Parplar by Larkin Grimm

I might as well follow up my review of her performance with one of the album I bought at the show.


Strangely enough, Larkin Grimm was actually more engaging and dynamic live with just her guitar and banjo than she is on this album. Usually, a solo performance without a backing band tends to suffer for me, but she more than made up for it by singing loudly. Album opener "They Were Wrong" was captivating live. On the album it's just haunting. So while it's not bad, it suffers by comparison to the live version. This is generally true for most of the songs that I heard live.

But that's my one complaint about this album. Otherwise, this album is near flawless. For someone who keeps things pretty quiet, Grimm shows a lot of range. She certainly has her freak-folk weirdness on display in tracks like "The Dip" (a song that is woefully too short at just a minute and six seconds) and "Parplar". But on songs like "Be My Host" and "Fall On Your Knees", she sounds very folksy. And "Ride that Cyclone" is something else entirely. I'm honestly not sure how to describe that song. I'd like to call it psychedelic, but that word is meaningless. It manages to somehow be intense and relaxing, lush and focused at the same time. It's not necessarily my favorite song on the album, but to me it defines the album because it synthesizes so much I love about her music.

Grimm is joined by a fair amount of guest musicians, but she is always at the center of the songs on this album. Even though her vocal delivery is much more restrained than it was in her live performance, her voice still manages to do wonders. She excels at both the high notes, the low notes and the weird notes. Her lyrics are full of so much joy that you can't help but overlook or even enjoy some of the most awkward lines. She even sings about unicorns!

So I wrote this whole review thinking that this was her first album (because really, there aren't that many smaller labels than Young God), but apparently she's already released 2. I don't know why, but that kind of disappoints me. Although I am curious what they sound like....anyway, I'm giving up on this review.

Friday November 6, 2008, Mercury Lounge: Holly Golightly, New York Times and Larkin Grimm

So I'm back, but the quality of my reviews is substantially lower (if that was possible). Mainly cause I'm spending less time on them. But really, the last few shows haven't been remarkable enough for me to write that much. Friday night was no different with one exception.

We arrived around 9:30 while the first opener was finishing his set. He closed with a Hank Williams song and used lots of guitar loops towards the end. It was alright. I don't know his name, and I honestly don't know how to look it up at this point.

Up next was Larkinn Grimm. She's on Young God Records, and in case you don't know, that's the label that Michael Gira (Swans, Angels of Light) founded and continues to run. Through his label, he brought us Devandra Banhart, Akron/Family. I'd argue that he's more responsible for the freak folk revival than Devandra Banhart (both because he descovered Devandra Banhart and because his Angels of Light project clearly bears a lot of similarities), but not everyone would agree. Anyway, given his track record, I try to give every artist on his label a chance.

Going in, I wasn't especially excited about Larkin Grimm. I had listened to some clips of her album, and while some of the material was promising, the music just wasn't anything that I would typically seek out. Not enough "rock" I guess. Live, she was very poised and confident, something not always found in "new" artists. Her singing was also substantially louder than it is on the album which I think helped give the songs the extra push they needed. The first couple of songs were played on the banjo and while they weren't bad, they weren't especially captivating either. The show seemed to pick up around the time she played "Dominican Rum", a song that she dedicated to Paris Hilton who she called a "svengali". The lyrics are kind of awkward and humorous, and she seemed to appreciate the audience's laughter.

For the 2nd half of the set, she was joined by a friend of hers she called "Snowflake" who accompanined her on acoustic guitar and some large stringed instrument that I've only seen in Kung Fu Hustle. For the final song, "Ride That Cyclone" she also had a female friend join her for backing vocals. It was a great ending to a set that just got better as it went on.

And then The New York Times played. I won't say much about them other than that they were unbearably boring and didn't fit the bill at all. Out of the four groups that night, they were the only full rock band, and their sound didn't fit at all. It was bland middle of the road indie rock. This seems to be a pattern at these Bowery Entertainment venues: they put bands together that have no business playing together. They've done this to Akron/Family twice, and it's really gotten old.

And then there was Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs. Or Holly Golightly and Lawyer Dave since those are the only two people in the "band". I'm not the biggest fan of this new project of hers. Holly Golightly needs a band behind her. While her country/blues forays aren't necessarily bad, they aren't that good either, and they really don't translate into a fun live show. There's just not much to dance to when the drummer is playing a kick drum set while playing guitar. She opened with "Crow Jane" which was pretty promising since it's one of her livelier songs, but for the most part, there wasn't much to move to in the set. The kind of long breaks between songs didn't help either.

So we left early. I guess there's more to say about the show, but I was too tired to really absorb much of it. And so I think that's all the reviewing I'll do for now.

Saturday November 1, 2008 Secret Project Robot: Brahloween featuring Oneida, Awesome Color, Dirty Faces and Pterodactyl

There were other bands playing that night, but we arrived too late for Nurse and Soldier, and were too tired to stick around for Knyfe Hytes. Our timing couldn't have been much worse since we missed the $5 admission by about 3 minutes. And then they lowered the price again after 11:40 when the place was probably way past capacity anyway. Fucking hipsters.

Anyway, we arrived in the middle of Pterodactyl song. Since I saw them last (more than a year ago), they've added another guitarist, and the bassist has started to play guitar in addition to bass. The band members showed an impressive commitment to staying in costume that probably didn't help the music much, but it was an overall fun energetic performance which I think is what you can generally expect from this group. These days they actually sound more like the Ex-Models did 5 years ago than the Ex-Models do, but they're still a more direct band. Not sure why I haven't bothered to pick up their album yet...

Up next were The Dirty Faces. Ugh. Apparently the members of Oneida really like this group. I don't get it. The lead singer's voice lacks any musical properties, and the original songs they played were completely forgettable. They opened with a version of "Addicted to Love" that substituted "drugs" for "love" that was actually pretty good. They closed with Aerosmith's "Sweet Dreams" but by then, I had gotten fed up and left to sit outside.

Up next were Awesome Color. For some reason I had them confused with some really boring experimental group I've seen a couple of times. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they were a hard rocking three piece (drums, bass and guitar) band. The first song really just had one bass line, but it was damn good bass riff, and the energetic drumming and inspired guitar playing matched it perfectly. The set sort of dragged in the middle. They covered a Misfits song, which I guess I would have enjoyed if I'd ever listened to the Misfits. For the final song, they were joined by Shahin from the Ex-Models and Oneida. It might have been better than the first one. Can't tell. Both were pretty awesome. Too bad I have no pictures...

And then the main attraction (for me at least). The previous 4 times I've seen Oneida, they've played Pre-Teen Weaponry, which is fun, but since it's taken up about 90% of their set time,I've sort of missed hearing their other songs. That night there was no Pre-Teen Weaponry. Instead it was a pretty typical Oneida set, focusing on "new" songs that haven't been released yet. But having seen them nearly once a month this year, I knew all of the songs they played. I don't have a setlist, and I'm sure I'd get the order wrong, but here's an approximation:

I will haunt you
The River
Ghost in the Room
Up with People
Snow Machine (oh yeah, that took about 20 minutes).

And then we left. I really don't have much else to report. Oneida was predictably good, but I'll probably have more fun at their December 13th show at the Knitting Factory. Stay tuned!