Very Close to, if not actually in, the CD player:
stream full album ° seen/heard ° buy
seen/heard ° listen ° preorder
seen/heard ° listen ° preorder
stream full album ° seen/heard ° buy
“Is it Contagious? Let Us Hope So!” (Ane Brun/Whyte Seeds/Loney, Dear/Quit Your Day Job, CBGB's)
A handful of Swedes making their way back home from SXSW dragged their halo’d å’s through CBGBs for a Sirius-sponsored Swedish Music Showcase last night. A couple years back, when The Hives broke big, people started calling Sweden the new Seattle – a claim given little credence by the flood of product that made its way here. The Hives’ popularity really came from the same garage revival that gave the world The Strokes; the other bands that gained exposure – The (International) Noise Conspiracy, Sahara Hotnights, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Division of Laura Lee, and the smartly delayed Shout Out Louds – didn’t necessarily deliver the same stuff. A country’s too big to be a scene, and Sweden’s already hit it big a couple times before.
Whatever happened to Whale? We Care is one of my favorite-records-ever.
Anyway: There’s more to Sweden than garagerock and cringeworthy pop. To wit: An earnest singer-songwriter, a pop-rock conglomerate, some adept indie rock and synthpunk craziness.
“This is one of my few happy songs.”
Ane Brun is, technically, Norwegian; she moved to Stockholm six years ago to start a label and pursue her craft. She might be singing somber, serious music (personal, not political, folk) – and might be singing it somberly and seriously – but it’s lovely stuff. Ron Sexsmith recorded a duet with her, which is pretty much all the endorsement you should need. Her phrasing sometimes recalls Fiona Apple; the arrangements and the little nasal lilt her accent adds offer a bit of jazz sweep. Here:
Ane Brun – My Lover Will Go (mp3)
Her set at CBs was a solo one. She switched off between three differently-tuned acoustic guitars and commanded coffee house-style attention that might have been more at home next door at the Gallery. Ms. Brun is one of the reasons I showed for this; I spent a good part of the day listening to “Humming One of Your Songs” on repeat. She’s also playing Monday night at the Living Room, and but for a scheduling conflict I’d go again.
A lot of these groups are stingy with the MP3s, and there was no merch booth last night – a shame since almost all these bands’ CDs are import-only. Brun has a myspace page; the “jukebox” on her site mostly features clips, but you really should go there to stream (in its entirety) the selection marked “Humming (live with BAO).” There’s also a video for that song (streaming here) that, in a hilarious display of Scandinavian dourness, is shot in black and white and features a cast of ghoulish coroners.
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The Whyte Seeds are either a totally manufactured entity or a band with a serious identity crisis.
I was dreading their set after previewing their myspace page, but they came out with a solid rocker. Then followed it up with a jangly, dancey post-punk number, and that with a bouncy pop ditty. The five of them wore the standard-issue tight black jeans and quickly got into their respective characters: Singer Axl Robach is the clean-cut, boyish, animated singer; he doesn’t get all splitsy nutso, but his body vocabulary includes a lot of manic arm movements, spine arching and kneeling. Keyboardist Olle has Bon Jovi hair and a great howl. The sleepy-eyed guitarist stands there like a tired elder statesman, the bassist wears – for some reason – a head-swallowing black cowboy hat. The drummer is probably thrilled no one pays attention to drummers so he doesn’t have to think of a “personality.”
As songs started drifted into thirdhand, slurry Oasis ballads and synthpop stuff that’d be at home on an ‘80s teencom soundtrack the packaging started to wear awfully thin. The band sings in English, but only addressed the crowd in Swedish. They brought the same energy to every one of the songs despite its genre/mood/topic. “Me ‘n’ My Dogs” would have been a sure deal-breaker... but I think Robach was actually singing about dogs, not “dawgs.”
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Loney, Dear is a study in expansion.
It starts with Emil Svanängen, and started in his parents’ basement; the set, here, started with him almost whispering into the mic. Slowly, the rest of his band – there were five here last night, there’ll be nine next time they come through – joined in... and the entire outfit still made less noise than the large, drunk Canadian man in the front row (who was busy trying to convince his friend his girlfriend was cheating on him while away at school, and that his friend had commitment problems, and that, man, he’d been there, he’d been there...).
But Quiet is not the new Loud, and this wasn’t TweeBGBs. After the Canadians made their way towards the back of the club more sound seeped from the stage; the skinny kids with the thick-framed glasses came forward to greet it. At some point the applause started coming from further away; at some point Svanängen and his mates started yelling and banging at their instruments. At some point, they got to me.
I didn’t much care for Loney, Dear’s music – or its comma – going in; and quite frankly, listening to it now...
Loney, Dear- The City, The Airport (mp3) (buy) (and here’s their myspace)
...it’s still not convincing – though I imagine the hearts of Skön & Sebastian fans are beating twice as meekly as they normally do. But live, Emil’s voice seems less full-on falsetto than simply high-pitched. Live, he’s all bulk and sweat and stubble. Live, they’ve got a female harmonist who laughs a lot – she tries her best not to when she’s whistling; they’ve got a bassist with more hair than head; they’ve got a baby keyboardist – I’ve got vegetables in my fridge older than this kid – who plays with his eyes shut. Live, there’s the same sort of warm group feeling the Canadians – not the drunk, distracting ones, but the Arcade Fires and Broken Social Scenes and such – manage to generate (though L,D is not nearly as good as either, and there are no winning, wacky onstage antics).
(Live, they also usually have a second guitarist and three horn players; space and/or resources were limited on this first U.S. trip.)
It was, at the very least, an honest presentation, and after the Seeds’ post-prefab set that was enough. Out of this evening’s acts, if I had to predict one that’d find its way into the clingy confines of Indie Kids’ hearts, it’d be this one. But the message better get out soon; it was built to self-destruct. For some reason, Svanängen has created his band with a built-in expiration date – New Year’s Eve, 2009 – though one wonders if success might make the milk last longer.
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Revealed at Last! Here’s why I came to this showcase:
Quit Your Day Job – Look! A Dollar! (mp3)
Quit Your Day Job, short and sweet: Puerile, fun punk. On CD, they sound like SweDevo; live, the trio’s bouncing around too much, too fast, to pin down. Songs – with titles like “She Male Godzilla” and “Sperms Are Germs” – exhaust themselves before the two-minute mark. There were twelve songs in their set list; the set lasted twenty minutes.
Glorious.
Frontman (vocals, guitar) Jonass looks a bit like Tom Waits’ nephew and is crazy like Eddie – not seriously deranged, but nuts enough to give you a really good deal on some choice home appliances. Keyboardist Marcass seems to spend most of his time away from his instrument, shadowkicking invisible ninja attackers or shirtlessly herding audience members on stage.
Midway through the show – that’d be, yes, about the ten-minute mark – someone from the crowd jumped up, took the mic and screamed, “I love these guys!” Jonass said, “That’s the name of our next song!” and launched into “Pigs From Hell.”
The drummer’s name is “Drumass.” That’s pretty much all you need to know about Quit Your Day Job. Why aren’t you at their show already? Silly American fool.
QYDJ – The Freaks Are Out (mp3)
QYDJ – Sweden We Got a Problem (mp3)
(buy their CDs here)
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Sirius will be rebroadcasting the concert. So if you happen to pay for radio (sucker), you’ll be able to hear it there.
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It feels so good, walking into this venue. Before November, I’m going to find every excuse I can to spend time here. Even if that means seeing hippie-dippy jam bands. Phenomenauts in June! Pass it on!
