A Saleable Commodity

Jonathan Richman at The Goat Farm, Atlanta, March 6, 2014

March Madness, Day Three: Jonathan Richman kicking off his 2014 tour with the second of two nights at The Goat Farm. He says that he likes the place, both for the sound of the room and the artistic ambiance of the center, and the intimate setting seems perfectly suited to him.

Photo by Alex Weiss

I've lost track of the number of times I've seen Richman since the first performance I caught back in 1986 at the QE2, a club located in the back of a White Castle in downtown Albany, New York.  That night, I knew that I would never pass up a chance to see him play again, anytime, anywhere, and over the decades since that night, I've lived up to my vow.  This is now the fourth time I've seen him in recent years (post-2010), following performances at The Star Bar, the Highland Inn, and last year at this same venue, and I'm confident that I've seen him many more times than I've seen any other performer.

Photo by Alex Weiss

Sorry for all of these "borrowed" photos from Facebook, but it's a testament to Richman's performance that even though I brought both a camera and a Droid with me, I was so mesmerized by the performance that I forgot to take any pictures until the one cell-phone pic at the top of this post.

Photo by Alex Weiss

Last night's setlist relied heavily on relatively recent material, with many songs sung in French and Italian. The only "old" song from the "classic" Jonathan Richman period was I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar, but he also performed newer favorites like Vermeer and Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild. But Richman's performances have long ago surpassed mere covers of classic favorites or the rolling out of a bunch of new songs to promote the latest album, and have become intimate, unique expressions of the present moment in whatever venue he's finds himself playing.  

As always, he was accompanied by his long-time drummer, Tommy Larkins, with whom he's developed near-telepathic empathy, and together that make their minimalist yet highly expressive music sound like it rolls naturally and effortlessly out from their heart.

Beyond the above, I don't know what else there is to say about a Jonathan Richman performance, and I mean that as a compliment of the highest order.  Words don't justify, etc.  It was a great show, and I'll leave it at that, except to add that I also appreciated the fact that the show wrapped up by 10:00 pm, and that I was home in bed by 11.  Yes, I know, unlike the eternally youthful Richman, I'm getting old. . . .

Hipster Music

Today's meme:  you may already have seen this today in an email or Facebook or elsewhere on line, but if not, here's a summary - the Cliff Notes version.  My only question is why is Kurt Vile on the hipster side of the line in the chart, but in the non-hipster side in the table?

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Purling Hiss at Terminal West, Atlanta - March 4, 2013

Tuesday night, March 4: Day 2 of March Madness.  Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks with Purling Hiss at Terminal West.

I'll say this - Stephen Malkmus can shred a guitar with the best of them, but for sheer guitar pyrotechnics, Mike Polizze of Purling Hiss just about upstaged Malkmus at his own game, putting on a non-stop showcase of powerhouse guitar explorations.  

We saw Purling Hiss back during Rocktober 2011 at The Earl, when they blew us away opening for fellow Philadelphians The War of Drugs.  In the 2 1/2 years since that performance, Purling Hiss has only improved, honing and polishing their blown-out, psychedelic sound to a fine burnish.  I strongly recommend you catch these guys live if you ever get a chance - I know I won't pass on an opportunity to hear them again.

Headliner Stephen Malkmus lived up to the high expectations his reputation commands, and while he played in a very different style that Purling Hiss, he quickly made the audience forget what came before and took us to a whole new level.

With Pavement, Maalkmus can make a legitimate claim to be the inventor of indie rock as we know it today, and at this point in his career, he has now released more albums as The Jicks than as Pavement.  He seemed comfortable in his own skin on stage, unleashing his music on the audience at his own pace, and he genuinely seemed to enjoy doing it.  He opened the set with Surreal Teenagers from his latest album, the fine Wig Out at Jagbags, and during the set, managed to cover Tigers, Senator, J Smoov and many more Jicks favorites.

Bonus points:  Doors at 7:00, music started at 8:00, two bands, got home by 11:00.  I survived a Tuesday night, and lived to see another Wednesday of gainful employment.

Yuck

I Break Horses

Hot, summery video from Sweden for a cold day in Dixie.

March Madness: Talking Heads, Phantom Fest, and More

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.