Rockin' bosses

I last saw Matt Ward play at the now-defunct Covered Wagon, a live music haunt South of Market, in December 2001. (You kids know it as Annie's Social Club today.) Wedged in on a bill with Centro-Matic and Jon Auer, Ward took the stage with a baseball hat pulled down over his eyes, played to a couple dozen indifferent souls and left 45 minutes later. I remember him as a fingerpicking solo guitarist with a breathy voice. Very good.

I remember noting a few years ago that M. Ward was now selling out venues like The Fillmore, and wondering how the heck it got to be that way. I liked him, sure. He was right up my alley. But was there some sort of post-alt-country/new-blues revival thing going on that I'd missed completely? (Maybe "the new tribalism," as some chick put it to me at a Vetiver show once?) Not really -- it's just that Ward came into his own with records like The Transfiguration of Vincent and Transistor Radio, drawing in an audience who probably couldn't care less about his Louis Armstrong-isms or Mississippi John Hurt references, but just digs his gravel-whisper vocals and poetic tales.

Fast forward to last night. I hear that as recently as last year, Ward took the Fillmore stage alone, but this time he brought a four-piece band featuring some people from Norfolk & Western. Taking the stage one at a time, the band eased into Ward's atmospheric, not-really-danceable cover of Bowie's "Let's Dance," with vibraphone textures hanging in the air like the pot smoke that puffed through the stage lighting. Nice start.

It wasn't long before the vibes player switched to drums, making this a two-drummer affair for most of the evening. Along with a bass player and second guitarist, the band actually managed to make a pretty serious racket on the strummier, more aggressive material like "To Go Home," and cooled out for the smaller songs. The twin-drummer thing was a little odd -- especially considering that the two played exactly the same parts for extended stretches if not whole songs -- but on the whole it provided a unique, unexpected effect. (Note: the guy with the truck wheel wasn't there.)

Ward's a student of music history; he can throw a little piece of McCartney's "Every Night" into his own "Undertaker," or cover Howlin' Wolf's "Spoonful" as a duo with one of the great punk-rock bass players of all time, and have it all make perfect sense. There's simply a lot of history in his music, although it never seems slavishly derivative. He's metabolized a century of recordings, but never really seems like a retro act -- he's way too talented and creative for that.

Only as the night ended did Ward truly revert to the solo-fingerpicking style I'd remembered from the CW. He did a couple of solo numbers ("I'll Be Yr Bird," here, I think), then did the duo with Watt, and finally brought the rest of the band back out for "Vincent O'Brien" before bidding us goodnight.

Readers of this space already know of my affection for Mike Watt and his music -- a trait I share with Ward. Ward invited Watt's brand-new band to open three California dates, making for what seemed like strange bedfellows on the surface but was actually a very appropriate pairing. Watt seemed healthier than the last few times I've seen him, and impossibly energetic for a 48-year-old. (Maybe it's all that paddling!) The three men stood close together, mid-stage, and grappled rhythmically and harmonically with Watt's new compositions -- some skronky, some that grooved harder. Guitarist Tom Watson played it rather like Nels Cline without the eggbeater, while Raul Morales makes you wonder how they keep making quick-wristed, octopus-armed drummers in Pedro. Covers of "Three Girl Rhumba" and "The Red And The Black" (the latter featuring Watt shouting out the chords to Ward) provided familiar material, while the penultimate extravaganza of "Fun House" (featuring Ward's entire band plus actual Stooge Steve MacKay!) brought the house down. Still, I think our favorite one was the new song probably entitled "Rockin' Boss," especially given that the man himself was present.

All this, and a sharp poster too. Can you beat that for a Friday night? (The only rough patch was the brief warmup at the awful Harry's Bar, a nightmarish place after a certain hour. I bet it's a little more tolerable if you actually drink there, but all I had was coffee.)

FMFM: Sonic Nurse and Murray Street, in anticipation for Sunday night's event at the same venue

Love, American Style

After re-connecting with my youth via Once In A Lifetime last evening, I remembered why I suggested that hockey-style shootouts in which players really have to beat the goalie would be superior to using penalty kicks to decide World Cup games: They actually decided NASL games that way. And the players loved it. Most of the rule changes and stylish innovations of the NASL look a little silly now, but there was nothing more exciting in the film than watching the Cosmos' Carlos Alberto deke the goalie and softly lob the ball over his head into the net to decide the 1978 Soccer Bowl in a shootout. Wow!

I also learned that goal-scoring machine Giorgio Chinaglia, one of my childhood heroes, is a major-league prick.

Overall, Once In A Lifetime was an above-average sports documentary (with a dynamite soundtrack that featured dozens of period funk hits) that strikes a chord with me because so much of my youth was spent watching, reading about, and emulating the Cosmos. (I'm also intimately familiar with wildly popular phenomena that mysteriously lose tons of money and crash before you know it.) They may have spent a little too much time on Pelé (although, who wouldn't?), and may have lingered on scoreboard shots more than on-the-field action a little too often, but the fast-paced editing really contributed to the whirlwind feel of late-70s soccer fever.

There's a book too? Hmm... how do I get one?


FMFM: Pavement's Pacific Trim EP, another wax transfer. I see that this is being reissued on the forthcoming double-disc version of Wowee Zowee. Only two of the four songs, the historical fiction of "Give It A Day" and the tossed-away "I Love Perth," are actually good, although a third, "Gangsters and Pranksters", is pretty memorable in its way. ("Saganaw" may hold the distinction of being the worst Pavement tune ever released.) A recording that sounds like it was done in an afternoon, Pacific Trim is a fleeting pleasure. Plus it has the best rock'n'roll song ever written comparing your girlfriend's Puritanical dad to Cotton Mather himself. (Hey, is that an extremely vulgar title, or do I have a sick mind?)

Bunyan's progress

"So this is her first American tour since...?"

"Ever."

"Ever?"

"Ever."

That was a little piece of my conversation with the merch guy/tour manager at the Vashti Bunyan show last Thursday at the Great American Music Hall. Bunyan's musical career has been reanimated over the past few years, with a reissue of her 1970 debut and a new album. Now, this: a ten-date North American tour, preceded by a few nights in Scandinavia and the U.K.

I admit I hadn't given Bunyan much thought prior to the gig, but was strangely drawn to the entire occurrence. I'd heard perhaps half a dozen songs beforehand, and found them pleasant, sweet, feminine and rather slight. Some of the best aspects of her "rediscovered" album, in fact, seemed to be someone else's work: the Fairport contributions, the string charts (hey, wow, it's that guy who did the Nick Drake records!). I hadn't heard a note of her 2005 record, but her associations with other musicians were enough to draw me in -- for one night, at least.

That element was well-represented at the Great American last Thursday, particularly by the presence of Brightblack Morning Light as openers. Certain popular terms, such as "psych-folk," or worse, "freak folk," do not properly represent Brightblack, although as Friends of Devendra they're apparently tangentially connected to that circle. Brightblack is definitely psychedelic, by my definition, but is more interested in spacey, shape-shifting musical sculptures than in any kind of folk-rock. (They are, however, cosmic American.)

I believe Brightblack played five pieces in fifty minutes, the first two without a drummer. (Typical instrumentation: slide guitar with lots of effects; well-maintained Rhodes piano; harp. Appropriate for séances.) I never made out any of the words, which were few, far-between, and heavily processed. This band made Low sound like Hüsker Dü. They moved so slowly that their little nuances were magnified; I can't decide whether this is a good thing or whether they simply lowered the bar this way. Either way my internal clock ticks a little faster than Brightblack's music does, and while I think I liked what they were going for, I can't say I would've liked to see them play again the next night. (Not an option this time.)

Anyway on to Vashti. The Music Hall filled up considerably by the time she went onstage; they had to open the balcony to accommodate all the walk-up ticket buyers. She sat at the back of a semicircle, flanked by five highly sympathetic musicians, all young enough to be her children. Two brought their bows (violin, cello); two played guitar (acoustic and electric); one switched among flute, piano and concertina. All played impeccably, true to original arrangements, tasteful, pastoral, lovely. In voice, Vashti was strong, emotional, bound by the same limitations as before.

Vashti's set list was slightly weighted toward her 1960s material, but included plenty of new works, practically indiscernable from the old stuff in tone but not in content. (Most of the new ones were about raising her children.) She introduced each song with a brief anecdote or explanation, highlighting the changes in her life over the years, displaying disarming humility and shyness at the microphone as well as genuine appreciation for the warm reception she received. I still can't say I've been converted to true fandom of her songs, exactly, but I was very much moved by the entire presentation.

The portrait that started to emerge was one of a once-adventurous youth who had settled into a more domestic life while maintaining a free spirit. Many of us do these things: prioritize our kids' lives over our own, sacrifice ideals for practicality, pursue a more comfortable life than one spent sleeping in some sort of hippie mud caravan (as Bunyan did, spending a year and a half in a horse-drawn cart traveling from London to the Hebrides, if I remember correctly). And although Bunyan joked about it, it seemed that she was just a little uncomfortable revisiting that period of her life night after night, simply because so many of her early songs were about a particular lost love. I don't envy the idea resurrecting one's career by retelling the story of a romance from one's early 20s every evening. Who would?

Overall the evening lived up to its potential as a special night. An appreciative crowd demanded more from Vashti, and she seemed to leave the stage more hopeful than when she arrived.

Stopping Pete

Speaking of WMFU's blog, I saw yesterday that they'd posted an open letter to Pete Townshend asking him to please stop allowing his songs to be used in TV commercials. (I note that the comments section has some pretty fired-up people sounding off.)

Now, I have no special love for "Bargain" as a Toyota Sale-A-Thon jingle. (I don't know about you, but I personally would not stand naked, stoned and stabbed, or for that matter drown an unsung man, in order to obtain a zero-percent financing deal on a Camry Solara.) Still, I'm not quite willing to go as far as John Fogerty, who says that "[w]hen you use a song for a TV commercial, it... almost turns it into nothing." Sorry, that's just too far. I'm old enough to know what "Fortunate Son" is really about. That doesn't make me 100% comfortable seeing it used to sell Wranglers, especially over Fogerty's objections, but I can't bring myself to say "Fortunate Son" is worthless today because of it. Pete's allowed -- the songs are his, he can do what he likes.

And yet I want Pete Townshend to know something. I don't know how I could ever get this message to him -- surely he wouldn't read a letter sent to the address in the WFMU blog post, would he? -- but he should know what's happened between me and the Beach Boys. You see, way back in my formative years (c. 1984), when I was just becoming dimly aware of things like Pet Sounds and Who's Next from the record bins at PathMark of all places, someone in control of the Beach Boys' catalog licensed a couple of songs for use in TV commercials. I'd heard these melodies on the AM radio in mom's 1972 Polara, and had some idea of "Good Vibrations" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice," but I hadn't yet processed the lyrics or reached any kind of understanding of what the songs were all about.

At this stage, my young mind was just waiting for these songs to arrive in thirty-second bursts, delivered multiple times daily throughout an entire summer of paper routes and Yankee games on WPIX. I'm afraid that at this critical stage, the authors of advertising campaigns for Tropicana and Sunkist beat the actual Beach Boys to my cortex. And, worse still, they didn't use the original lyrics. Either brand probably could've gotten away with simply associating itself with the feel-good summertime sound of the Beach Boys, but instead, both companies elected to go the extra mile and write brand-new lyrics for those classic songs. (This occurred over the vehement objections of Brian Wilson and his brothers, by the way. My understanding is that World's Greatest Dad Murry Wilson cut a deal to sell the publishing rights several years earlier, sacrificing untold millions in the process.)

I hope that if he were alive today, Murry Wilson would be happy to know that today, at age 34, when I hear "Wouldn't It Be Nice," I have to consciously decide whether I am listening to a song about two innocent young lovers staring at the precipice of adulthood, or whether I am preparing to drink a long-forgotten orange-juice-to-go product called a Tropicana Chugger. I hope he would be pleased to know that when I hear his son's masterpiece, "Good Vibrations," I briefly think of the rhyming line "Sunkist orange soda taste sensations" instead of anticipating the idea that she's giving me excitations. The meanings of these songs have not been trivialized to me; they've been replaced by other meanings! They were ruined before I got a chance to really enjoy them for what they were.

And so, Pete Townshend, I hope you're looking forward to someone else's generation -- not yours -- believing all the wrong things about your songs. I hope people misconstrue your songs, and believe they're about the opposite of what you really meant when you wrote them. Because it's obvious that those things don't matter to you anymore, that you yourself believe that "Bargain" has simply run its course. If you treat it as ancient history, as something that happened 35 years ago and that doesn't really matter anymore, I'll gladly think of it that way too. Good luck being part of the fossil record. May history be kinder to you as a car salesman than as a songwriter.


FMFM: "Substitute"

Throwing horns

If you happen to have an opinion on Probot, the Darkness, Early Man, Chuck Klosterman, the NWOBHM, Demoniac, or Thurston Moore's Cronos seven-inch, then Dave Burns probably has an opinion about your opinion somewhere in this lengthy screed.

(Via WFMU's Beware of the Blog -- and thanks for the Freakwater 45 transfer, skips and all.)


FMFM: Nothing of the kind

Seven times today

May I give to you The Hold Steady's "Chips Ahoy"? (Via MFR, obviously.)

Crikey

Incredibly, this may have occurred while we were watching Grizzly Man last night.

Torn ACL

Observations after stumbling upon a rerun of Austin City Limits on PBS last night:

∙Wilco sounds better with Nels Cline.
∙"I'm A Wheel" is still one of their worst songs ever. Just say nein.
∙"Ashes of American Flags" would be better without the bit about the ATM and the unlit cigarettes.
∙Bright Eyes is terrible. Dylan? Are you kidding? The emperor doesn't even have skin, let alone clothes.
∙M. Ward will be worth seeing in person later this month. (Again. He's come a long way.)


FMFM: Lambchop's Aw C'mon: Irony faked its own death. Of course it did.

Click click camera

I braved the exceptionally foul bathrooms of 330 Ritch in San Francisco in order to check out buzzed-about Los Angeles band Silversun Pickups on Friday night. We weren't interested in openers Communiqué, so after a round at the nearby Eagle Drift-In, the Boss and I arrived just in time for what we hope was Silversun's first song.

Silversun sounded like their records: alive, moody, and strong. The band's rhythm section plays with such authority that the guys on top (guitar and keyboard, though sometimes they'll trick you as to who's playing what) can hardly go wrong. Not only do they deploy the soft/LOUD/soft technique common to the Pixies, Nirvana and countless grunge-era bands, but they're also fond of the same rhythmic imbalances that the Pixies used -- riffs that come around again on weird beats, barely hanging in 4/4 like a flywheel spinning in time. Derivative? Possibly. Effective? Yeah, it still is. Maybe there just isn't anyone else doing it quite this way anymore. Sure, they add a few things Nirvana never did -- electronic noise, for example, that turns up from time to time. I hear they're into My Bloody Valentine too, and it shows.

I'm not sure I'm in love with singer Brian Aubert's overdrive gear -- he screeches in nearly every song, nearly exactly the same way. (To his credit, he does time the screeches creatively, sometimes slipping in and out of hollerin' mode for only a word or two before returning to his regular stage-whisper vocals.) I think I'd like them better if the bassist sang more. She added a lot when she did.

Silversun asks a lot of you. In addition to playing fairly punishing music, the band demands steady attention -- even concentration -- and plays songs with ever-building drama. That's why I found Aubert's mid-song mugging for the cameras to be such a mistake. Head down, screech in full effect, tension off the charts, he looks up and sees... a field of camera phones and digital cameras, and starts grinning at people in the front rows! And posing for them, and glancing sidelong at them as he executes his next perfect gesture with guitar, so it looks like he's spinning out of control but it's really perfectly controlled. The bullshit detector in me ticks toward the red when I see this moment.

Now I know it can't be easy to play a gig like this -- radio station signs everywhere, Pretty In Pink on TV next to the stage (how insulting!), alternating pornography and cartoons projected on a screen on the other side of the room in full view of the band members (how extremely insulting!). And now, with blog buzz emerging as the next big thing for breaking bands, maybe it's important to realize that all eyez are on you. But I couldn't help but feel that Aubert undermined the strength of his performance with those fleeting moments that said, "Whatever I'm singing about near the climax of this song, it's not as important as how I look right now."

I once saw Mark Eitzel strengthen his performance by doing the same thing. In the midst of one of his so-sad-it's-comical tales of alcoholic depression and shame, he spotted a Spin photographer at stage left, and shot him a grin that simultaneously said, "Get out of my face" and "Sure I'll smile pretty for you." (They ran that one in the magazine, probably eleven or twelve years ago. You could look it up.) This wasn't the same. It said, "I know who's watching, and I'm ready for my close-up."

One more thing: Apart from 330 Ritch's unforgivable presentation, rock-club crowds may start to become more irritating than ever. Remember a few weeks ago when I had to remind myself not to watch the video monitors at Shoreline? Now there's the buzz-band version: In order to see the band, you have to look past three or four different two-inch screens, held aloft in front of you by show attendees seeking to preserve and distribute the moment by the time the band gets back to the hotel. You never had to deal with that at a Pixies show -- at least not the first time around.


FMFM: Muswell Hillbillies, with bonus tracks. Back in 1971, he really did sing, "They're trying to build a computerized community, but they'll never make a zombie out of me." I'd say old Ray got really lucky with that one, except, he didn't.