Belle & Sebastian @ DAR Constitution Hall, Washington, DC 10/14/2010
I Didn’t See It Coming / I’m A Cuckoo / Step Into My Office, Baby / Like Dylan In The Movies / I’m Not Living In The Real World / Piazza, New York Catcher / I Want The World To Stop / Lord Anthony / Sukie In The Graveyard / Green Onions / Read The Blessed Pages / I Fought In A War / Write About Love / Dog On Wheels / The Boy With The Arab Strap / Dirty Dream Number Two / Simple Things / Sleep The Clock Around // If You Find Yourself Caught In Love / Judy And The Dream Of Horses

Belle & Sebastian “I Want the World to Stop”

Ahhh, another great Belle & Sebastian concert in support of their fantastic new album Dear Catastrophe Waitress! Oh, no, sorry, the new one is called Write About Love. Maybe you can see why a person could get confused about that. I guess they just really like that album these days? Obviously, a lot more than The Life Pursuit, which is my favorite.

Anyway, this was a fine set, even if some of the more energetic moments seemed a bit forced/overly staged. I like the way Belle & Sebastian have evolved into this very professional, very charming bunch of entertainers, right on down to including silly rituals like tossing autographed (American) footballs into the audience at every gig. The downside to the group’s professionalism and eagerness to please is that they’ve come to the point of nearly apologizing for playing new material, which they really shouldn’t be so bashful about given that “I Want the World To Stop” and “I’m Not Living in the Real World” were obvious crowd-pleasers and Write About Love is now available in stores. I would’ve enjoyed a few more songs from that record — “Come On Sister” and “The Ghost of Rockschool” might have been great additions to the set. Nevertheless, aside from “Lord Anthony,” which I’ve never particularly cared for, it’s hard to argue against anything they did play. Such a great catalog.

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Belle & Sebastian “Judy and the Dream of Horses” [BBC session version]

I was very glad to hear “Judy and the Dream of Horses,” which was a song I listened to all the time when I lived in DC for a spell about fourteen years ago. Earlier in the day, I visited where I used to live and retraced some familiar paths from back then, and so the nostalgia was fresh in mind. “Judy” will always remind me of someone very specific, and so I thought of her too — the star upon her shoulder lighting up the path as she walked the street from morning to night, falling asleep with ants in her pants, worrying about the best-looking boys, giving herself to books and learning. I wondered about where she was now, what her life has become, who she might be. I’m kinda glad that I don’t know, though.

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Veruca Salt “Number One Blind”

Almost inevitably, this new decade will bring us a large crop of bands recycling ’90s guitar rock. Of all the various strains of ’90s rock, I think the most quintessential and commercial is “alt-rock,” an aesthetic I think is best connected to the bands on the DGC label — Nirvana, Weezer, Hole, Elastica, Sloan, Sonic Youth, Teenage Fanclub, Veruca Salt — as well as other major label acts like Bush who were running with a similar formula and aesthetic. But what is that formula? What is that aesthetic? I think “Number One Blind” is a very good answer to those questions. In my mind, this song is a perfect example of the archetype, and just hearing it takes me back to the era of actually-pretty-great mainstream rock radio and suburban malls full of alterna-teens.

I’ll break it down for you.

* Gently rolling, thick bass line. Kim Deal has so much to answer for, and even the worst of it is pretty decent. (Like, say, “Good” by Better Than Ezra.) I think Krist Novoselic’s approximation of Deal’s style was itself extremely influential. I would argue that even ahead of fuzzy guitar tone, this is the most essential and recognizable element of ’90s alt-rock, especially when contrasted with a simple, pretty guitar figure as it is on the verse of “Number One Blind.”

* Strict verse/chorus/verse construction. I find that archetypal ’90s alt-rock very seldom includes pre-choruses, and bridges are generally quite brief. The bridge in “Number One Blind” takes us from a chorus into a solo, but it’s not necessary — a lot of songs in the subgenre will just slam a solo between choruses, or skip the solo entirely.

* Verses are mellow; choruses are loud. Duh! You stomp on your fuzz pedal when it’s time for the chorus. ’90s rock radio was basically this steady ebb and tide of soft verses and loud choruses. Black Francis didn’t invent this, but I think pretty much all of this music is directly traceable to the Pixies catalog.

* The solo break is very short. The solo is always melodic, but the playing is never too smooth or overly professional. These are mainly to add some touch of melodic flourish and to break up the rigid grid of the song’s construction for a few seconds.

* The melodies are simple. Okay, but not so much that it’s totally sing-song.

* The vocals have an arch quality. This depends on the character of the frontperson, but there’s pretty much always some touch of irony and bitterness in the tone.

* Obscure title and/or lyrical references. The chorus — “Levolor, which of us is blind?” is a play on words — blindness, as in obliviousness, and Levolor, as in the manufacturer of window blinds. There’s a metaphor in here, but it’s not fully formed, which is pretty much the way things go in this style. It’s more about suggesting an idea and an image rather that explicating it. Bonus points for the specific reference to Levolor, which has some kind of nostalgic quality despite being a brand that still exists.

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Antony and the Johnsons “I’m In Love”

A lot of people sing about feeling overwhelmed by love, but in this song, Antony really does sound like it, as if he could just pass out at any moment as a result of love overload. A lot of this effect comes from the arrangement, which is light, gently shifting, and doesn’t seem to have any solid center. The song is all free-floating joy without any sense of stability, which is a pretty good metaphor and approximation of intense infatuation. There are some great, unexpected details in this arrangement. I’m particularly fond of that tapping, shuffling percussive sound in the last minute or so — it’s right on the edge of being distracting, but it works for just that reason. It’s like some feeling or sensation that gets in the way of the huge, emotional sweep of the song.

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Women “China Steps”

The steady bass pulse and detuned guitar rattle throughout this song get a nice horror movie vibe going on, but what really makes “China Steps” sound creepy is that the track seems to be haunted by the ghost of Layne Staley. The vocals share a similar tonality with the late Alice In Chains singer, but they are low in the mix and washed out in reverb, making the words almost entirely indecipherable, and filling the empty space in the track with a non-specific dread that amps up the already high level of paranoia evoked by the composition. Happy Halloween.

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No Age “Valley Hump Crash”

I don’t usually like it when guitars are mixed loud over a thin lead vocal, but it works very well here, mainly because the guitar seems to whoosh by like the ambient noise you get in a car going fast with the windows rolled down. I can’t hear this without thinking of being a passenger in a car going fast to nowhere in particular; it has this perfect balance of laid-back melancholy and careless momentum. The sadness is muted a bit, but despite not being a particularly good singer, Dean Spunt conveys a bit of conflicted nuance when he plaintively calls out the name Catalina over and over at the song’s climax.

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Elvis Costello and the Attractions “Two Little Hitlers”

My favorite Elvis Costello songs tend to be the ones where he is least sympathetic and kind of an asshole, but you’re with him because he’s coming from this highly relatable position of wanting some unattainable thing very badly. He’s brilliant at blending pettiness with yearning romance and making it seem appealing, maybe because he always self-aware enough to make a joke of his worst impulses without canceling out the emotional truth of his darkest, most selfish feelings. “Two Little Hitlers” is a parody of the power plays in romantic and sexual relationships in which the singer — a man who doesn’t seem to have anywhere near the sort of power in these situations he would want — imagines himself with the authority of a ruthless dictator. He’s a mess of seething resentments and deep insecurities, trying in vain to establish some kind of uncomplicated physical relationship in which he has the upper hand, but he keeps finding himself in a battle of the wills with another imagined tyrant. The song is perky and light in tone, full of great little melodic hooks that go by quickly on the way to the next bit. This highlights the humor of the piece — this could be played for drama, but it’s more pointed as a bitter joke at the expense of its character.

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Jumbling Towers “Ramifications Of An Exciting Spouse”

I like the way this song never lets you get a good idea of exactly what it is. It keeps mutating and shifting and adding all these musical elements that maybe shouldn’t add up. It’s like a person in a surprising outfit of mismatched items that work because they are good looking in a distinct sort of way. There’s a spot or two where the song threatens to fall off the rails — specifically the bit with the title phrase — but it snaps back into place and moves on to another oddball hook. This could do with a bit more finesse, but there is a great character to this music, and the catchy, interesting bits really do pile up.

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James Blake “Klavierwerke”

There’s a particular sound in this piece that really grabs me, and I can’t really describe it in musical terms. It’s the bit that sounds like someone being suddenly teleported somewhere against their will. It’s the part that sounds like R2-D2 unexpectedly running out of battery charge. It’s the noise that is like a little universe getting shrunk down to nothingness. Do you know what I mean? It’s ghostly and colorful and weird. The rest of the composition is like a frame for that one incredible sound.

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Discodeine featuring Jarvis Cocker “Synchronize”

I wish Jarvis Cocker would do more dance music. Like, an entire album of it. That lusty, wry, erudite voice of his fits perfectly in this context, especially when the electronic grooves and stately disco strings match his particular balance of classiness and lasciviousness. “Synchronize” is pretty straightforward in its conceit, but Cocker has a way of bending fairly standard lyrics about dancing and time just enough to make them seem fresh and sexy. Discodeine’s arrangement builds around Cocker in exciting ways — I love the rhythmic keyboard part that kicks in on the chorus, thought it’s kind of a stock move — and gives him enough space for vocal nuance as well as dramatic gestures. This is a fantastic team-up. Is there a petition we can start to get more like this?

Visit the D.I.R.T.Y./Discodeine site.

Deerhunter “He Would Have Laughed”

I don’t like the word friend very much. Its meaning has been devalued by our culture; in my mind it connotes a positive but mostly superficial relationship, like a more sentimental version of a “buddy.” When people tell me that I am a good friend or something like that, part of me has to remind myself that the person is probably being very sincere and giving me a nice compliment, so I shouldn’t feel insulted or marginalized. The classic values of friendship — of close friendship — are very important to me. I just wish we used better, more precise words to do justice to these kinds of relationships. “Friend” seems so small, trivial, and empty to me. We can do better, especially if we just describe connections with others on the terms of those particular relationships rather than use any one word to describe a wide variety of relationships.

“Friend” is the word that rings out most in “He Would Have Laughed,” the final song on Deerhunter’s new album. “I know where my friends are now,” “Where did my friends go?,” “Where do your friends go?” These lines cut to the emotional core of the piece — loneliness, confusion, the self-defeating isolation of someone who keeps everyone at a distance. The song was written in memory of Jay Reatard, who was by most accounts a rather difficult and angry guy. I hear the song as being about the loss of a frustrating person, the kind who shuts you out, rejects your sentimentality, and behaves like an asshole. The kind of person you love and respect in spite of themselves, or how they treat you. I don’t hear judgment, or even grief in this music. All I hear is empathy and kindness.

I think this song is a major breakthrough for Bradford Cox and Deerhunter. To my ears, this is their most sophisticated and graceful piece of music. The arpeggiated guitar parts and synthesizer tones in this are almost certainly the most beautiful sounds Cox has set to tape; the way the percussion gently guides us from section to section is subtle and lovely, especially for a band whose drummer is commonly derided as a weak link. “He Would Have Laughed” is as pretty as it is devastating. It seems to stretch out in all directions, follows a tangent into a distinct second movement, and abruptly stops, all in the pursuit of answers to its many questions. The sudden conclusion is the punchline of a cosmic joke. He would have laughed.

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Marnie Stern “Risky Biz”

What kills me about “Risky Biz” is that it mostly sounds optimistic. She’s singing about knowing that she’ll have to give up, she’s singing about how whatever she does is not enough, but despite miserable chances, she’s holding on to the hope that things will turn out right. Why? Because he outshines them all, duh. And so the anxiety is somehow worth it, even when it’s so obvious that she’s giving up too much of herself, and she should just let go, cut her losses, move on. It’s so sad, and so sweet. The longing comes through in every note she plays, every aching syllable she sings, but most especially in that fragile, wordless backing vocal that punctuates the verses. That’s the pain, hidden deep below the surface, but totally obvious all along.

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The xx @ United Palace Theater 10/2/2010
Intro / Crystalised / Heart Skipped A Beat / Basic Space / Fantasy / Shelter / Show Me Love / Teardrops / VCR / Islands / Night Time / Infinity // Stars

The xx “Shelter”

A few times in this show, Oliver Sim mentioned that it was hard to believe that his band was playing the United Palace — an enormous, ornate church/theater that is only a bit smaller than Radio City Music Hall — only a year after starting out at the tiny, no-frills Mercury Lounge. Relentless touring, licensing, and especially enthusiastic word of mouth has served them very well — I definitely got the feeling that a large portion of Saturday’s audience, like myself, hadn’t gotten around to seeing them in concert yet, despite the fact that they’ve played at least ten shows of increasing size in New York City alone since last fall. (They just headlined a free show at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield only two months ago.) I am certainly glad that I held out for this large indoor gig, which allowed them to go full-on with their excellent, thoughtfully crafted light show. The lighting design was crucial in building up the sense of drama they were creating on stage and keeping the band largely hidden in shadows, adding to their mystique.

It makes a lot of sense to me that the xx would catch as they have. Without any perceptible trace of cynicism, they were able to fill a niche in the marketplace that’s been inexplicably underserved in recent years — dark, emotional, genuinely sexy pop music. I mean, given the sheer number of bands out there, how did it take so long for anyone to competently find the middle ground between mid-90s trip hop/R&B and Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”? It seems like such a no-brainer, but when it comes down to it, without the raw talent, charisma, and vocal chemistry, the xx could easily miss their mark entirely. I used to think that Sim’s voice was inferior to that of Romy Madley Croft, but I’ve come around to liking him quite a lot — there’s a great amount of character in his voice, and his low-key intensity complements Croft’s earnest fragility rather well. This music would fail without total commitment, and that’s what they give. Judging by the audience response, it’s also when they get in return.

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