October 1999 ear candy by Ben Auburn |
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Music Against Brain Degeneration
In the year of Lilith Finale and Riotstock, the First International
Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue was more than just welcome,
it was necessary. Five acts with little common ground on one
bill, a headliner whose most recent recording couldn't be reproduced
on stage without a small orchestra, only one freak hit single
to be heard - it was an indie package tour more than five years
since "indie"'s brief run as a selling point ended. Playing small
halls - it didn't quite sell out Boston's 1200+ seat Roxy – the
MABD by and large preached to the converted, but if I am any
indication, it turned muddled believers into full-fledged missionaries.
The tour was organized by the Flaming Lips, whose recent album,
The Soft Bulletin, is a masterpiece of orchestrated song
and largely irreproducible on stage. But more about their music
later. Their genius was in bringing together five bands whose
fan bases probably have very little overlap. The risk inherent
in this isn't slight -- would the combination of Sebadoh and the
Lips make a Cornelius fan turn away? Is the die hard Robyn Hitchcock
lover all that interested in the electronica of K records' Iqu
(pronounced ICK-ew -- formerly Icu)? How many Lou Barlow aficionados,
exactly, care much for the flights of superfancy found on The
Soft Bulletin? Ultimately, the tour relied on the open-mindedness
of the indie-music-buying-public -- surely SMUG readers see the
danger in this proposition.
By and large, then, it was a tour aimed squarely at . . . me.
None of the bands involved have earned my Most Favored status
- indeed, I went to the show unaware of Iqu, deeply suspicious
of Cornelius and defiantly uninterested in Robyn Hitchcock. Being
a resident of Boston, I'm aware of the shot-in-the-dark nature
of Sebadoh live - we have a Lou complex much like our Babe Ruth
complex - and though I'm convinced The Soft Bulletin will
be listened to for a long, long time, I wasn't sure how the Lips
would translate to the stage*.
Still, it was obvious just by looking at the bill that people
like me were the main target -- people who buy new music every
Tuesday (new records from all but the tiniest labels are released
on Tuesdays, but you knew that); people who'll listen to almost
anything once but can tell right away (usually just by looking
at the case) if they'll like it; people who, let's face it, are
serious music geeks, willing to part with twenty bucks plus nearly
half that in "service charges" for a night's worth of exposure
to music that some guy you respect thinks you ought to hear.
So how was the show? The show was five and a half hours long.
Starting close to promptly at around 8:10 and finishing up at
almost 1:30, with DJ sets (and the new Stereolab record) between
bands, it was a kind of endurance test. Iqu started off -- in
fact, their DJ was playing as we walked in, but who knew. Wayne
Coyne of the Lips introduced them, and their short set -- couldn't
have been more than 30 minutes -- was good, solid. The combination
of stand-up bass, DJ-guitarist-theremin player, and keyboardist
was refreshing, though the bass was poorly miked. Sussing out
the music-geek audience well: a small camera had been placed
on stage, aimed at the turntables, allowing all us geeks to really
see what was going on. It was the first of many indications
that all my phobias about appearing uncool at rock shows were
unimportant, we were being invited to get a closer look, told
that detached observation, that hallmark of coolness, wouldn't
cut it here.
After Iqu's set, Wayne returned as MC and reminded us to pick
up a walkman, if we desired. The show was being broadcast on
a small-frequency transmitter, and anyone who wanted to hear
it in full stereo -- providing their headphones could out-blare
the sound system -- could borrow a portable radio from two guys
at a table in the back. There were five hundred to be had, and
I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were snagged for the
evening.
It should be said that Wayne -- which was how he introduced himself
- appears to be the Nicest Guy in Rock, based solely on his MCing
and performance with his band. Genial and a little wide-eyed,
he was plainly enjoying himself and pleased with how the tour
had turned out. He was spied during Iqu's set off to the side,
grooving to the band (who he'd had an opportunity to groove to
for 20 previous gigs) and tearing into a box of Cheez-Its. Again,
there's almost nothing less cool than visibly enjoying yourself
at a show; Wayne was showing us the way.
Next came Cornelius, and while you never want your climax to
come two-fifths into the story, this time it can't be helped.
Their show was the highlight of the evening -- they were tight
an precise and really, really rocked. Video was synched
to each song-- except when their electronics broke down for one
number -- and they never failed to keep the audience's attention;
an achievement, as it was only nine o'clock and people were
still wandering in. Their chief acts of supreme fabulousness:
(1) a drummer who could play increasingly complex drum-and-bass
licks while Led-Zepping her way through the rockier segments;
(2) the guitarist and bassist both opening the show playing double-necked
axes; (3) video for one song that included stop-motion animals
getting into a fight and Cornelius himself breaking it up and
making them all take a time out. They were tremendous.
So how could Robyn Hitchcock not be a disappointment? In truth,
he ought to have opened the show and not Iqu, as his solo-acoustic
(and electric) set came off as pretty light-weight. Sebadoh emerged
several songs in as his backup band -- a relationship that developed
mid-way through the tour, apparently -- and were very nearly professional
about the whole thing.
Not so for their own set, which was, as Matt Ashare in the Boston
Phoenix aptly put it, their standard "chaos as usual." Barlow
seems so desperately to want to be a rock star, yet he has such
contempt for people who want to treat rock stars like
rock stars that it derails almost every gesture he makes. That,
and he sometimes forgets to plug in before he starts playing.
Finally the Lips got on around twelve fifteen. A friend I'd gone
to the show with noted that Wayne had yet to take off his pea
coat, and it was becoming obvious that he was pretty sick. His
vocals on their first number were even more strained than on
record, and he was unable to sustain any notes. Despite this,
they played their hearts out and were as spontaneous as playing
with DAT backing tracks would let them. All drums were prerecorded,
as were most everything else except the bass, played by Steven
Drozd, and some keyboard and guitar lines played by Michael Ivins.
Oh, and the huge gong, bashed by Wayne, that was unmiked and
still unbelievably audible.
Wayne gave it his all -- accompanied from time to time by various
hand puppets (who took center stage on the video screen courtesy
of the small camera up front), huge handfuls of glitter, and
some fake blood for the encore. They even managed to reclaim
"She Don't Use Jelly" from 90210 et al and fit it into their
current ethic.
By one thirty it was all over, and we made our way tiredly home,
raving about how satisfying the show was. In truth, it was massively
uneven. Cornelius was the only full fledged success, and the
dead middle section of Hitchcock and Sebadoh was lengthy. Even
the Lips' set didn't quite make sense -- it was never clear why
they were playing and singing the parts they were: Ivins' back
up vocals were out of tune most of the time, and he played keyboard
parts at times when guitars drove the tune, and why was Drozd
held to bass for the whole set? Still, the general feeling upon
leaving the theater was one of elation, of, more precisely, Hot
Shit! Somehow they'd managed to turn a shaky evening into a qualified
success. The secret lay in Wayne's general goodnaturedness, and
in the canny lineup. Say what you will about any of the bands
involved, but they all make smart, slightly unusual music -- even
if it's not to your liking, it's never uninteresting.
Rescuing the package tour from the actual "package" of the thing,
Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips brought together five bands
who only really had in common that they had nothing in common.
Here's to the second international Music Against Brain Degeneration
Revue -- no matter who's playing, I'll be there.
*Indie-Cred Footnote
This was not, truth be told, my first experience with the Flaming
Lips live. Shortly after the release of Oh My Gawd . . . the
Flaming Lips I saw them at a tiny club in Little Rock, AR.
I was mid-teens and not at all prepared for the, well, for the
volume of the show – it was as loud as anything I've seen
before or since. The band was a trio then – they'd add a guitarist
several years later and shed him again before recording the play-these-four-discs-at-once
Zaireeka -- and the bassist had a huge afro, huge, like
an eight inch radius (not counting his head) while the guitarist
had scary-long wavy black hair and both were backlit by creepy
green lights. Combined with the huge amounts of smoke and the
extreme loudness, the show was maybe the scariest thing I've
ever seen.
[take me back]
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