March Madness began last night. No, not the collegiate basketball tournament that goes by the same name, but the overabundance of musicians and bands that seem to come through the City of Atlanta in March of every year. My theory is that the bands are either heading to or from SXSW, the first major festival of the year, and picking up a gig in Atlanta on their way between Austin and Brooklyn or Chapel Hill or wherever, or if they're coming from the Left Coast, making a tour of the trip by playing up and down the East Coast. Either way, Atlanta's strategically located between Texas and the big Bos-Wash cities of the East. There's even a festival down on the coast called Savannah Stopover for bands en route to SXSW, but almost all the bands playing the Stopover are also stopping over in Atlanta at some point or another for a show here in town. So, welcome to March Madness!
However, last night's kickoff of March Madness had nothing whatsoever to do with the annual indie-band migration. One of the other curious things about Atlanta is that is seems that the big touring acts rarely play in town on weekends. Sure, there are exceptions, but by and large, the national artists seem to play here on Mondays through Thursdays (way too often on Mondays for my liking, as that's the one night of the week it's difficult for me to catch a show). There must be an economic reason for this - perhaps the bands can draw bigger crowds on weekends at college towns like Athens and Knoxville and Gainesville, and every band manager from Seattle to Austin to Brooklyn knows this and purposely plays elsewhere during the weekends and only plays Atlanta during the week between gigs in the college towns. I'm just speculating here, but that's what it feels like.
This leaves all the stages in town open on Friday and Saturday night for the local musicians, which is no problem as Atlanta has an excellent local music scene. Case in point: last night, the Atlanta collective known appropriately as The ATL Collective put on a show at The Goat Farm featuring two terrific bands, Atlanta's Hello Ocho and Athens' Reptar, supported by vocalist Natasha Williams, performing The Talking Heads' classic album Speaking In Tongues in its entirety.
From my perspective, Talking Heads' artistic pinnacle was their previous album, Remain In Light, but Speaking In Tongues still holds a special place in my heart. I was 29 years old when the album came out in 1983, and for some reason, it's always felt to me like "my" Talking Heads album - the one written and recorded by the band with me in mind. This is purely projection, I know, but it was released when I was at that precipice in life when I was finally old enough to critically discern and select among the bands to which I listened but still young enough not to feel self-conscious about my enthusiasms, and to believe that the band was performing, if not for me directly, at least with someone like me in mind. In any event, I loved the album and played it incessantly for several months of 1983.
Thirty-one years later, both Reptar and Hello Ocho took the Goat Farm stage together, and fronted by Ms. Williams, belted out the album opener and Talking Heads' most successful single, Burning Down the House.
They played the tracks in the order of the album, with Reptar and Ms. Williams leaving the stage and Hello Ocho performing the next two cuts, Making Flippy Floppy and Girlfriend Is Better.
Reptar took the stage next to cover Slippery People, followed by I Get Wild/Wild Gravity accompanied again by Natasha Williams. Both bands did a fine job of walking the line between performing purely imitative covers on one extreme and totally subverting the material for their own purposes on the other. Except for the addition of Ms. Williams on some of the cuts, all of the songs from the album as performed last night sounded like the way either band would have chosen to cover the song if they had otherwise decided to include that song as a cover in their sets, and not just for this one-off event.
My only complaint about the night is that for some reason, after about 20 minutes of performing the first five songs from the album, the bands took about a 30-or-so minute break before coming back on stage to play the B-side of the album. Why two bands need a 30-minute break after a mere five songs is beyond me, but as is so often the case at concerts, as soon as the music started again, all was forgiven.
Hello Ocho kicked off the flip side of the record with Swamp, followed by Reptar performing Moon Rocks and Pull Up the Roots.
For the finale, both bands took the stage again and performed the album's closer, the lyrical This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody).
Reptar got the headline spot in the billing, and reportedly played a set after the album tribute was over, but I didn't stay around for it. Nothing against Reptar (quite the contrary), but I wanted to get downtown to catch the end of something called Phantom Fest, an day-long celebration showcase of Blood Drunk Records artists and the EP-release party for Atlanta's DAMS.
I've talked here before about the two music-processing systems in the human mind, the veridical system that responds to familiar sounds and lights up when, say, a favorite song comes on the radio, and the sequential system that responds to new sounds and likes to anticipate the next note or tone in a new composition. Everyone has both systems in their brain and no one is all one way or the other, although the two systems might also describe two separate musical experiences as well as two different sets of music fans. Last night provided a workout for both system - the familiar, veridical experience of hearing those classic Talking Heads songs over again, and the sequential adventures of Phantom Fest.
The Mammal Gallery is the newest venue in Atlanta, located way downtown in an otherwise desolate part of the City, and serves as both a stage for music and an art gallery. I understand the club is run or co-run by Chris Yonkers of Hello Ocho, who apparently couldn't make Phantom Fest as they were obviously otherwise engaged at The Goat Farm. When I got there, the band Bees and Enormous Tigers were on stage, making an enormous amount of feedback-generated, post-rock sound.
DAMS were up next, taking the stage sometime after midnight (I was starting to lose track of time by this point). DAMS are something of an Atlanta super-group, made up of young but veteran members of the Atlanta music scene. Fronted by the soulful vocals of Kace Brennan, the band also features powerhouse drummer Sarah Wilson, arguably the best drummer in town, the twin guitars of the talented Brett Reagan and David Carter, and the fine bassist Bret Phillips.
DAMS' music is complex and large, incorporating as many genres as possible, often in the same song, often at the same time. Here's a pretty good sample:
Their set at The Mammal Gallery was nothing short of a triumph, but left me too emotionally drained to stay around for the closing set by bizarro-band Dip. One thing about the sequential processing system - it takes up a lot more effort than the casual experience of the veridical system.
As you can tell by the show listing over there on the right, there are a lot more concerts this month - a lot more this week - and one could probably go to a worthwhile show every night of the month and still miss some good sets. I'm going to have to pace myself (damn that gainful employment!) and see how much March Madness I can take in. Wish me well.
