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Live Review: The Smashing Pumpkins At The Guitar Hero: World Tour Release Party At The Lot

Published

Truffle Jones

on October 31, 2008

in General, Listings, Performance, Reviews and Truffle Jones

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Thinking about it now, it’s hard to even imagine how it could have happened.

Somewhere in the not-to-distant past, it became cool for bands to not know how to play their instruments. True, most groups struggle with their technical inability to play at first, compensating with imagination until they are eventually able to overcome those initial limitations (as U2 famously did). But those limitations usually become part of a group’s back story after the fact. In today’s landscape, the correct formula for success requires a lack of ability from the get-go: those who are most lauded tend to make a specific point of informing the public that they’ve only been playing their instruments for about a week and half, but by golly — they’re so damn artistic and inspired that the awesome tunes just leap from their souls regardless — like some sort of re-imagining of the Athenian creation story from Greek mythology.

And while it would be easy to accuse American Idol of being the purveyor of this unfortunate phenomenon, an examination of early press rushes from the likes of The White Stripes and Kings Of Leon make it evident that being a musical retard has become a mainstream front-line selling point for “real” bands in general.

The Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan fires bolts of Doom from his fingers, just in time for Halloween (photo by the author).

Enter The Smashing Pumpkins, one group which wasn’t altogether innocent of those same charges when they appeared on the scene in the late 80s. While Billy Corgan played almost all the instruments on the Pumpkins’ albums, bassist D’arcy Wretzky and guitarist James Iha were initially little more than window dressing for live proceedings and PR opps. But at least Corgan (and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin) could play. There was no attempt at the crown based on musical ignorance, feigned or otherwise. Anyone’s lack of proficiency became an embarrassment for sheepish admission down the road after they’d grown into their instruments.

Ironic then that The Smashing Pumpkins were tapped to play the release party for Guitar Hero: World Tour – with Guitar Hero being the video game sensation that is more than a little responsible for deluding those without musical chops into thinking they are, in fact, guitar virtuosos (the hook here is that the Pumpkins’ latest single, “G.L.O.W.” can only be found on Guitar Hero: World Tour, and is not commercially available in any other form). Corgan, a bona fide guitar hero, must have smirked all the way to the bank to cash the fat corporate check inked with that same irony.

Of course, knowing how to play your instrument provides no guarantee of quality, and the Pumpkins suffered greatly from that failure in the late 90s as their output grew more dreary, meandering and distant from the hard-rock pop goodness that made Gish, Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness required listening for alternative radio fans and aspiring musicians. Met with widespread critical and commercial indifference, last year’s Zeitgeist continued the trend.

However, there was something incredibly redeeming about seeing the Pumpkins live at a Hollywood sound stage in the midst of a corporate shindig populated by girls who were pleased with themselves for being almost someone enough that they got in to the private affair and the dude-bro’s who were pleased with themselves for being in the same room with those girls. Chamberlin wasn’t playing a drum kit with three pieces, he was playing a percussion installation with dozens of facets. Corgan and James Iha replacement Jeff “Shredder” Schroeder wore their guitars low and played intricate, dexterous parts while bassist Ginger Reyes demonstrated in no uncertain terms that she was far from the token “chick bass player” with fierce lines of her own. Two keyboard players fleshed things out, and nearly everyone sang. The Pumpkins weren’t afraid to play — nor were they afraid to not please the crowd (Corgan took a minute mid-set to acknowledge them, mocking his own piñata-like trousers (“they were $600 at Neiman’s”) before leading his cohorts back into their amorphous set (“and now, back to The Darkness,” he joked).

When it grew apparent that no hits of any kind were going to be performed, the majority of the crowd retreated into an adjoining room, where an open bar, free food and all the Guitar Hero they could ever want to play awaited, minus the inconvenience of having to listen to actual musicians.

Not just for the flu anymore: Jeff Schroeder coaxes scariness from his Theremin (photo by the author).

The Pumpkins rocked on regardless, grinning as they played unfamiliar tunes which were increasingly epic and noodle-y in scope, culminating in something monstrous which I’ll call “Jazz Odyssey” wherein Corgan played kettle drums — first with mallets and then with the neck and body of his guitar — as Schroeder sourced otherworldly creepiness from a Theremin. As the number approached a miasmatic climax, the whole thing culminated with – I kid you not – the band simultaneously going quiet and holding chirping, stuffed toy birds to their vocal mics as a pair of timid children joined Corgan on stage, flanking him on each side.

Say what you will about indie-pop trumping the rock establishment, but you’re not likely to see that anytime soon on a Monday night at Spaceland. It remains to be seen if The Smashing Pumpkins v2.0 will achieve any of the relevance of their predecessor, but in the meantime, they’re making it safe for kids everywhere taking music lessons.

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Live Review: Kenan Bell, Noah And The Whale At Spaceland

Published

Truffle Jones

on October 7, 2008

in Listings, Performance, Reviews, Truffle Jones and Week of Shows

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With Pigeon John
October 6, 2008
Week Of Shows, Episode 10

Did you hear the one about the English folk-pop group and the hip-hop artist that met in a bar?

No punchline here. Just a great night of music at Spaceland Monday night.

Ringin’ Everyone Else’s Bell: Kenan Bell with a few friends at Spaceland. (photo by the author)

Coming off their blustery appearance at Saturday’s LA WEEKLY Detour Festival, BBC and NME darlings Noah And The Whale were greeted by an overflowing, industry-studded crowd when they took the stage early in the night. Though their set was plagued by a variety of audio and technical difficulties, they represented themselves well, converting those who might have cried “hype!” before their performance. While Noah’s release Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down is pleasant enough in a near-twee, Belle and Sebastian-meets-Vampire Weekend sort of way, their live mission equates to a far more involved, cinematic experience. As was the trend this week at other concerts, the unsated audience called for an encore at the conclusion of Noah’s set. For their efforts, they were rewarded with a not-essential but certainly fun and in-the-moment cover of The Smiths’ “Girlfriend In A Coma.”

Providing a bit of an aural sorbet after Noah And The Whale, L.A.-based act Pigeon John treated the waning crowd to lighthearted trek through some of their latest material, introducing hip-hop to the evening and paving the way for Spaceland’s October resident, Kenan Bell. Lyrically astute yet comedic, Pigeon John’s set highlight was a number about women who make connections with men just to get access to their famous friends – a representative indictment of life in Hollywood if ever there was one.

Closing out the night, emerging local hip-hop luminary Kenan Bell presented a tight and energetic set, his live band rendering an infectious platform for his effortless rapping. Though at times sounds in voice Bell can sound a bit like Eminem, his subject matter is decidedly his own and he excels at making certain both his flow and music are laden with hooks. Providing further proof of The Morrissey Unifying Theory Of All Things, Bell followed up on Noah And The Whale’s own Smiths nod with a performance of his song “Save Your Life,” which contains samples from “The Night Has Opened My Eyes.” Bringing out Noah’s horn player as well as inviting half the audience on stage for his final number (including a member of local act The Deadly Syndrome), Bell made certain his inaugural residency show went out with a bang. Bell’s Spaceland residency continues every Monday this October. Admission is free.

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Live Review: Beach House at Spaceland

Published

Truffle Jones

on October 3, 2008

in Listings, Performance, Reviews, Truffle Jones and Week of Shows

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September 30, 2008
Week Of Shows, Episode Four

At no point Tuesday night at Spaceland did Beach House recall in live performance any of the carefree yet sophisticated elements so gorgeously manifested on their self-titled debut album.

Blue Moods of Lame: Beach House's Victoria Legrand at Spaceland

Instead, the capacity crowd was treated to a lifeless waltz through the group’s material, which broadly missed the late-night summer milieu that’s made their recorded music an essential listen. While Beach House the album tends toward the dark and lethargic ala Mazzy Star and Portishead, it’s simultaneously balanced with warm, positive energy and a certain pervading loveliness – all of which was absent this night. Even a mid-set stopover at their single “Gila,” the video for which Pitchfork tapped to help launch their tv site earlier this year, failed to yield a pulse.

It could be that the material, which is a few years old, no longer provides a thrill for the band (essentially singer/keyboardist Victoria Legrand and guitarist Alex Scally, though a touring drummer was present as well), because things threatened to get lively toward the end of the set when they ran through a new song, “Used To Be.” But the damage was done at that point: a third of the house had left the proceedings well before the final curtain.

On the topic of final curtains, Beach House somehow had it in their heads that it would be a good move to jerk-off the crowd and disappear behind Spaceland’s iconic blue and silver sparkly curtain for a few minutes before coming back on stage to finish their already brief set by way of an “encore” (which very, very few were calling for).

Artists are certainly allowed off-nights, and in this case maybe Beach House was tired (after all, they were seated for the entire show – though that was undoubtedly not appreciated by those standing at the back of the sold-out venue). Then again, perhaps they just haven’t yet mastered the stagecraft required to suitably sell the depth of their songs in a live context.

Whatever the case, the fixed monotone blue lighting that brushed the stage throughout didn’t really set a mood as much as it encouraged boredom to creep in. To that end, it helped recall an old SNL skit in which Frank Sinatra (Phil Hartman) gives advice to 2 Live Crew’s Luther “Luke” Campbell (Chris Rock) during a send-up of The McLaughlin Group: “don’t work blue kid, you’ll never play the big rooms.”

Of course, in the skit, “work blue” was a euphemism for using profanity, but in a literal sense, the sentiment translates here. In theory, Beach House would absolutely kill in a theatre setting, but unless they can literally get their act together, they might never get a crack at those big rooms.