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2006:02:28:23:38. Tuesday. IN PRAISE OF THE MAINSTREAM. You know how sometimes a record will come out from an established band in an established genre, a member of the mainstream not attempting to avoid the mainstream, just to dominate it, and it will be as amazing and life-changing as anything a new or avant-garde or "alternative" act could've thrown at you? R.E.M.'s Green. Who's Next. The Joshua Tree. Led Zeppelin IV. Rubber Soul. Kind of Blue. Total crap is not unique to the mainstream, but highly visible total crap is, and that's why I think it's important to recognize when mainstream culture produces a truly worthy and transcendent piece of art. And right now, I think we ought to be talking about David E. Kelley's Boston Legal in those terms. Kelley and the lawyer show genre are manifestly of the mainstream, both alone and together, and have been paired for years -- if L.A. Law hadn't gone off the air it would be in its 20th season. But if BL's mundane title -- much worse than the working title, Fleet Street -- hints at its foundation in common practices of episodic TV drama, it masks a tendency to ignore boundaries and deconstruct at will the Dick Wolfian notions that prop up much of the lawyer show genre. That this is being done by such a veteran assemblage is what's so amazing. TV drama of late has been ruled by relative newcomers -- Joss Whedon, Alan Ball, Aaron Sorkin, Rob Thomas. But here we have Kelley producing the show and writing, co-writing or polishing every script, while William Shatner and Candice Bergen prowl the soundstage in what should be a sleep-through victory lap. Instead they spring to life in what is surely their best material in years, an opportunity to create rather than manufacture a screen presence, and to bring their skills to bear in a holistic way. That BL is half farce, half liberal polemic (a welcome notion during these last few Sorkinless years) may make the show seem like an ironic, cult-directed affair, but it is, in fact, the 15th most subscribed show by TiVo users, beating out every flavor of Law & Order and the Sorkin-free version of The West Wing. While it subverts -- like Green, like Kind of Blue -- it assimilates as well. It can act as a kind of tour guide to those mired in Medium and NCIS and Las Vegas, and because of that it may be the most important show on television.
2006:02:28:08:00. NO!: THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS (#43, FEB 22 2006).
Although the show was pretty great all around, there was something a little weird about the beginning of the New Pornographers' set. Maybe it was the acoustics and/or the mix, maybe it was the awkwardness of coming onstage four months late, maybe it was not having Neko Case and Dan Bejar along. They got past it pretty quickly, whatever it was, and it wasn't long before A.C. Newman began extolling the wonders of the Canadian health care system after every song. Speaking of the absent Neko Case, this clip features the set's first prominent singing part for her understudy, Kathryn Calder of Immaculate Machine, also A.C. Newman's niece. She did a pretty job as Not-Neko, probably as good as could be expected, and it didn't seem like they skipped anything in particular because Neko wasn't with them. I still can't help but be annoyed that we missed Neko but Milwaukee will soon get a solo show and a full-on New Pornographers show, though. [Warning: Same bad angle mishaps as the Matt Pond clip in this one.]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:27:08:00. Monday. NO!: MATT POND PA (#42, FEB 22 2006).
It was delayed for four months, but the New Pornographers' Madison appearance ultimately turned out to be a terrific show. To replace their originally scheduled openers they absorbed a Matt Pond PA/Dios (Malos) show that had been planned for the same night at the Annex -- quite a boon for those two bands, as they put on impressive sets in front of a much bigger Barrymore audience. Unfortunately for me, the show had an enormous security presence -- probably as many guys in "Event Staff" shirts as there were at the Rave for Motion City Soundtrack, and that place is at least twice the size of the Barrymore. I didn't know how they might react to the camera, so I played it coy at first, which meant skipping the Dios (Malos) set and blowing the video on my first Matt Pond PA clip because I was shooting blind with the camera on my knee (the audio's available, though -- click here for "Kc"). I got things figured out for the second try, however, and everything came out pretty well. Things are a little dark due to our distance from the stage, but Pond's pleasant stage approach and light, thoughtful pop come through loud and clear.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:24:08:00. Friday. NO!: MICHAEL PENN (#41, APR 16 2005).
Besides stopping to tune all the time, Penn spent almost as much time talking about his songs as playing them, VH1 Storytellers-style. I included this tune on last year's DVD without the minute-and-a-half-long introduction, but I've restored it here so you can see what I'm talking about. Before launching into this new song, he kind of rambles on about his obsession with 1947 (which he mentioned several times), George W. Bush (also a couple times) and an ex-girlfriend. I really don't get at all how it related to the song, which is pretty good.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:23:08:00. Thursday. NO!: MICHAEL PENN (#40, APR 16 2005).
In last week's Nine Inch Nails clips, you may have noticed very bright, prominent colors; in today's and tomorrow's Michael Penn clips, you'll see just the opposite. At Penn's acoustic set from last spring, there were barely any lights on and I didn't think the clips would be usable because they were so dark. Somehow, AviSynth managed to find something in there. This is still the only show I've ever seen at Café Montmartre -- we went because my mother-in-law is a huge Michael Penn fan. She loved it, Emily was kind of bored, I thought it was decent enough but that Penn had a really weird flow. He spent a lot of time tuning and talking to the audience. This opening pair of songs, the first an old spiritual, set the tone for the whole set, a low-key and bare affair. Later on, somebody told me to stop recording, which is the only time that's ever happened to me. [Psst! New Pornographers coming next week!]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:21:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: ANDREW BIRD (#39, FEB 17 2006).
[Geez, I got all famous for calling out the don't-care-about-the-show-they-paid-$15-for contingent. Weird. I hope the High Noon doesn't blacklist me or something now.] The crazy thing, the thing I really, literally was not expecting and was taken aback by, was Andrew Bird's unassisted whistling ability. Seriously, when he came out and started blowing, it sounded like somebody had put the "Kill Bill" soundtrack on the PA, or possibly that Zamfir, master of the pan-flute, was in the house. The guy can whistle like, I don't know, a crazy whistling dude. His volume, his pitch, his melodicism, it's uncanny. It's hard to believe he's from Chicago, because a whistle like that can only come from summer day after summer day of walking down to an old North Carolina fishin' hole. If you love that whistle, I suspect you'll dig this eight-minute, extended rock-out on "I."
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:20:08:00. Monday. NO!: ANDREW BIRD (#38, FEB 17 2006).
Before saying anything else, I'd like to note that the crowd at this show was probably the rudest I've ever seen in Madison. Two-thirds of the room spent the entire show talking loudly, drowning out most of the opening set by Haley Bonar. As if that weren't bad enough, a couple individuals felt the need to make drunken shout-outs from the bar and drop glasses on the floor in the middle of the room. The amazing thing is that this is becoming endemic at the High Noon, while venues that skew younger (such as the Annex) don't appear to have any such problem. Anyway. I wasn't part of the 2005 aging hipster circlejerk over Andrew Bird (or Antony & the Johnsons or Sufjan Stevens, for that matter), but I found The Mysterious Production of Eggs to be enjoyable enough, as did Emily, so it seemed like it would be worth going to his show. Other than the awful audience, it was -- he played a number of new songs, like this one, and was really impressive as a performer. He switched from violin to guitar and from whistling to singing with ease and built up long songs that never felt as long as were (except when I was watching to recording clock on the camera tick over eight minutes(!) on one song). His stage demeanor was pretty good, too, and while I'm still not blown away by his music, I think I'd go see him again if he played somewhere in Madison other than the High Noon.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:17:08:00. Friday. NO!: NINE INCH NAILS (#37, FEB 11 2006).
No pun intended, but I was really pleased to get to see this song performed live. They didn't play much from The Fragile -- indeed, when I saw them touring The Fragile in early 2000 they didn't play much from it -- but this is one of my favorite songs from that album. I wish they'd played more from it, frankly ("Even Deeper," which they played at the show before this one, or "No, You Don't") but I can understand that the NIN back catalog is a more valuable performance asset than the new stuff. I'll keep seeing them when they come through, hopefully often enough to get to see all those great album tracks at least once.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:15:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: NINE INCH NAILS (#36, FEB 11 2006).
I was still a little edgy about the anti-camera brigade when I started recording "Closer," so I decided to put my thumb over the camera's display, making myself less visible. Of course, the result of this is that I was shooting blind until I gave up on that strategy about 30 seconds in. This performance was actually an interesting microcosm for what NIN has become -- the original six-minute version of maybe their most recognizable song was shortened to four and a half, with the chorus lick from "The Only Time" teased during the instrumental break. I'm not sure what to make of it -- it was certainly exciting to be part of the crowd singing along -- but it strikes me as somehow telling.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:13:16:46. Monday. BADLY, OBVIOUSLY. It's still relatively early in 2006, and we haven't had an opportunity for something like "I don't think anyone anticipated the breech of the levees" yet, but Mary Matalin is on the fast track for absolute, shit-eating dumbest quote of the year:
The vice president was concerned. He felt badly, obviously. On the other hand, he was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do.
Really? Because he shot some guy in the face. Ladies and gentlemen, the hack that couldn't spin straight.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:13:08:00. NO!: NINE INCH NAILS (#35, FEB 11 2006).
It's been I don't know how long since I saw a big show like this without being accompanied by a short woman -- probably close to five and a half years. Since then I've seen a number of big acts -- Weezer, Ben Folds, Godsmack, the Shins, Interpol, Garbage -- from anywhere but in the pit. So while going to a show alone stinks, it was pretty great to be down on the floor, amongst the filthy, screaming masses again. The only thing that concerned me was the camera -- not that it would get knocked away from me or anything, but that it would get me kicked out. At one point during this clip, you'll notice that the viewpoint suddenly dives and the sound gets all muffled. That was when a security guard, who'd come into the crowd to tell some shoulder-riding girl to dismount, was making his exit, right in my direction. This was a really bright show, as you'll see, and I'm sure he could see exactly what I was doing. I dropped the camera to my side, he kept going, and I stopped worrying. I guess they don't really care about cameras once you get them past the gate.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:12:16:21. Sunday. THE (MUSIC) MAN. I got my first solicitation for promotion on this site the other day. A young singer-songwriter's rep e-mailed me about an upcoming show in Madison, gave me links to a couple of MP3's that I could "share with [my] readers," etc. I passed, primarily because I can't go to the show myself, but also because this is not an MP3 blog. If I'd been interested, and if I didn't have other commitments the night of her show, I might have gone and shot a clip or two for the podcast. Then I saw that her rep had also spammed Upcoming.org, posting her entire tour without a self-promotion flag. I take social software seriously, and people who use it without being on the up and up break it. Trust is our only currency here, and truth has no price. In other news, 1990's college rock mainstays Cracker have a greatest hits album coming out soon. Virgin has compiled hits from throughout their catalog for the record, and has done so without the band's blessing.* In fact, the band has gone so far as to re-record each and every song on Virgin's compilation to release their own version, Greatest Hits Redux, on the very same day, via indie label Cooking Vinyl. I think that's kind of hilarious. * I don't know why they need to do this, since 2000's Garage d'Or is a perfectly good compendium, but whatever.
[technorati tags: music corporatism]
2006:02:10:08:00. Friday. NO!: FEIST (#34, JAN 28 2006).
Feist began her encore with an extended and largely reworked version of her cover of the Bee Gees' "Inside and Out," which wound up featuring most of her and Jason Collett's bands on back-up vocals, and Feist herself wearing an Onion trucker hat. It was a much more deliberate performance than the one on Let It Die, and clearly signalled that the night was ending. She probably couldn't have used any other song to such effect in that spot -- a proper ending to a terrific show.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:09:08:00. Thursday. NO!: FEIST (#33, JAN 28 2006).
The mid-set solo performance block has become practically de rigueur at shows I've been seeing lately. I actually found that a little disappointing from Feist, because Let It Die is so full of sound, but she managed to do a lot by herself. Her proficiency with the loop machine is pretty impressive, and her wan voice cut through the crowd surprisingly well. "One Evening" is one of the songs I was excited to hear, and I think it came out pretty well in the solo mini-set.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:08:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: FEIST (#32, JAN 28 2006).
I honestly expected Feist to be laid-back, even retiring, onstage. I was familiar only with her TV appearances, which were not the kind of energetic, involved affair put on at the High Noon. I also wasn't expecting such a full-on sell-out crowd. Of all the shows I've been to at the High Noon, including a few sell-outs, I've never seen a line out the door just to get your ticket torn and your hand stamped until this show. During the early part of Feist's set, my view was partially obscured by a really tall guy who kept moving with me, but about five feet in front of me. I had a pretty good spot to record from otherwise, but that got really annoying. I was somewhat distracted at the beginning of the set anyway, though, because I was so anxious to hear a bunch of songs that didn't come until near the end, that I didn't even really notice what I could and couldn't see.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:06:08:00. Monday. NO!: JASON COLLETT (#31, JAN 28 2006).
I was going to hold the clips from the Feist show until I'd finally gotten to the last of the 2005 videos, but the Madison blog response to the show has been crazy, and I want to get in on some of that hot linking action. So, bang! Link it, blogifiers! Opening the show was Feist's fellow Broken Social Scenester Jason Collett, a rockier, Canadian Dylanite with good stage presence and forgettable material. Feist herself came out for a couple songs -- once to sing, once to drum -- and there were, at one point, five guys playing guitar. The non-album track "Not Over You" is a nice slice of his pleasant melancholia, and a good microcosm for the whole set. Likeable, but not exactly show-stealing. What everybody really wants is coming later in the week -- three full Feist clips!
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:03:22:34. Friday. ISSUES OF IMPORT. Blogpulse tells us what's what on the important topics from the State of the Union:
Damn you, Baxter Stockman!
2006:02:03:08:00. NO!: GARY TUNSTALL (#30, JUL 2 2005).
Gary plays a lot of songs -- mostly in his repertoire of covers -- that involve audience participation. "Alice" is perhaps the most enjoyable of these. It is meant to be performed in a bar full of participants, rather than in a bowling alley full of nobody, but you'll get the general idea. WARNING: Foul language ahead.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:01:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: GARY TUNSTALL (#29, JUL 2 2005).
Gary tours around the upper midwest sometimes, and it's kind of a crapshoot. My friend Sharon and I have seen him in bars packed with diasporic Tech alums (and a few stunned locals) and we've seen him with three other people. This past July in Appleton, it was the latter kind of night. It was a warm summer evening, and Appleton's smoking ban had gone into effect the day before; besides us, there were never more than a dozen people in there. Ironically, we'd seen Gary play this particular venue before, and it was so crowded that Sharon found herself selling access to the bar. It's really a striking contrast to the shows he puts on in Houghton. I actually recorded the same song as Monday's clip, "Straight Up," at this show, and would've included it if I thought anyone would download an extra 30MB of Gary just to analyze differences in performance technique, but this clip shows a lot of the same distinctions.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra |
