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.