Holiday Music

A few weeks ago I was excited about Au Revoir Simone playing two NYC shows (6/29 & 6/30), and ambivalent about We Are Scientists, the headliners... but when the 6/30 show soldout, I leapt at Jean's offer to see the first evening. As much as I love their intimate album, I found Au Revoir Simone to be cold on stage and not much fun at all. But We Are Scientists really blew me away. Their songs were jolty, plucky, full of life. The drummer in particular was a superb contrast to cold rhythms of ARS and the other opener, the tedious Double.

On the Fourth, a team of us went to Battery Park to see Belle & Sebastian. After hours of a frustratingly penned line, we finally got to stake our claim by the sound board. Storms threatened, thankfully cutting short Martha Wainwright's set short. I've now seen her twice, and will only see her as a hurdle to endure before a band I want to see.

B&S had dropped, in particular to the mediocre "Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant." Dear Catastrophe Waitress wasn't enough of a rebound, but I was open to their latest, The Life Pursuit, in part due to the unrelated collection of Belle & Sebastian comics Put the Book Back on the Shelf.. Nothing like celebrating independence with a band from the old country.

In the evening Lars & Frauke joined Jason & Mariani, Tam & Lisa and me on my roof to catch the fireworks.

Tommorrow, I'm psyched to round out the Scottish invasion with my new favorite band... Camera Obscura. I'm going to teach Mitchell some tennis strokes in the afternoon.

Thunder Lightning Struck

Man, there is nothing like a killer show full of chest thumping beats, sixties soul bass lines, and cheerleading to lift one's spirits.

Gretchen and I caught The Go!Team last night at Webster Hall. Fresh off their retooled American release of Thunder Lightning Strike, the team closed out a three week US tour.

Huddle Formation and Bottle Rockets were hugely uplifting, but they tore the house down with Ladyflash to close the show. There were some beautiful slowdowns and the video mixes of old super 8s made for a great backdrop. After all the 60s/80s/90s soul/hiphop/guitar, one of the best ballads featured a banjo and harmonica.

Quite a show for a project that started out with a guy, a computer, and lots of samples. The Team now sports a multi-ethnic troup of multi-instrumentalists.

I hadn't danced so hard in ages. It was a great reminder that as good as recordings are, one really needs to be at a venue to truely feel the power. Next up, Jason and I will see Andrew Bird in a week.5. Again, another show that transcends the albums.

A Handful of Thoughts

I was supposed to spend this afternoon with my BBBS match, Mitchell today. But he called me yesterday to say his mom didn't want him on the train because of the bomb threat. It bums me out, the way we give up our lives because of this acute fear. On one hand, there would be outrage to have a successful attack and discover people weren't warned. But on the other, officials haven't done much to convince us that an attack was prevented. We are slaves to chatter and the poor judgment of our lamest jokers.

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It was great to hang out with Bennett and the guys of Pyramid. A guy from Breakthruradio.com came to do a profile on them Sat. Their MO is give an audience to great unsigned bands. After 3 nights with the boys, my sleep schedule is all messed up. I'd never make it on tour... although I loved the shows, and got in some quality foosball.

During one of our chats, Ben argued well for improvisational music, largely based on a tension of failure, and an excitement of passing through it, topped off by true synergy and communication among the ensemble. He best described it as a conversation among instruments.

Bennett Kennedy at cello for Pyramid

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Despite the soggy drippyness of Saturday, Joe and I hit some galleries... highlights included Yuken Teruya, whom I wrote about earlier, the ever reliable Diane Arbus, and Daniel Rozin 's digital/analog "mirrors" (the picture above is from his show at Bitforms).

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My blessedly persistent friend Anna Hayman, got me out to see a show. We failed at getting to the Wooster Group's Poor Theatre, but had the great concession of Spirit at NYTW. What started as a mediocre war story, became a delightful study of storytelling and theatre in general. Done by three men of Improbable on the steepest raked stage ever, they did a fair bit of physical theatre and puppetry based work.

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I saw Capote on Friday. Seymour Phillip Hoffman and Catherine Keener were their usual splendidly chameleon selves. The shows the powerful conflict on interest Truman Capote was navigating in creating a work, in a new genre, "the non-fiction novel," while getting personally involved in the lives of those he wrote about... particularly Perry Smith. It's a relationship that remains messy... in particular I remember Janet Malcolm's "The Journalist & the Murderer." These pieces continue to aim for a portrait of reality while discarding various measure of objectivity that audiences expect.

It was also interesting that the film began with some assumption of familiarity of who Capote was, particularly by highlighting his vanity early in the film, and quick references to Breakfast at Tiffany's. Eventually we begin to see more of brilliance (his 94% memorized recall). But then the film ends with a text epilogue as if we have no idea who he was... that In Cold Blood made him the most famous author of his day, that he never finished a book afterwards, that he drunk himself to death.

There will be snacks!

Whitney, my super awesome lady-companion in crime treated us to the Andrew Bird show last night at Southpaw. In short the show was amazing and wonderful. I realize this says little about the music, so here is the longer take:

Bird’s songs are richly layered compositions of violin plucking, bowing, xylophone, whistling, percussion, guitar and vocal. But on stage he was accompanied by a percussionist. Bird plays the rest of the music himself by creating loops of live music. Often he’ll start by plucking out a simple rhythm on violin, then as the measure loop back, he’ll add texture, counterpoint, harmony, until the constructed loop is rich and complex. Then he sings, whistles and plays guitar over the loop, and stopping the loop to change the tempo, only to resume with more energy. It has some of Philip Glass’ repetition, but

Add to this a strong, confident stage presence, beautiful and engaging voice, making his show the kind of show I hope I find when I’m 50 or 60. It is intelligent, well constructed, surprising music that I think exhibits how much rock music has/can evolve.

I often think of the challenge for contemporary classical music, and especially new composition. Increasingly I think it’s becoming a chamber discipline with few practitioners and few patrons, trapped in sea of atonal compositions hard to distinguish from one another. Meanwhile popular music continues to fragment and change in exciting ways. Movies are frequently scored by popular musicians, who deftly capture the moods of a%2