At this year’s College Music Journal Music Marathon, I decided to take a cue from CMJ’s name and keep a journal of my four days at the festival.
Wednesday: bus ride, Tom’s Diner and Steve Earle
So there I was, wandering through Prospect Park, Brooklyn, trying to figure out just what I was going to write about for my Wednesday entry if I didn’t technically attend a concert. I finally settled on an analysis of a homeless man’s performance of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” on the F train to Brooklyn. He had the rasp down pat, I’m telling you.
My beloved Chinatown bus to New York City took a slight detour this afternoon – specifically to Philadelphia – and because of this, I was slightly late getting into the city. In fact, I made it to Lincoln Center at 6:30 p.m., half an hour after the folks running the 2006 Music Marathon ended registration for the day, which meant that I would be deprived of my magical badge that would grant me access to rock clubs across the boroughs. Luckily for me, a woman who was helping to break down the booth took pity on me and gave me a volunteer badge to be used for that night, and I trotted off to my friend’s apartment in midtown to drop off my bags and grab something to eat (in all my infinite wisdom, I had kind of forgotten to consume sustenance that day, with the exception of a Diet Coke and a Rice Krispie Treat – hi mom and dad, I’m doing fine).
So, after supping at Tom’s Diner, a.k.a. “Seinfeld’s” Monk’s, I went off to the Bowery Ballroom for the night’s buzziest show, Cold War Kids and Tapes ‘n’ Tapes. Unfortunately, the Pitchfork brigade was out in full force that night, and the venue was full, so I had to regroup. Looking at the schedule, I quickly settled on Steve Earle and Allison Moorer as a second option, and off I went to Brooklyn, which brings me back to the beginning, traversing the darkening Fifth Avenue and wondering if this venue, Southpaw, actually exists, as the minutes and the blocks keep passing without hope. And then I see it, up on the right, a small building, with people the age of my parents, in unfortunately tucked-in shirts and cowboy hats, jostling for position to get into the building. This must be the place.
I wandered in just in time to see Moorer finish off her set – all soaring vocals and dropped g’s – as in darlin’ and wonderin’ and wishin’. She closes with a touching cover of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” and the guy beside me with the giant belt buckle shed a tear. The pathos was short-lived, though, as Earle took the stage. Despite the fact that the rotund Texan declared early that “I’m not young enough or hip enough to live in Brooklyn,” he immediately became the coolest mother in the room. Well, I suppose that wasn’t too difficult, considering the clientele in that room was me and a couple hundred bearded dentists, so I’ll say he immediately became the coolest mother on the island. He told stories about friends of Bob Dylan, gave the finger to someone who yelled for “Freebird,” berated politicians in sing-along fashion and just generally reminded everyone how badass country music can be. The scenesters might have been at the Bowery tonight, but none of them could hold a white-belted candle to Mr. Steve Earle.
Thursday: the difference between drug music and dance music
My day began at a screening of “Stranger Than Fiction” in Tribeca. I got to the show half an hour early, so I went off in search of a slice of pizza. Unfortunately, all I found was a Sbarro. It wasn’t the worst food I’ve ever had, but I felt kind of dirty – isn’t eating at a Sbarro in New York City kind of like eating at a Taco Bell in Mexico? Note to self: go to Famous Ray’s tomorrow to atone. Anyway, I made it to the move, which I liked, and then it was time for the evening’s entertainment. What to choose, what to choose …
After a night of outlaw country, I figured I’d go to the other end of the spectrum tonight, so I headed to Webster Hall, where ‘next big thing’ Hot Chip was playing. Now, I did not know very much about Hot Chip. I knew they are English, and that they performed at a 24-hour gig that a friend of mine from London went to this summer, and ergo are probably entirely too cool for me, as I do not go to 24-hour gigs in London, but I digress. Actually, I knew one other thing, and that is that they have a song, “Over and Over,” that seeps in to your consciousness and permeates your brain, so I figured I’d go off in search of the source of such an earworm.
Unfortunately, when I got there, Hot Chip was not playing. Instead, Gang Gang Dance was on stage, and I feel like I’m being generous when I say that Gang Gang Dance was terrible. I know electronic stuff gets a bad rap for being, uh, psychopharmaceutically enhanced. I personally don’t buy this, as I know some people just want to dance, but I’d actually feel a lot better if I knew this band, and the people clapping for them, were on some sort of really powerful drugs. It would make the music, and the applause, more plausible. Singer Liz Bougatsos wore a torn Ghostface Killah T-shirt. This article of clothing had more soul than anyone in the band.
After enduring Gang Gang Dance’s set, and thinking that my friend in London better be right about how good Hot Chip is, I watched the band came on stage, and good God, everything was forgiven. Singer Alexis Taylor rocked green plastic frames like a candyland Elvis Costello, synt man Joe Goddard wore what can only be described as a Cosby sweater, and the entire band immediately went into it in a way that reminded me what’s wonderful about indie dance music. When it fails, electronica is often too clean, too pristine, too clinical. Hot Chip, on the other hand, was positively warm. During “And I Was A Boy From School,” the band somehow combined the best aspects of Gang of Four and early U2 by compelling everyone to dance and sing along like it was a freaking arena anthem. They closed with “Over and Over,” and at that point they had everyone in the room believing they could be New Order if they wanted to.
I left the venue floating on air, and stopped by Cosmic Cantina (a burrito place indigenous to North Carolina that has its single non Research Triangle location in New York City, thanks to some enterprising Duke students with more money than sense) before stopping by Bowery Ballroom on the way home to see if I could get in to see the Shins’ 1 a.m. set. No dice. I didn’t care though, as my heart was still syncopated with the rhythms of “Over and Over,” and you can’t really be mad in such a state.
Friday: my badge proves fallible
“No badges for this show, only tickets.”
“!#$@^%&*”
I would have actually cursed right there, but they haven’t yet invented a swear word that describes what I was feeling at that moment. I was standing outside the Hammerstein Ballroom, hoping to see the Decemberists, who I had missed in D.C. the previous week, and I was faced with the cruel reality and the kind security guard telling me that it wasn’t going to happen. It, it was in the little booklet they gave me. No one ever said anything about the show requiring a ticket. I really wanted to go listen to Colin Meloy sing words that only Joanna Newsom and maybe my head English tutor at Oxford could understand.
!#$@^%&*
Okay, okay, I can find something else. Let’s see, I just saw Architecture in Helsinki, so that’s out. Ummm, oh the Grates, they’re playing at …Bowery Ballroom. So I took the J train for the third consecutive night, halfway expecting to get turned away at the door again. This time I was lucky, though, and I wandered in during a set by Annuals, a North Carolina band specializing in aesthetically pleasing noise. They were followed by the Fields, who made swirly shoe-gazer pop in the mold of My Bloody Valentine, and were pleasant enough. This was all mere prelude, however, to Mew, a band from Denmark who came on stage and blew it to pieces. A friend declared that they “fucking melt your face off – that must be what it’s like when angels sing to you when you get to Heaven,” and while this may be slightly hyperbolic, there was something slightly otherworldly about the band, with the vox coming off like music of the stars, riding a crest of melody that never stopped growing,
The audience was spent after Mew’s set, and most of the packed house filed out, which was a shame, as the Grates came on next and put on an amazing show. Playing to an audience of about seventy, the band opened with “Trampoline,” and singer Patience Hodgson jumped around the stage like it was one. At one point, she took advantage of the almost empty venue, and came down among the crowd to sing “Rock Boys,” while twirling a pink ribbon. Howlers like “Lies Are Much More Fun” bounced around the empty room, reverberating to the end as everyone wandered out in to the night air for some much needed sleep or another cup of coffee.
Saturday: Living Ghosts in New York City
Looking through the guide, I had noticed a screening of “Lord Don’t Slow Me Down,” the new Oasis documentary, and good God, Noel freaking Gallagher was going to be there. I figured that there are maybe five people in America who care about this, but I’m one of them, so I headed downtown at 2 p.m. to see a hero of my fifth grade existence.
What the hell, there was a line around the block. Come on, everyone makes fun of me when I say I love Oasis, or they think I’m being ironic. Apparently I’m not in the minority I thought I was – maybe I need to stop hanging out with hipsters. The documentary is entertaining, with the highlight coming as Noel explains that his brother Liam thought that “This Is Spinal Tap” was real, which is appropriate as the entire thing comes off as a bit of a rockumentary (I mean, come on, there are rapping midgets here. Really, guys?), one that displays the band as the stupid louts that they maybe are. None of that matters, though, when “Don’t Look Back in Anger” plays over the end credits. I don’t care if they aren’t rocket scientists, Oasis was Great. It’s pretty stunning to see the difference between Oasis, who might be dumb, and their opening act Jet, who is both dumb and talentless. After the screening Noel takes questions and is appropriately surly.
Continuing with the theme of taking in art by people you thought were dead, that night I got to Hiro Ballroom to see the Fall. I walk in, and the first thing I see are Japanese lanterns, delicate and incandescent and far above us. The second thing I see is a group of five pretty young people on stage, and I think to myself “This is not the Fall.” And then an old-ish man walks on stage and says “Good evening, we are the Fall-uh.” Ah, Mark E. Smith. Okay, so it’s not the Fall, it’s Mark E. Smith and five strangers, but that’s enough, and I sit back to enjoy the main reason that James Murphy has a career (well, the main tangible reason – irony and hipster self-loathing don’t have physical manifestations).
Except here’s the thing: it’s kind of terrible. This is unbelievably disappointing. I mean, sure, Smith doesn’t look the part anymore – his jowels don’t jive with a genre consistently described as angular – but that’s not it. They look like they just don’t care. And they don’t, apparently, because they leave the stage after about forty-five minutes, and they don’t come back. People are begging for an encore – I think I was standing behind Dick and Barry from “High Fidelity,” and they were particularly invested – and the clapping goes on forever. Even though I am clapping along with everyone else, I find myself kind of hoping they don’t return. The set was terrible, which everyone there sort of recognizes, so a return would be a mere acknowledgment of the band’s role as a museum exhibit, a sort of sad display on Bring Your Post-Punk Band to School day. They don’t come back out, which is just about the only thing that salvaged the image I had of them. People booed, but I left oddly smiling.
