Monday, October 12, 2009 |
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Live review: Yo La Tengo, Well-Aimed-Arrows, Landing on the Moon; Mousetrap reunion; Humane Society benefit, Digital Leather/Box Elders tonight...
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The sound-explosion freak-out that was last Friday night's Yo La Tengo show at The Slowdown was absolutely epic. Like the last time they came through, this will be on my list of the best shows of the year. The trio was on fire playing nearly two hours of songs from their new album, Popular Songs, as well as a collection of their "greatest hits" that reached as far back as Painful (see photo). After they opened with the 15-plus minute instrumental noise odyssey called "And the Glitter Is Gone" from the new album, the band settled into a selection of the more jazzy, dancey, poppy songs from albums gone by. I thought it was going to be a laidback evening, but by the beginning of the second hour, it was one noise anthem after another. About half-way through, I began to have a new "understanding" of a band that I've been listening to for more than a decade. It's as if guitarist Ira Kaplan was creating a wall of painful noise and distortion designed to counteract the pretty melodies and straight-forward, streamlined rhythms created by bass player James McNew and drummer Georgia Hubley. All three have quiet, almost dour voices (Hubley is Nico to Kaplan's Lou) that chirped pretty melodies while Kaplan systematically tortured his guitar, at times pulling the strings from the neck with both hands -- shoving objects between the strings and the fretboard -- blasting out a sharp, anguished howl (After each song, a guitar tech would hand Kaplan a different guitar to play while he was back stage presumably repairing the damage). So that balance -- the pretty and the painful -- almost put me in a trance, as songs rose and fell and regurgitated themselves following a pulsing thread of McNew/Hubley rhythm. It was exquisite. * * * I had to do a bit of driving Saturday night. First stop was O'Leaver's for the world stage debut of Well-Aimed-Arrows, the new band by Koly Walter and Clayton Petersen, formerly of the legendary Omaha post-punk band The Protoculture. Considering that Koly wrote most of the songs for both bands, W-A-A sounded like Protoculture Pt. 2. The Arrows (let me be the first to call them that) had Protoculture's same dissonant song structures propelled by punchy rhythms and Walter's flat vocal howl. Petersen's wife Michelle provided the necessary counter vocals (a la Erica). The difference for me was bassist Brian Bird (of The Antiquarium) whose hot dog style took the music to a groovier level. The band only played five songs, but it was more than enough to get the crowd's blood pumping. What's that they say about "leave them wanting more"? (see photo). --Got comments? Post 'em here.-- |
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posted by Tim McMahan - Lazy-i.com at 3:10 PM |
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