My one CMJ show: Oakley Hall at The Mercury Lounge on Saturday October 26, 2008

So I haven't updated this thing in about two weeks. That's pretty lame. But I haven't been to any concerts in a while, and that's usually what I write about. But I have some CD reviews I've been working on. Basically I've been lazy.

But I went to a concert last night, so I should write that one up. Even though I have no pictures. But it was part of CMJ, and there were lots of photographers there, so I'm sure you can find plenty of pictures.

I think there were about 5 bands on the schedule last night, but we arrived in time to only see two of them, and to be honest, that was about 2 too many for me. I didn't catch the first two bands' names, and I'm really not interested in looking them up. Not really much to say about them. They were two very bland middle of the road indie rock groups that each had about 2 catchy songs. Somehow they both had fans. Whatever.

So how was Oakley Hall? I haven't seen them since their February show at the Knitting Factory which is too long for a band that supposedly lives in the same city as me. At the last show, violinist Claudia Mogel and guitarist Fred Wallace didn't join the band until the 2nd half of the set. I was lucky enough to get a chance to speek to Rachel Cox (vocals, guitar, piano) before the show, and apparently they aren't really in the band anymore. Which is a shame, since they're both pretty awesome. Thankfully they were in the band last night for the entire set. Also included in last night's lineup was Steve Goulding from The Mekons. I don't have much else to say on this subject other than that it was really cool. He was also a more interesting drummer than the other two I've seen play in Oakley Hall. Well no shit. He's played with Graham Parker and The Mekons and has decades of touring experience.

The set was surprising for how unsurprising it was. Here's my best recollection of the setlist:

Highway
Light of My Love
Lazy Susan
No Dreams
Rue The Blues
El Dorado
Confidence Man
Livin in Sin in the USA
Volume Rambler
New Song?

Looks mostly right. I think I might be leaving something out, but that would be one song, tops. Anyway, pretty much all of the songs were ones I've seen them play at least several times, and with maybe two exceptions, the set included all of my favorites. It definitely included all of the good songs I usually expect them to play. And there wasn't anything in the set that I disliked.

As for the performance, I was pretty pleased. The band seemed a bit more animated than I'd seen them recently, and there was a bit more musical improvisation on a few of the songs (especially "Volume Rambler" than I'd seen previously. I thought the last song could have benefited from an absence of drums, but it was nice to see Steve Goulding keeping up with the band and clearly improvising his way through a few sections successfully. It was a fun show. If only these people would play more shows, we'd probably see something truly exciting.

No Virgina by The Dresden Dolls and Who Killed Amanda Palmer? by Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer's had a busy year. She's released 2 complete albums of new (for me at least. The Dresden Dolls album includes outtakes from Yes Virginia) material. It all seems kind of silly to me. She writes (except for the occasional cover), sings and plays piano on every Dresden Dolls song. And she writes, sings and plays piano (most of the time) on every song on her solo album. So why the hell couldn't she play those songs as The Dresden Dolls? Is this division really necessary?

I could puzzle over this some more, but I won't be able to resolve this. By all appearances, there hasn't been any falling out with the other 50% of the Dresden Dolls, Brian Viglione, so I guess she really felt like some of her songs didn't fit with her band. This is frustrating to me since the last Dresden Dolls album, Yes Virgina, suffered because the band was clearly limiting themselves. Additional musicians were far less present than they were on the debut album. As a result, No Virginia was a weak follow up for me. There's only so much you can do with just two instruments, and while The Dresden Dolls certainly do all they can with piano and drums, there are some clear sonic limitations.

Because of this, I thought the solo album might hold the most promise. And playing them side by side, Who Killed Amanda Palmer opens light years ahead of No Virginia. WKAP opens with "Astronaut", a song with a driving piano melody backed by strings. Palmer played this at the in-store performance I saw last month. It was easily the best song of the night, and it kills "Dear Jenny" easily. "Dear Jenny" opens with an inevitably jarring combination of piano, drums, vocals (and maybe even bass) that turns me off before I have a chance to warm up to the song. By the end, it redeems itself, but it never reaches the heights of "Astronaut".

And for a while last week while I was listening to both of the albums, I thought this would be the dominant theme. On the first few listens, it seemed clear that WKAP was the more diverse and challenging album. Songs like "Leeds United" and "Guitar Hero" show a strong pop sensibility that is sometimes too often lost with The Dresden Dolls. But WKAP is dominated by slower, more contemplative songs like "Amersand" and "Blake Says" that just feel like downers.

And while No Virginia gets off to a rough start, it picks up dramatically with tracks 3 and 4, "The Mouse and the Model" and "Ultima Espiranza" which both show off what The Dresden Dolls are best at. The first is one of those powerful slow burn songs that picks up steam by the end while "Ultima Esperanza" is a briskly paced number that manages to pack a more efficient punch. And while No Virginia continues to offer little surprises throughout --especially, the haunting song "The Kill" which seems to borrow lyrics from "Anarchy in the UK", WKAP decends into either bland pop music "Oasis"or tedium "What's the use of wond'rin".

So despite Palmer's interest in providing a more diverse sonic landscape on her solo album, she's saved her strongest material for The Dresden Dolls. Looks like they'll be around for a while longer. I hope they invite some friends to the party.

Tuesday September 30, The Stone: Michael Gira

First the setlist. I didn't write it down, but I'm pretty sure I have all the songs here, and the order is mostly right.

Little Mouth (New)
Opium (New)
Reeling the Liars In (New)
Promise of Water
Blind
I Crawled
My Brothers Man
Destroyer
Nations
New York Girls
Sometimes I Dream I'm Hurting You
To Live Through Someone
God Damn the Sun

And now a few words about the venue. One word really sums it up: Tiny. When we got to the door and saw people sitting around, I thought maybe we were in the lounge area at first. But no. That was the performance space. It was easily the smallest one I've ever been in by far. There couldn't have been much more than 100 people there (if that), and they were crammed in. There wasn't even a stage, and because of the shortage of space, we ended up right in front of Michael Gira, sitting right at his feet. This might seem cool, but it actually wasn't. In order to see him, I had to look up, and my neck quickly became sore. As a result, I was pretty uncomfortable for the entire set. Also, the lack of air circulation made the place stifling by the end. The humidity forced Michael Gira to tune after nearly every song.

Pictures also weren't allowed. So what you see above is all we could get before they shut us down.

But one cool thing that happened was that the show basically started as soon as we sat down (not that there was no waiting. We had to wait in line outside until they were ready to let us in). As you can see by the setlist, Michael Gira opened with three new songs, one of which (I think it was "Little Mouth") he claimed to have just finished that day. "Little Mouth" and "Reeling the Liars In" were somewhat soft even by Gira's recent standards. "Opium" sounded like something that could be a strong rock song with a band behind him. Or not. It was by far my favorite of the new songs. Before playing it, he asked the audience if anyone had ever smoked opium. When no one said yes, he called us all pansies and bragged that he started smoking it at 15.

The set pulled from all of the Angels of Light albums except for the first one. And he included an acoustic version of "I Crawled" that I certainly wasn't expecting. It translated to the solo-acoustic performance better than you might expect. A lot of his Swans material does. The last time I saw him perform, he played a version of "I am the Sun" that could stand alongside both the live Swans version and the album version.

In fact, it's the Angels of Light songs that sometimes don't translate as well without a full band behind him. Both solo sets that I've seen have included a version of "Sometimes I Dream I'm Hurting You", and that song just doesn't work as well for me without that bass line that's on the album. However, "Promise of Water" actually became more agressive and forceful with Gira stomping his foot, yelling and playing his guitar as loud as it would allow while still sounding good.

The most interesting part of the night for me had nothing to do with the music. Norm Westberg, probably the most famous former Swans guitarist, was in attendance and sitting right behind me. I didn't know he was there until Gira dedicated the entire set to him. During pauses between songs, Gira would and Westberg had a few brief conversations about Swans not getting paid for shows back in the day. I usually don't say this, but I wish we had gotten more story time last night. From what little I heard last night (and what I've read), I have a feeling that those early shows were extremely interesting. I probably would have been happy just sitting and listening to the two reminisce for an hour.

But instead we got music for an hour. And as good as it was, by the time he played "God Damn The Sun", I was ready for it to be over. I think he was too. Every time he asked how much time he had left, he seemed distressed at how much he had. I kind of shared his feeling. Not that it was a bad set, but I was extremely uncomfortable by the end, and it was getting kind of hard to enjoy the set.