweet violin-aided climax... but to get there, you have to trumble through tripe like, “Why did I choose to/ refuse you/ it’s not that I used you.”

In related news, I hear Scott Stapp has a new album out.

Looking for things to praise about the Numbers’ CD – which, more often than not, makes me wish I’d been lobotomized (They have a song called, God help me, “Which Way to Happy?”) – I keep coming back to its humility.  For someone named Romeo, the lead vocalist/guitarist doesn’t display any flash; if anything, he backs off the beat, his twee voice softly shying from showier flourishes.  His sister’s harmonies match his hesitancies, and her basslines seem OSHA-regulated.  Drums are pat.  Xylophones are hit with rubber malletheads.

See, they are British.  They’re being very polite about this rock and roll stuff.  They’re pleasant without being exuberant.  But then there’s nothing they’ve got to brag about, now, is there?

Generous guy that I am, I decided to gift-wrap the benefit of my doubt and take it with me to the Mercury Lounge, where the foursome were playing a smallish gig full of friends and family.  Tonight’s show fell between the end of a short tour with Bright Eyes – they spent the last couple nights in Jersey City – and a sold-out headlining gig at the larger Bowery Ballroom.

They seem like nice kids, these Numbers.  Compared to the other sixties-throwbacks I’ve seen recently – and good lord, is there a war on or something? – they’re not as obsessive (or talented) as the Black Angels, as complicated or evolutionary (or talented) as The Earlies, as scary (or talented) as Black Mountain.  They came out looking less like the Manson family than a bunch of folks who’d accidentally scarfed up the Manson family in between helpings of fish n’ chips and fried Twinkies.  Romeo seemed genuinely happy to recognize folks in the crowd, and genuinely thrilled that folks were clapping and singing along.  He smiled, and blushed, and tossed his hair, and bounced around flapping his forearms as if he’d been given an entire box of Turkish delight.

So, no, I wasn’t won over.

Live, the group is even less precise than their record.  Guitar parts, naturally, can’t overlap; harmonies don’t always match up.  And was it me, or was that electric guitar flat all set long?  Sean, the drummer, has this blinking thing going on; at times it looks like he’s concentrating to within an inch of his life, other times it looks like he’s fallen into REM sleep.

“Forever Lost” is a little more spirited in concert, though it’s still impossible to overlook lines like “I want to go... where the people go.”  “I See You, You See Me” revealed itself for what it really is:  A low-key Meatloaf ballad.  The band’s cover of “Crazy in Love” deserves notice:  Employing only melodica, acoustic guitar, and the Stodarts’ vocals – no percussion – it was a real blast... if only because it can be fun listening to kids from Britain pretending to be kids from Santa Cruz pretending to be Beyoncé.

One new song was as dull as the old ones, but another had a lot of promise:  They closed with a raucous lil’ honky-tonk number that made me think these Magic Numbers would make for a great C&W bar band.  At least then, what with a chain link fence between me and them, I could hurl a bottle or two at them without worrying about hurting such nice people.

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Kathryn Yu has pics.

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Oh, and while I’m being Little Mr. Sunshine:  I think the new Jenny Lewis album is horrid.  I’m hoping this leak is some sort of joke.  The phrasing is miserable, her voice is strangely flat, the songs are either rushed or redundant.  And that Wilburys cover is dreadful.

Blake!  Come back, Blake!

tags: magic numbers  concert reviews  jenny lewis  

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