VILLAGERS KICK OFF A BRIEF SIX- DATE  U.S. TOUR JUNE 16 AT BROOKLYN’S KNITTING FACTORY

“What are you doing in Birmingham then?”

This inquiry — proffered with a certain amount of menace by a hard-accented, daunting piece of beef who likely makes a living as a heavy in Guy Ritchie flicks — is a fair question.

What exactly was I doing installed in a casino, just shy of five AM, in Birmingham, England?

Video of Conor J O’Brien sans band on Later with Jools Holland

Blinking my bloodshot eyes against the unkind light, I focus them across the room, where my faithful, if alcoholic-and-gambling-addicted meerkat, Thomás, was valiantly failing away whatever little money we had left to a tableful of Texas Hold’em clichés.  It was all a little 2006 for me, but as a friendly prostitute told me earlier that evening, the only things Birmingham was good for were “rain, shopping and my pussy – none of which you can afford.”  Given that state of affairs, casino living seemed an acceptable second prize.

I briefly consider telling my ham-fisted friend the actuality of my circumstances, which involve a whirlwind intercontinental trip in search of European financing with which to complete my passion project, Hardcastle and McCormick: The Movie*, which had suddenly and quite painfully taken residence in turnaround limbo back home.  But in mentally recounting that misadventure, which cumulated with me snorting obscene amounts of vitamin B for an “agent” in an attempt to prove I could fake a line in order to get a part in an independent, low-budget film about a pizza boy and a lonely cougar housewife – which was a maximized effort to earn some money for the return trip to the United States of Goldman Sachs — I was suddenly blessed with the clarity to see that there was nothing to be gained here by telling the truth.  Except maybe a beating.

“Got an aunt that lives here,” I mutter to the likely pugilist, noting the way the stitching of his shirt was straining against the bulk of flesh underneath.

He studies me the way a lion must while considering whether or not to disembowel a gazelle, then grunts in affirmation, improbably turning his attention back to the television above the gaming tables.

I feel like this is the second piece of luck I’ve had since landing on British soil.  Just a few hours before, while scanning Birmingham’s weekly rag, I discovered that the cast of the hit Fox network TV series Glee was in town for a promotional performance at a place called Club Villagers, no doubt to muster foreign support for a franchise expansion a la The Office in reverse.  So my current plan called for waiting out the rain by lightly gambling in the casino for the next 12 hours or so until it was time to go over to the venue and fake my way into the event by brandishing my dubious online press credentials.  Certainly, being the only American journalist covering the overseas event would allow me to get some interview access with the cast of the show – especially with that dreamy Chris Colfer — which I planned to then parlay into a lead story on the holiest of holy hard news sites – E! Online – and earn some sorely needed cash for our plane ride home.

But watching as Thomás slides a majority slice of our diminishing pile of chips across the table after another losing hand, I’m starting to think a wet cardboard box on the street would have been cheaper for us than Plan A.

In point of fact, the next 12 hours pass uneventfully, with Thomás eventually battling his way back from the depths of debt to emerge the equivalent of $15 richer than when he started the night.  By my calculations, between his winnings and the amount of comp drinks we’ve consumed, we emerge from the casino, right on schedule, in the neighborhood of $783 ahead the game.

Imagine my disdain then, to arrive at the show and learn that the cast of Glee was not in fact on tour and performing on a Tuesday night in Birmingham, England – but rather that the venue was called Glee Club and some Irish act named Villagers was playing instead.

It seemed a serious misinterpretation of the ad I had read some 19 hours earlier – perhaps due to all the vitamin B I had snorted – had led us astray.  Far, far astray.

So long E! Online.  Hello, Music Zeitgeist.

Glee Club was, at least on this night, set up for optimal performance reverence with a seated configuration, rather than the usual mess of bodies in a pile of general admission regret which birth most Music Zeitgeist reviews.  The chairs could possibly have been an effort to camouflage weak ticket sales, but as one of them was available on the aisle fairly close to the stage, who was I to complain?  If all else failed, once the lights went down, the venue’s seated arrangement would allow for two – hell, maybe even three – hours of sheltered sleep in near darkness.

No such luck.

No, our luck was much, much better.

From the time Villagers took the stage, a beautiful chaos reigned at Glee Club, to the degree that sleep was not possible – nor wanted.

For in Birmingham, just one week after the release of their debut full-length album, Becoming A Jackal, Villagers set about decimating their Glee Club audience with a barely controlled miasmatic deluge of dense, dark, 60’s-folk-influenced pop deliverance.

Fans of Jeff and Tim Buckley, The National, Damien Rice, Ours, Van Morrison, Tindersticks, Leonard Cohen, early Shannon Wright, Simon And Garfunkel, Radiohead and even Jens Lekman would do well to take note of Villagers as they begin their limited, six-date U.S. Tour June 16 at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn.

Though Villagers is effectively a nom de plume for frontman Conor J O’Brien’s solo indulgences, it would only be through the success of ignorance to refer to Villagers in a live setting as anything less than a full band effort.  O’Brien himself is impressive enough, but it’s the live addition of drums, keys, bass, lead guitar and backing vocals which render Villagers a force to be reckoned with (even though my high school English teacher told me not to end sentences with prepositions).

Kicking things off with “The Meaning Of The Ritual,” O’Brien quietly strummed his tiny guitar and offered confessionally:  “My love is selfish / and I bet that yours is too,” conjuring a beaten veteran fresh off the frontlines of Love, on leave to sagely offer advice to all us FNGs.  But unlike the album version of “Ritual,” which builds slowly only to check out after three minutes, just when you think something might happen, the song on this night went from hymnal to apocalyptic, swelling into a wall of sound that would make Phil Spector want to kill (again).  It certainly wasn’t the last time the set would see such a turn of events; a number of Becoming A Jackal’s songs were similarly ignited over the course of the evening with a pyromaniac’s delight.

In fact, the next three songs (“Home,” “Becoming A Jackal” and “That Day”) were equally played as if they were set-enders, undoubtedly leaving a number of audience members wondering how the show would end if this was how it was starting.

All of which was nothing compared to what Villagers had in store for us next.

“Pieces,” which is bound to become mix-tape fodder for the Twilight set, followed, and for a moment, it seemed as if the crowd might get a sonic reprieve.  “Pieces” started off meekly enough, with a spread of 60’s string-and-piano schmaltz a la “Theme From A Summer Place,” while O’Brien weakly croaked out his vocal accompaniment: “For a long, long time / I’ve been in pieces.” Just a few moments later, the whole she-bang jumped the rails and erupted like Eyjafjallajökull all over again.  It appeared that Villagers’ intent was to bring the building down upon themselves and the crowd alike with their offering, and in fact, around the time the song’s coda rolled around, I was nervously eyeing the emergency exit signs in case a quick escape was necessary.  At that point, the only thing clarion in the seismic mess that emanated from the stage was O’Brien’s werewolf howling, still hair-raisingly audible over the shuddering of Glee Club’s foundation.

At that point, given that everyone in the room had broken a sweat, Villagers took things down several notches with the tender album-closer “To Be Counted Among Men” and the fun, folky frolic of “The Pact (I’ll Be Your Fever).”  Showing they had yet another gear in their arsenal (or perhaps it was a bottle of NOS in their trunk), O’Brien took up residence behind the piano so Villagers could whip out Becoming A Jackal’s opener — the hypnotic-if-ghastly Grimm’s fairy tale-esque “I Saw The Dead.”

Wrapping up the main set, they took on “Down, Under The Sea,” off 2009’s The Hollow Kind EP, before ending things with a churning “Ship Of Promises.”

Unfortunately, the usual “hey maybe we’ll come back and play a few more songs” jerk-off followed, but on this occasion at least, the audience was demanding it, even if it was in their own “we’re seated but we will clap ardently if reservedly in appreciation for the fact that our minds have just been riven asunder by your musical stylings.”

“Set The Tigers Free” led off after the break, providing somewhat of a breather with its mellow Marty Balin’s “Hearts” by-way-of-Tindersticks vibe.  Finally on its last legs, the set closed as Villagers played their 2009 debut single, “On A Sunlit Stage,” which is inexplicably unavailable on either their EP or full-length release.  Of course, it wouldn’t have been Villagers if they played it straight; true to form that night, the song crescendo’d into a sonic tidal wave, which abruptly stopped, leaving a vast silence in the room before more ardent-if-reserved clapping began anew.

Though Becoming a Jackal is not yet a month old, it’s hard not to wonder what Villagers will do next, since their live set was significantly extra-dimensional compared to the album versions of the songs they performed.  That’s not to take anything away from O’Brien, who wrote all the material on the record, played almost all the instruments and produced it to boot.  But the fact is that having experienced Villagers live makes it tough to listen to BAJ knowing those ass-kicking incendiary devices and chorale singing elements present in the live set aren’t forthcoming.

For his part, O’Brien makes quite the compelling performer, his looks belying the furor he ably and suddenly wielded regularly throughout the set.  He resembles the twee progeny of Elijah Wood and that other Conor – Oberst – rendered even more harmless-looking by his diminutive guitar, all of which provides him with the theatrical leverage to come off as an unexpected wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Possessing a flair for the dramatic, he’d oftentimes scan the audience down his nose and out of the corner of his eye, offering something of an invitation or condemnation, depending on which of his words were fleeing his mouth as his eyes happened upon his victims.  When things would really heat up, O’Brien would often stray from the mic and repeatedly murmur lyrics to himself with his eyes closed, as if under a spell.

Still, it appears he’s far from taking himself seriously, and further still from fitting any tortured artist stereotypes that might follow him around, given the nature of his music (with his dark and literary lyrics, O’Brien has much more in common with James Joyce than his weepy singer-songwriter contemporaries).  In fact, he would affably, even goofily, address the crowd between songs in the set, noting on more than one occasion, for example, how the audience was “freaking [Villagers] out” for being polite and tame compared to the normal raucousness of their affairs.

But nice guy or not, one thing is for certain.  O’Brien and his Villagers ravaged the audience at Glee Club on June 1^st, and picked their bones clean.

Just like a pack of jackals.

Tags: Becoming A Jackal, Birmingham, Chris Colfer, Conor J O'Brien, Conor Oberst, Down, Elijah Wood, Eyjafjallajökull, Glee, Glee Club, Hardcastle And McCormick, Hearts, Home, I Saw The Dead, Jeff Buckley, Jens Lekman, Jimmy Gnecco, Leonard Cohen, live review, Marty Balin, meerkats, On A Sunlit Stage, Ours, Pieces, Radiohead, Set The Tigers Free, Shannon Wright, Ship Of Promises, Simon And Garfunkel, That Day, The Hollow Kind, The Meaning Of The Ritual, The National, The Pact (I'll Be Your Fever), Theme From A Summer Place, Tindersticks, To Be Counted Among Men, Under The Sea, van morrison, Villagers

Ah, the whiff of possibility.

For most, March’s annual South By Southwest Music Festival is a mid-Lent, nigh-St. Patrick’s Day orgy that descends upon Austin like a biblical plague. Shards of the remaining, traditional music industry gather there to wax nostalgic about olden times when they could max-out their corporate AMEX cards on gluttonous dinners and lure talent into over-priced hotel rooms with promises of weed, blow and/or getting signed.  For many independent artists, attracted to the festival by lingering Horatio Alger-like stories of “making it” (whatever that means anymore), it’s an opportunity to spend hundreds of dollars learning the definitions of “vast” and “desolate” while traversing Texas’ landscape en route to play a little-heard, off-the-strip club to a crowd of three.

Mainstream acts have long-since dethroned true showcases by using the festival as an “underplay” opportunity at major venues each night, which are usually sold-out and off limits to the festival’s badge and wristband holders. In recent years, blogs hosting daytime parties have succeeded in maintaining the original spirit of SXSW by booking the latest up-and-coming acts, which of course has led to an increasing amount of corporations sponsoring afternoon events in an attempt to manufacture some sort of cultural legitimacy by overpaying bands to play for them instead.  Texas’ capitol welcomes all of this each year with open arms; for every dream unrealized or disappointment that SXSW births, there’s a hotel owner, club operator or BBQ joint made the better for it.

And then there’s Tom Schraeder.

When the Chicago-based singer-songwriter was stranded in Austin after SXSW 2008, he made the best of it by recording an album and finding his way back to the Midwest several months later.  That in and of itself is not unusual for the peripatetic and prolific Schraeder, who, as you’ll read below, is just as likely to write a song at a movie theatre, record it on a hovercraft and perform it later that same day in some far-flung corner of the country.

True to that nature, Schraeder is putting out not one, not two, but three albums this year — and it’s only March.  For Schraeder then, who was scheduled to perform nearly a dozen times with his band at or around this year’s SXSW, the festival itself is not the potential career-making denouement many make it out to be, but rather just part of the process.  Similarly, when he performed in 2007 at Lollapalooza, winning accolades from mainstream critics and rewards of cherry gig offerings, Schraeder promptly went the other direction and very nearly disappeared instead.

To say that all of this has raised Music Zeitgeist’s eyebrow with intrigue is a fair statement, which is why we set about picking Schraeder’s head late last year when he had a cassette-only(!) release party for the then-new When Death Found St. Thomas (Schraeder has since completed and readied for release another album, Dear Brooklyn, I’m Sorry…).  Below then, nearly six months in the making, is an interview with one of the most compelling and consistently excellent independent artists around.  Pigeonholed early on as sounding like Ryan Adams-meets-Gram Parsons-by-way-of-Wilco, a now-far-more developed Schraeder explains his aggressive output, releasing a cassette in the digital age, channeling a love song from a deceased relative, why he sold his TV and — not insignificantly, how and why he’ll send you his latest records for free.

MZ:  How has SXSW been to you this year?  You did a lot of “un-official” events…

TS:  SXSW has been too kind to me this year.  The band worked very hard and the numbers just kept growing.  I’m very pleased with it.

Did you already purchase a ticket home so you don’t get stranded again and wind up with another record?

I don’t have a ticket yet and am looking into going to NY in a few hours.

Let’s talk about your cassette-only EP, When Death Found St. Thomas.  It’s your third release in three years, which even by post-internet bedroom studio standards is still pretty brisk output.  Your previous release occurred organically as the result of being stranded in Texas.  What was the creative impetus behind writing this set of songs and what made you want to get them out so quickly?

I went through a break up, the death of my grandmother, and a very close uncle all within 5 weeks. After this my roommate (and drummer) and I sold [our] TV to replace it with a 1940′s upright piano. My marketing company gave me a Mac computer to use and I wrote/recorded 10 of the songs in three weeks. It’s a lofi record that focuses on the natural life sounds and surroundings more than the music itself. It was recorded/mixed by me on 9 planes, 2 CTA trains (blue line), 1 NJ train (Newark), 1 NYC Train (L), 5 CTA buses (Clark, Irving, Broadway, Chicago, Damen), 6 cities (Chicago, NYC, Nashville, Columbia, St.Louis, Austin), 6 states, 5 airports (LGA, ORD, AUS, STL, Newark), 3 bars (Highdive, Lillys, Blue Fugue), 1 basement, 1 beach (Lake Michigan), 1 Garage, 1 restaurant (Grand Lux Cafe), 7 apts (4 Chicago, 1 Austin, 2 Brooklyn), a Zoo (Lincoln Park Zoo), and not 1 studio…When Death Found St. Thomas is the first of the three records. I wanted to show all the sides of my work and [when] WDFST was completed I knew that it was the right record to start the three off.

You’ve characterized your first release as your college boozing record and your second as your Austin record, how would you best sum up When Death Found St. Thomas?

It’s the soundtrack to my life just as much as it is for my death.

What brought about the decision to issue the new EP on cassette instead of vinyl, cd or a digital format?  Was it just conceptually appealing, in terms of the lo-fi aesthetic?

The record deserved something more personal from me rather than just burning the cd’s and calling it a day. So, I decided to record each tape and hand it out to my fans who wanted one. I had people from other countries asking me for one and it went over so well that I’m going to give one cassette away to the person who inspires me the most on the road in each city.

In an age where cds are ripped moments after purchase and vinyl ripping is becoming more prevalent, most people don’t own cassette players.  To that end, blogs, which have supplanted traditional media in terms of providing vetted exposure for independent artists to mass audiences, rely so heavily on free downloads to generate traffic to their sites.  Was there any thought on your end that you might minimize the impact of your new release by using cassette, in that it would be less attractive/more difficult for blogs to cover?

Well, I never intended on making money from the cassette release and was aware of it not being the most succesful financial decision but I felt I had to do it for all of the people who support my music. If it wasn’t for music this year, I really am not sure I would have made it through.

What was the inspiration behind the video for the cassette release party? How did you arrive at using Song #92 as the song you play in the video?

About a year ago, I did a video with the band Pool of Frogs for “Needle Will Bite” and loved working with them. They have made quite the name around Chicago and I decided to work with them again for “Letters to Douglaston (#92)” back in September for the video. I wanted a “ghostly” sounding song that would entice the listeners to have a second listen. The next video we are going to do is for my latest song I wrote yesterday, entitled “Don’t Wake My Woman.”

I’m curious about genesis of WDFST.  Listening to it gives me the sense that you sat down at your newly acquired piano and most of these songs sort of sprang from your hands like Athena from the head of Zeus.  It comes across as very informal and feels more like a document of that period of time than the result of a concerted studio effort.  You’ve already said the goal was to sort of focus on the surroundings/context of the record versus the actual music, but I’m wondering whether or not you set out to make a record or did you sort of wake up one day and realize you had all these new songs as a result of traveling around and/or playing with your new toy, so to speak?

Actually, it’s a random story. I knew I wanted to record a lofi record and checked out numerous studios. One morning I woke up and wrote exactly word for word what my late grandpa told me in a dream and it was a love song to my grandma from him. Everytime I spoke to my gram for the last two years she would ask me to write a song for her before she passed away. So, when I wrote it I decided to fly out to Austin and record it with my friend Jesse Woods. We recorded in his garage for days and I came back home with three songs, “Pat Baby,” “Josie,” and an unreleased song titled “Once Lace Now Cotton.”

The response to the song was overwhelmingly positive and I didn’t know what to do. The day finally came when my gram was to hear it and she did. We sat, we drank, we cried, and we talked until about 2am. [Then] She went to bed and was rushed to the emergency room where she passed away. After her passing, I wasn’t sure what to do with any of those songs. I was torn between taking those songs and building a record from them or just giving up on them completely.  After the break up and recieving the computer, I knew I was meant to continue with recording. The passings of my Uncle Gush and Grandma caused me to question my legacy and what I had accomplished. After questioning, I realized I wasn’t content with what I had released before that and wanted to leave something behind for when I pass. With no prior experience to the piano it came very easily to me and I then knew that I was meant to make this record.

Many of the songs on WDFST come across as these lovely little sketches that were captured in the moment.  Will any of the songs from this release see life on a future record in a more realized or polished version?  Or is this the definitive statement for these songs?

[A] few of the songs will be re-recorded but most of them won’t be.  I have too many songs in the back burner to keep releasing the same material. However, some of the songs deserve a new arrangement.

It seemed like 2008 was a year of considerable upward momentum for you; on the heels of playing Lollapalooza in 2007, you released Lying Through Dinner, landed a coveted residency at Schuba’s, were profiled by Jim DeRogatis and were tapped by a number of other outlets as an emerging artist of note, including The Onion’s A.V. Club, Chicago Magazine and more.  Yet you’ve commented that your sudden arrival was a bit much and that you wanted to scale back from playing large headlining shows and so forth.  Whereas most artists would kill for that kind of attention and opportunity, you indicated you were in this for the long haul by going the opposite direction.  A year and a half later, where do you find yourself in relation to that path?

The reviews were very kind and much appreciated but I wasn’t ready as an artist for that amount of attention yet. It got to the point where I just continued to turn down interviews because I was so insecure with the direction I was headed in. Finally, I’m ready as a human, musician, and songwriter to do this and that is why I’m releasing three records in 2010.

With things like the cassette release, the Backyard BBQ videos [three videos of Schraeder playing at a casual get-together can be seen at vimeo.com, the first is viewable below] and playing an art gallery with the likes of [female dj duo] Rocktapussy, it’s almost as if you’re making it difficult for casual fans to stay engaged with you, but at the same time, you’re definitely communicating with true devotees via these decidedly non-mainstream avenues.  Was that the intention – to sort of weed out people who might have been subscribing to whatever hype put you on their radar, in order to establish a truer fanbase that will be around as long as you are?

Sometimes, I just feel like creating my own enviroment to play where I’m most comfortable. Will it hurt my career? Perhaps, but it keeps me going.

How comfortable are you continuing forward as an independent artist along your current arc?  At some point in the last two years, there must have been some interest from major labels or at least bigger indies…[note:  part of the delay in publishing this interview was due to several tentative deals and release dates for Schraeder's music in the last several months.]

We had quite a bit of interest but nothing ever seemed to offer something that we couldn’t do on our own. I’m very confident in the people who have been kind enough to work with me.

An early point of differentiation for you artistically was that you were playing with a huge and somewhat unorthodox backing band, including, but not limited to, a saw player, accordion, horns, etc.  Revisiting the topic of scaling things back, do you now have a preference of performing solo on guitar or piano, or would you rather play with His Ego [Schraeder's band] at all times, if it were logistically possible?

Every record I’d like to change things up and keep people interested. Where is the fun in recreating the same art? The best artists never cared about fucking up but more importantly cared about keeping people interested. The three records that I’m working on are entirely different than eachother. The first is a lofi full-length record, the second is a full band (along with a string and horn section, melatrons, saws, etc.) full-length record, and the third is an organically arranged and performed electronic record.  I’m going to give the records [When Death Found St.Thomas, Dear Brooklyn, I'm Sorry... and bad things aren't neccessarily not beautiful] away for free to anyone who emails me, and we are [officially] releasing one of the records on June 4th.

What’s behind the decision to give away your records to anyone who emails you?

These records are very personal and I feel wrong for charging people for the. Instead, I’m going to choose my favorites and release a vinyl with those tracks in June.

Is there a stepping-off point in the future where Tom Schraeder, as a musician, would like to delve outside the singer/songwriter milieu into collaborations or experiments in other genres?

I’ll always be open to trying different genres…I would like to start working more as a producer and a songwriter for other artists at some point and will always find interest in other genres.

Let’s talk influences:  interviewers are as loathe to ask about musical influences as artists are to discuss them, so here at Music Zeitgeist, we instead prefer to ask about other influences.  Whiskey seems like the obvious answer, but is there a preferred beverage, chemical compound or herbal substance that simply puts you in the right frame of mind to channel your muse?  Anything particular to this collection of songs?  Certainly, as a singer/songwriter, there’s an innate and substantive autobiographical component to your material.  It must be somewhat difficult to tap into that spirit if your setting or mindset isn’t right…

Recent additions to my addictive personality in order are; Dark Haired/Blue Eyes Women, Black Jeans, Honey, Shark YouTube Videos, Photography, Doo Wop, Chocolate, and these musicians; Jesse Woods, Dana Falconberry, Pretty Good Dance Moves, Caravan, and The Flaming Groovies.

Following up on that, something like “The Whiskey Song,” no matter how personal it is, makes perfect sense as a sing-a-long romp, but “When You Were Young” seems like a very pointed message to a specific individual (particularly with a cryptic lyric like “all you wore was black ‘til zero found green”), which creates the risk of making the song less accessible.  How do you determine within the framework of a song where to draw the line at making it too intimate vs. allowing it to have more universal appeal?

“When You Were Young” was written as the soundtrack to my ex girlfriend’s childhood home video. It’s a thank you to her and everything she ever did for me. Will she still enjoy the song? I’m not sure, but I enjoy playing it. I enjoy writing for others just as much as I enjoy writing for me. I just allow the songs to go in the direction they are supposed to. I can’t really describe where they come from.

Your music has been described as being the progeny of someone who possesses an old soul, yet you’re a pretty young guy. Do those kinds of critical statements, even as a positive, create an anxiety in your songwriting?  In other words, do you feel like a Tom Schraeder song has to satisfy a certain accepted template that was created with your first and second releases?

Of course I keep others in mind while writing but I never let others influences take away from my release while writing the songs.

It’s been awhile since you’ve been in our neck of the woods.  Will When Death Found St. Thomas see you tour the West Coast?

We are planning on over 150 dates this year so I’m sure we’ll be there a bit too much. Until then be sure to email, message, or myspace me and I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted with new demos, tour information, videos, and of course my record releases.

Do you miss TV at all?

I just got a TV again and it’s nice. However, I should watch it more.

*Author’s note: About five minutes after this article was published, Tom Schraeder sent us a link to preview yet another album of his, this time a live performance from SXSW 2010.  It’s entirely possible he has released yet something else while I was writing this sentence.

Truffle Jones filed this interview from the set of Hardcastle and McCormick:  The Movie.

Tags: chicago, Dear Brooklyn, Gram Parsons, I'm Sorry..., interview, Jim DeRogatis, Lollapalooza, Ryan Adams, Schuba's, SXSW, Tom Schraeder, Tom Schraeder and His Ego, vimeo, When Death Found St. Thomas, wilco

Who says progress is good?

Inventions of the digital age — internet, mobile phones and hybrid vehicles — certainly make living more convenient, but does any of it mean our lives are better?  Do you really need that status update from your Uncle Joey in Fairbanks, AK?  To have the office call you when you’re taking in a vista at the Grand Canyon?  To know the government can track you into a a port-a-john at Lollapalooza via the GPS in your phone?

Instead, let’s consider regression.

Think back to a time before Goldman Sachs ran the economy, when Twitter was something dirty you tried to do to your girlfriend under the dining room table at dinner, and when Michael Jackson was still black.

If you wanted to hear new music, you listened to one of three radio stations or risked going into that shady-looking independent record store to hazard a conversation with that creepy guy behind the counter who had that funny, skunky-but-sweet odor you wouldn’t learn about until high school, which sort of reminded you of Uncle Joey from Fairbanks, AK

Weren’t things better then?

Judging by their set Tuesday night at the House of Blues in Anaheim, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club probably thinks so.

For a band that’s built a career by wearing their influences on their sleeves, BRMC has notably improved over the last decade by increasingly boiling their music down to its most basic elements: guitar, bass, drums and voice.  While they were quickly tarnished by the critics with (numerous, but mostly favorable) Velvet Underground and Jesus & Mary Chain comparisons upon the release of their debut, BRMC has nevertheless avoided charting a course set for originality.  Which is to their credit, as the results have almost always been impressive, and quite honestly, given the cluttered, post-internet music landscape, refreshing.

If J&MC and Velvet Underground taught us anything, it was that it was perfectly fine to not really know how to play your instruments as long as you looked bored, acted cool, had bad hair and stole liberally from those before you.  Drugs also helped.  BRMC has since taught us that doing that and being adept musicians are not mutually exclusive.  Having shed some of their shoegaze and psychedelic tendencies over the years, they have arrived at a place where — quite simply — they rock.  They hard, they rock good and they rock often.  And with every release, they seem to do fulfill that formula by doing more with less.

Such was the case Tuesday night, where for nearly two hours they demonstrated cuts from their freshly baked 2010 release, Beat The Devil’s Tattoo, and plundered their own vaults for a showing of some serious stomping, rootsy, garagey, no-frills rock ‘n’ fucking roll.

BRMC quite simply killed it with “Ain’t No Easy Way Out,” “Six Barrel Shotgun” and the title track to their latest longplayer.  They found moments for quiet reflection as well, with bassist Robert Levon Beet and guitarist Peter Hayes taking solo turns during a mini-acoustic breather partway through the set, but only long enough for the crowd to adjust themselves before the pummeling began anew.

Their encore saw them level those gathered with “Shadow’s Keeper” and a matching bombastic light show — which could have triggered epilepsy in event the least photo-sensitive audience members had they not been subject to the ninety minute-plus raucous display that had come beforehand.  Even a drunken audience member who was obnoxiously shouting to posses Peter’s nuts, and demanding he remove his pants for that purpose, was not enough to derail what as ultimately a “had to be there” performance before a packed house.

Nine years after their first (stateside) release, BRMC’s initial effort is now unquestionably considered a bonafide classic.  And there’s no reason the same won’t be said for the rest of their catalogue, providing they stay away from such modern inventions as Autotune, electric keyboards and mainstream popularity.

Progress be damned.

Truffle Jones filed this report from his trailer on the set of Hardcastle and McCormick: The Movie

Tags: Ain't No Easy Way Out, Anaheim, Beat The Devil's Tattoo, black rebel motorcycle club, BRMC, House of Blues, Jesus And Mary Chain, live review, michael jackson, Peter Hayes, Robert Levon Been, Shadow's Keeper, Six-Barrel Shotgun, Velvet Underground

There’s a moment in the 2008 documentary Man On Wire when Philippe Petit — the French street performer who improbably accessed the rooftops of the World Trade Center’s twin towers in 1974 to perform an illegal an wire walk between the two structures — describes removing his clothing and methodically splaying his limbs about in hopes of finding an arrow — the arrow — that his confederate had shot from the neighboring tower rooftop in the dark of night, to which was tied the monofilament line that ultimately bore the cable upon which Petit would perform his feat of daring some hours later.

Finally coming to find the arrow after feeling something brush against his naked thigh, Petit discovers it perfectly yet precariously perched upon a rail at the tower’s precipice, so vulnerable that even slightest breath of wind could send it tumbling 110 stories below, and with it — Petit’s dream.

That image — of an instrument impossibly defying the natural order of things, balancing against disaster, created for pain and yet intended to deliver beauty, is the first thing that struck my head upon learning late last night of the death of Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous.

While I can tell you I am an ardent fan of Sparklehorse, I’ve never read an interview with Linkous, never viewed their Wikipedia page and truly, until last evening, didn’t even know the whole tale of his previously successful suicide attempt, resuscitation and ensuing surgeries.  I’d long ago learned that the more dear an artist is to me, the less known about them, the better, so frequent the disappointment has been any time I’ve met or discovered too much about someone whose creations had acquired some kind of deeper meaning in my world.  Truth be told, if I were alive in the time of Schopenhauer, Hesse or Schiele, I would have avoided them with haste lest running the chance of ruining part of myself by being exposed to their assholisms (the same cannot be said for Nick Cave).  Even so, I owned a vague notion that Linkous was in pain and was challenged by his own existence, and therefore wasn’t wholly surprised by the news of his death.

Though I was an early adapter upon the release of 1995′s Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, the music of Sparklehorse never became so meaningful to me as it has in the few years since Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain came out.  Inside that record slept a Rosetta Stone which, once discovered, allowed me to access parts of  other Sparklehorse albums previously insignificant to me.  Perhaps it was in my getting older that every failed relationship stung slightly more, given the eventuality of the hourglass our lives are set against, and therefore I was learning a truer meaning of mortality, but somewhere between the near-simultaneous losses of a great love, a great friend and a parent, the warbling voice, obscured lyricism and oftentimes discordant tapestry that defined Sparklehorse suddenly felt a lot more like life to me than anything the gay buccaneers in Coldplay could ever vomit out.  Even the beloved Radiohead (the British Wilco) and Wilco (the American Radiohead) started to feel more artful than truthful when measured in the context of my life.  It didn’t really seem like spiders singing in the salty breeze or the pointless snide remarks of hammerhead sharks were meant to mean anything; however, looking in your face for a thousand years because it’s like a civil war of pain and of cheer certainly seemed like it might.

Many a night out of mine has begun with air-raid screenings of “Someday I will Treat You Good” and/or “Mountains” while just as many have languished to an end with” Sad And Beautiful World” and “Don’t Take My Sunshine Away” (and vice versa).  I pushed my ears to damage this summer after listening to a bootleg copy of Dark Night of the Soul endlessly, and just 48 hours ago, right around the time Mark Linkous composed what would be his final message to this world, “Shade And Honey” spilled from my girlfriend’s tiny computer speakers after I thumbed through her laptop for just the right song as we roused ourselves from bed and dressed in a room heavy with the cologne of our lovemaking.

It’s perhaps fitting, given the equine imagery that is pervasive in Linkous’ lyrics, to describe experiencing Sparklehorse as not wholly unlike viewing the birth of a foal — an arresting, grotesque display that ends in something awkward and beautiful.  While that might not resonate with everyone as a revelation, it certainly seems more truthful than the short-attention-span, black-and-white consumerist orgy that Miley Cyrus and Jonas Brothers insist we should inhabit instead.  It’s therefore no coincidence the music of Sparklehorse has found its way into misunderstood, below-the-radar indie films such as The King and Laurel Canyon; in both, Sparklehorse songs are covered by characters who are undergoing something of an awakening with no easy remedy against their otherwise storybook backdrops.  It’s not so much that Sparklehorse is a alternative for the mainstream as much as it is a soundtrack for those in the minority who are struggling to acknowledge that everything might not be alright, but that in and of itself is in fact ok.

Perhaps therein lies a lesson that Linkous was too close to experience for himself.  Though only his family and loved ones will truly know, it seems that whatever his pain, whatever his displacement, every moment he spent searching and creating was a victorious acknowledgement of life.  That there are no more Mark Linkous compositions forthcoming to baptize our days would be disheartening if he hadn’t already blessed us with so much.  Still, for the sake of all the sunlight and starlight I’ve burned listening to Linkous’ music, Sparklehorse will ever be in my mind a cloudburst of radiant if uneven watercolors, undefined by the final action of one man.

In the silver morning hollow
trembling and getting old
smelling burnt oil of heaven
about ten years, too big to hold

Truffle Jones filed this report from the set of Hardcastle and McCormick: The Movie.

Tags: Dark Night Of The Soul, Don't Take My Sunshine Away, Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain, Hesse, Laurel Canyon, Man on Wire, Mark Linkous, Mountain, Sad And Beautiful World, Schiele, Schopenhauer, Shade And Honey, Someday I will Treat You Good, Sparklehorse, suicide, The King, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot

Due to heavy pre-Halloween traffic en route to Origami Records and an inexplicably stupid entry policy at the Bootleg Theatre, I managed to miss both L.A. performances by The Antlers last Thursday night.  Lucky me, because that left a slot open on my dance card for Montreal’s Land Of Talk, who were playing at Spaceland that same evening.

Land Of Talk appears to have more going for them that any indie band could hope for: their last full-length album was produced in part by shit-hot Justin Vernon of Bon Iver fame, and was released in the States by Conor Oberst’s shit-hot Saddle Creek label.  If that weren’t enough, singer Elizabeth Powell has done time as the female touring voice of shit-hot Broken Social Scene, joining the likes of shit-hot Amy Milan, Leslie Feist and Emily Haines.  And in case you missed it the first time – Land Of Talk is from shit-hot Montreal.

With all that lather on them, it was surprising to find a less than half-filled room awaiting Land Of Talk’s performance shortly before midnight.  Whether or not the rest of L.A.’s indie music fans had committed to one of the aforementioned events by The Antlers or the first of two nights by Built To Spill, or something else altogether, they sure as hell weren’t at Spaceland.

No matter, there was all that much more of Land Of Talk for those in attendance to enjoy.

Helmed by Powell – a former jazz student — Land Of Talk live is essentially a trio suffering through an identity crisis.  The same way a schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder assumes various identities, which – no matter how disparate, are all of that person — a Land Of Talk show will find you being ushered through a slice of winsome pop that recalls The Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler one moment and then ensconced in a frenzied inferno a la toenut. the next.  It’s that manic-but-cohesive combination of pop sensibility melded with serious musical chops that puts LOT in a category all their own, justifiably immune to any comparisons with their geographically aligned colleagues Arcade Fire, The Dears, Stars or The Stills (none of whom should be compared to each other anyway).  Put plainly, in the Land Of Talk, there aren’t any rules that say good songwriting must be restricted by musical simplicity.

It was momentarily concerning that “Some Are Lakes” – the sunny, summer-y pop gem that aired off LOT’s 2008 LP of the same name – arrived early in the set, as it is as close to anything the group has to an readily identifiable pop culture toehold.  But any wonder whether that song’s appearance heralded an early peak to the night was quelled the moment Powell and company invited their tour manager/merch seller/van driver on stage to fill in on bass while bandmember Joe Yarmush slid over to man guitar, keys and other miscellany — setting the stage for Land Of Talk + 1 to blister through material from their latest release, the Fun and Laughter EP, including the stellar “Sixteen Asterisk” and “May You Never.”

While LOT’s smart songwriting could live many lives on its own, it’s with drummer Andrew Barr’s contributions that the group arrives at something completely combustible and unique.  As a vocalist, Powell never comes across as anything less than sincere, but it’s Barr’s punctuation, quite literally, that cements her messages as more than anchorless fancy.  For all her toil onstage with her high-strapped guitar and theatrical bluster, the risks she shares with Yarmush would be a bit much to take without the framework Barr provides for them on which to stretch their fabric.  Whether bombastic or mellow, Land Of Talk collectively delivers compositions that simply exceed the service of the instruments creating them.  Just as Powell is never merely singing her way through a song for the sake of it, Barr is always doing more than just keeping the beat.  Again, not your average indie fare, and delightfully so.

But there’s really no point to trying to dissect what LOT is or how it works and why.  By the end of the night, it was apparent that the appeal of LOT has little to do with complexity and everything to do with connectivity.  Powell has a gift of expressing herself – her yearnings, disappointments, celebrations – in a way that resonates in tandem with the music she and her bandmates play.  Land Of Talk never leaves the impression that their songs are mere constructs of words on top of music; instead, each song comes across as a very specific emotional delivery mechanism.

Whatever the case, know that what LOT does, they do well and did it exceptionally on Thursday night, despite that so few were there to receive their performance.  There was a mutual appreciation between artist and audience from the get-go (Powell kept thanking them for coming out on a “Tuesday night,” very clearly suffering from Where The Hell Am I? Road Syndrome) which made for a blessed marriage.  As she gave, the crowd gave in return, and so on until the conclusion of the show arrived like a pot boiling over with goodwill.  Even after an encore vaguely sated the show’s handful of attendees, it was clear from the smiles on their impassioned faces that they didn’t care if anyone else in L.A. turned out to the event or not.  In fact, they probably preferred that less people came, if only so Land Of Talk can remain their little secret for just a little while longer.

Tags: Amy Milan, Andrew Barr, arcade fire, Bon Iver, Broken Social Scene, Conor Obrest, Elizabeth Powell, Emily Haines, Fun And Laughter, Harriet Wheeler, Joe Yarmush, Justin Vernon, Land Of Talk, Leslie Feist, live review, Los Angeles, May You Never, Montreal, Saddle Creek, Sixteen Asterisk, Some Are Lakes, Spaceland, Stars, The Dears, The Stills, The Sundays, toenut.