Show Review: Animal Collective at the Prospect Park Bandshell

In a 1981 interview with Geraldo Rivera, Jerry Garcia astutely compared the legions of Deadheads to licorice eaters. "Our audience is like people who like licorice," he said. "Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice." The same could be said for Animal Collective, the Baltimore-born and locally-based musical confederation (as witnessed by guitarist Josh Dibb's indefinite hiatus from the group, they can hardly be thought of as a band in the traditional sense) who have captivated mainstream audiences and the cognoscenti alike since releasing the acclaimed Merriweather Post Pavilion -- either their magnum opus or the summit of popular music's decline into irrelevancy, depending upon your perspective -- back in January. More than any other group under the "indie" aegis, the members of Animal Collective are fundamentally outre, an affront to the coldly calculated and expertly manicured veneer of the hipster epoch; in other words, they're kind of like those prematurely hirsute guys who were never invited to the society parties in high school and probably spent their earnings from RadioShack on copious amounts of certain flowering buds. Or, more reductively, they never set out to be hip, even as the urban vanguard latched on to them with unexpected aplomb. Just as the Dead remained relatively static and complacent in their ways as their instrumentation evolved, it's difficult to envision the cogent quartet doing anything differently in fifteen years -- even as a new generation of not-so-impecunious students and dreamers follow them on tour.

Saturday's concert -- marking the end of the 2009 Celebrate Brooklyn season -- was an exercise in contrasts. Young families frolicked with each other on the lawn; an aging Park Slope rocker and his Bay Ridge companion (the accent and her gushing admiration for Vesuvio's were the giveaways) downed Rocher chocolates by the box, demonstrating that the two rival nabes will indeed live in harmony someday; and yes, plenty of my not-so-impecunious peers were there, searching in vain for a party scene that never quite manifested amid the electronics and copious pot smoke. While the beat was crucial to Merriweather Post Pavillion's hits ("Brothersport" and "My Girls"), AC's roots in freak folk and the Beach Boys' psychedelic era have continually precluded them from indulging in anything close to a four-on-the-four rhythm, and Saturday's set maintained that contrarian tradition. While a select number of pop visionaries (Wilson, Perry, Eno, Russell) foresaw the dissipation of the beat into spatial luminescence, Animal Collective's rapid ascent into the collective unconsciousness has expedited this process overnight -- no small feat.

After a set of disco standards ("Make Me Believe in You", "Cymande") from XXXChange, veteran LA DJ Dam-Funk played an hour-plus set of 80s boogie and electro-funk, ranging from the predictable ("More Bounce to the Ounce") to his own self-produced tracks. Unlike most mixmasters, who seamlessly blend (or in the case of hip-hop DJs, jaggedly cut) between tracks, he saw it fit to speak over nearly every transition. This was beneficial in some instances (from the standpoint of a collector of those records, identifying them was a nice gesture), but the constant chat soon grew irksome.

And then it was time for the headliners. Opening with a reworked version of the hymnal "Grace" -- an unreleased curio and fan favorite -- Animal Collective seemed to be in perfect synchronicity with the audience. All of their recent material ("Summertime Clothes", "Guys Eyes", "Lion in a Coma", the abovementioned tracks) were performed in relatively faithful renditions that doubtless placated the new fans, but it was on their more esoteric material -- including a suite of "Fireworks" and "#1" from 2007's Strawberry Jam -- that the band truly shone. Much as the Dead's studio recordings were only springboards and loose templates for their live flights of fancy, Animal Collective indulge the live setting as an incubator of new ideas and spontaneous improvisation, a fearless stance in an era where so many artists merely "play the record", irrespective of genre.

By the time of "Lion in a Coma", a great time had been enjoyed at all. Kudos to Animal Collective and Celebrate Brooklyn for an amazing night of music.

Show Review: Brooklyn Steppers and High Places at It Came From Brooklyn

Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile is less than a half hour by subway from Borough Hall, but to invoke the time-honored wisdom of Neil Young, it's a "million miles away" culturally. Yes, Chuck Close's more enduring works and Warhol's Mao portrait may be enshrined in the Met; yes, Nicky Siano played some shindig at the Cooper-Hewitt last year; yes, Ratatat performed at the Guggenheim as early as three years ago. But for the majority of stodgy (and not-so-stodgy) Upper East Siders, the Brooklyn arts renaissance is redolent of the same exotica that once permeated the SoHo and East Village scenes in earlier decades. Rather than gradually ingratiating the two disparate entities through the usual means of avarice and acquisition, former gallery owner and current Guggenheim special events coordinator Bronwyn Keegan came up with the brilliant idea of bringing Brooklyn's best writers and musicians to the Guggenheim itself. The result is the It Came From Brooklyn series, which kicked off on Friday with performances by an eclectic variety of local talents.

After a deliriously smarmy comedy set from former Saturday Night Live writer (and Brooklyn resident) Leo Allen, Bed-Stuy's own Brooklyn Steppers dazzled the audience with a medley of popular songs and intricate drum solos. Although the audience seemed to initially treat the ensemble with an air of blaseness -- it's a marching band, after all -- the prodigiously talented Steppers (some musicians are still in grade school) transcended the usual drumline theatrics and the venue's poor acoustics. By the end of their twenty minute set, nearly every member of the crowd was hollering with rapturous glee, a testament to their burgeoning talents. If a local Lindsay Buckingham is looking to spruce up his arrangements, look no further.

With an arsenal heavily dependent "layered recordings, improvised loops, and percussion," fellow Bed-Stuyers High Places were ideal for this type of event -- their lilting music does not require immediate attention, but such focus hardly detracts from appreciating them. Vocalist Mary Pearson's funereal bassoon playing recalled the postminimal stylings of trombonist Peter Zummo and multi-instrumentalist Jon Gibson, while knob-turner Rob Barber seemed to be in awe of his surroundings, thanking the audience on several occassions and citing the Brooklyn Steppers as "the best openers they've ever had." While their twisted, amelodic sounds may not be for everyone, the group is well on their way to cementing their place on the vanguard of the Brooklyn scene.

Overall, It Came From Brooklyn was a testament to how far our borough has come as an arts mecca over the past decade. I -- and, quite likely, many others -- eagerly anticipate attending September's show.

Show Review: Dan Deacon/Deerhunter/No Age

It seemed illogical and just a tad bemusing on paper. Although Dan Deacon, Deerhunter, and No Age are among the most popular crossover acts to have emerged from the indie scene, their respective styles couldn't be any more disparate. The enigmatic Deacon, who is arguably better known for his showmanship than his musical output at this stage, fuses wordless adenoidal vocals (Philip Glass on Ritalin would not be an exaggeration) with electronic instrumentation; it's dance music absolved of its funky underpinnings. With roots in Brooklyn and Georgia, Deerhunter's imaginatively loping take on psychedelia and relentless touring garnered a huge fanbase throughout 2008. Finally, the ruffians in No Age have embraced the contrarian strains of primeval punk rock, all the while subsuming their classicism in the requisite dollops of noise that are somehow equated with ingenuity in the eclectic waters of 2009. It may be a coldly calculated sound, yet it somehow remains imprinted on the brain -- musical Ubik, if you will.

Initially scheduled as part of the free Pool Parties series at East River State ParkKent Avenue in Williamsburg, yesterday's inclimate weather forced the show to be moved to nearby Brooklyn Bowl on North 11th Street. With a capacity of around 600, the bowling alley (one of only five left in the borough) could not comfortably accommodate the large turnout, fueling the flames of irreverent commenters on the popular BrooklynVegan blog; before long, a second show was hastily added. Despite the initial fracas, the show did not turn into a boondoggle like the final day of the All Points West festival in New Jersey -- indeed, some commenters were referring to the first concert as "the concert of the year" before midnight.

After an opening act, the three headliners performed "round robin" style. For the uninitiated, this uniquely Baltimorian style of performance involves all acts performing on stage at once, switching after every song. It is certainly more egalitarian than the traditional mode of performance (a boon to the musicians), while the format inherently lends itself to a more varied type of show -- one where inter-band collusions are very common. In a highlight of the evening, Dan Deacon spontaneously dueted with Deerhunter's Bradford Cox (a truly genial soul who thanked audience members while waiting in the very long queue).

Lacking much of the usual histrionics, the Deacon songs were by far the weakest of the evening. On his last tour, the rotund Baltimorean was joined by an ensemble of live musicians who added a new level of panache to his frantic compositions. The Brooklyn Bowl set, on the contrary, skewed heavily towards note-by-note recreations of material from his latest album (Bromst); without the net of the backing band, Deacon was forced to attend to his array of clangorous machines instead of indulging in the crowd dancing that he prefers. No Age also yielded towards their album in their pro forma set, but the throng of dancers towards the front of the stage reminded skeptics that there is still room for odd gesticulations at rock and roll shows. Thank heavens.

It was Deerhunter that stole the show for me. Since seeing them well over a year ago, the permanently emaciated Cox (like Joey Ramone and Michael Phelps, he suffers from Marfan syndrome) has matured into a Morrisonian frontman, controlling the audience with a gravitas not seen all that often among today's diffident musicians. While Microcastle and Cryptograms were good albums, hearing those songs in their live iterations only reinforced their preeminence. Truly captivating stuff.

As the show concluded with a Dan Deacon light show and a two-way drone jam between No Age and Deerhunter, I smiled. It certainly wasn't the best show of the year, but all three acts had beat the odds with grace.

First Pool Party A Smash

After weeks of torrential rain and scaremongering on the part of overzealous scenesters, I fully expected the first Pool Party at Williamsburg's East River State Park (held yesterday) to be rather underwhelming. Instead, with a somewhat superfluous VIP area -- come on, guys, it's a free show -- and perhaps too many accouterments (outside of the main concert area, the music seemed rather peripheral... which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as you will see) going on in the shadows of a seemingly abandoned condo development (see Eagle article from last week), the setting was somewhat surreal. Only a rusting fence lined with bikes prevented the confluence of big business and the unpaved lot adjoining the condo complex.

Overall, the event was something of a smash. Admittedly, Ponytail have never been my cup of tea. When seeing them open for Jens Lekman on two hours' sleep last fall at CMJ, I remarked to my improbable show buddy -- a recently laid off investment banker -- in an oh-so-obstreperous manner that there were several teen garage bands who could play much better. Ten months later, one must still get acclimated to Molly Siegel's onomatopoeic vocals and the breakneck pseudo-Pixies guitars, but constant touring has improved their sense of dynamics to the point where you could almost take them home to grandma. Furthermore, the lack of dissimilarity between songs was oddly appropriate at this event: there was enough primal energy for a mosh pit to get started in the main stage area, but those wishing to get overpriced burgers, play dodgeball (couldn't the hipsters have chosen golf or something less taxing as their international sport?) and Cafe Bustelo tote bags could appreciate the onslaught from afar on a purely musical level.

After hitting up the book vendors on Bedford Avenue -- for those not in the know, their selections are comparable to and often exceed the Strand... with none of the fuss and smugness -- I returned to hear Marty Markowitz's requisite speech being looped and electronically mangled by Mission of Burma sound engineer Bob Weston, presumably the latest demonstration of Marty's new avant-garde cred. While I didn't get to actually see their set, as the view was blocked by burger cooks, the veteran post punk group blended old 80s favorites ("Einstein's Day") and more unfamilar new material (with a clear dance influence) in a stunning demonstration of their relevancy. With contemporaries Sonic Youth just shy of geezer status at this point, seeing these fiftysomethings hold their own with much younger groups was quite validating. Here's a video.

All in all, a good time was had by all.

Show Review: David Byrne @ Prospect Park, 06/08/09

After keeping a low profile since the Talking Heads disbanded around 1989 (1992 if you charitably include the Heads-in-name-only "Sax and Violins" from Wim Wenders's Until the End of the World), David Byrne has emerged from his hermitage as one of the more resurgent musicians of the decade. The renaissance culminated with last year's Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, a collaboration with Brian Eno that found the alt-geezers tastefully mining the saccharine waters of adult contemporary -- not entirely surprising considering Eno's recent productions of Coldplay & Paul Simon and Byrne's soundtrack work -- while still managing to somehow sound medium cool. Although the album foundered on the charts, it provided a convenient excuse to mount a lucrative tour in the vein of the halcyon Stop Making Sense extravaganza. And so Byrne has returned to many of the same barns where he enjoyed the spoils of nascent success twenty five years ago with an odd sense of vindication. While he was never able to parlay "Burning Down the House" into Pretenders/UB40/Blondie megastardom -- not that he ever wanted to, mind you -- he's remained on the same plateau of visibility on his own hermetic, everything-including-the-Twyla Tharp dancers terms. Which is more than contemporaries like Lou Reed (now living vicariously through wife Laurie Anderson) or Deborah Harry & Chris Stein (relegated to the purgatory of the oldies circuit, more or less) could ever say.

Over the years, true believers in Byrne have had to endure the usual laundry list of complaints and remonstrations from the likes of former bandmate Tina Weymouth: he's indifferent to friendship; his callow opportunism during the Remain in Light sessions engendered more bad morale than good music in the long run; he's just not a nice guy, the archetypal Faust in the flesh. Alas, according to a Celebrate Brooklyn stagecrew member, Byrne went out of his way to make the stagehands feel like a part of the family yesterday, joking around during a lengthy soundcheck. "He's still got it," my friend texted me, and while I was obviously skeptical -- another friend prognosticated that the free show was destined to be "less than vintage" -- he hit it right on the nail.

When we arrived a little after 5:00, the serpentine line extended from the Lafayette memorial entrance on 9th Street and Prospect Park West to at least 11th Street; it would swiftly double over the next hour. The crowd was already shaping up to be an idiosyncratic, only-in-Brooklyn convocation of frayed hippies of all ages (obviously cognizant of the Garcia maxim that "music is music"), local yuppies, Afrocentric types, hipsters, normal people (including bros in Celtics jerseys), Jack and Hank from the Mighty Handful, a couple of college acquaintances, more hipsters, Vampire Weekend-venerating altbros, and the cop/fireman/garbageman who wound up standing next to us for the entire show. Diverse? Try microcosmic. But as someone pointed out, "all of them -- even the normal folks -- seemed to be a little off, a little weird, just like Byrne."

After an ebullient introduction from Marty Markowitz (who else?), Byrne and his eight-piece band -- soon to be accompanied by three contemporary dancers -- took the stage in their already-iconic white outfits to the tune of "Strange Overtones" from Everything that Happens. While the results were less than feral mania of Stop Making Sense, the new songs -- which, to Byrne's credit, comprised a substantial portion of the set -- sounded far more muscular than their flaccid album counterparts. On the surface, "I Zimbra" was no match for the Busta Jones
-driven renditions of the early 80s (yes, that is an euphemism), but upon further reflection the slower tempo brought out the hidden Afrofunk long subsumed by the Arthur Russell-style beat; "Heaven"'s breakneck arrangement was a moment of Dylanesque insouciance, the hymn transformed into something almost unrecognizable... and just as good. (The repetitious synth loop on "Once in a Lifetime" was not nearly as interesting in its 21st Century incarnation, however.) Schooled well in frantic contemporary styles, the much-buzzed-about dancers initially detracted from Byrne's laconic stage demeanor, but their presence was a subtle tip of the hat to his collaboration with Tharp and the collusions that permeated the downtown arts scene in the 1970s. Stagey -- though not as stagey as they could have been, judging by their strategic presence on only a handful of songs -- but essential, just as percussionist Steve Scale's presence on "Life During Wartime" and the encores established necessary continuity with the Expanded Heads ensemble that toured many of these songs thirty years ago.

By the time Byrne donned a tutu for the second encore of "Burning Down the House" (followed by the slightly anticlimactic finale of "Everything that Happens"... um, where was "This Must Be The Place"?), he was oozing in layers of sweat; naturally, the 10,000+ assembled in the park clamored for even more. As the crowd slowly dispersed into the Slope, an aging yuppie -- potbellied and hunched over, a far cry from his Patrick Bateman salad days circa 1985 -- inquired his family about "this new group called the Management -- who are they?"

Needless to say, one couldn't help but to smile. A good time was had by all, and kudos to Byrne and Celebrate Brooklyn for making it possible.

Show Review: The Diamond Center and North Highlands @ Market Hotel

Bereft of many of the usual trendoids, carpetbaggers, and scenesters, it was a quiescent Sunday evening in the hothouse confines of Bushwick's Market Hotel. It had been some time since I last visited the venue which seems to be inextricably linked with my writing career -- my first review was of one of the first Market Hotel shows, back when tres-chic commissary Mr. Kiwi was in its infancy and the neighborhood guys would scowl at you under the El -- and the gradual transformation of the space from the austere remnants of a Dominican social club into one of the city's foremost venues for experimental rock has been something to behold. Aside from the climate control issues, exacerbated by last night's humid conditions, it doesn't get much better than this these days.

Appropriately for a Sunday show, few of last night's players, to employ the old addage, were quite ready for prime time, hearkening back to the venue's roots as a showcase for the less-than-blogworthy. A relatively new collective of musicians, local residents North Highlands opened the show nearly an hour and a half after the doors opened at 9:00 with a corruscating set of Van Morrison-meets-David Crosby-via-Grizzly Bear harmonies, block rocking drums, and Brenda Malvini's tremulously sultry vocals. While Malvini (who doubles on electric piano) seemed to take far too many vocal cues from freak folk stalwart Joanna Newsom for her own benefit at times, her incalculable yet highly mutable stage presence makes this band quite worthy of future attention, and it's more than a pleasure to welcome them at the beginning of a great career. Closing number "Fresca", which found the band members laying down their instruments to partake in some a capella vocal gymnastics, was just the tip of the iceberg. With likeminded groups such as the aforementioned Ursus Aarctos Horribilis and Animal Collective now breaking through the Billboard Top 20, it's only a matter of time before North Highlands supplant them as local faves.

On the contrary, Lubbock's own Diamond Center seemed to take the stage in an atonal necronarcotic haze, the last thing my friends and I were looking to groove to in the oppressive heat. (Sorry, guys!) Although I only stayed for about five minutes of their set, their jagged psychedelic noise/folk-rock places them in the freaky Texas tradition of antecedents like the 13th Floor Elevators and Shiva's Headband. With appearances on NPR and their new record My Only Companion garnering favorable reviews in the indie press, it would be remiss to immediately dismiss them. Expect a review of MoC later this week, and in the meanwhile, check out North Highlands as they emerge from the musical womb.

Weekend Wrapup: Graffiti Monsters and The Mighty Handful @ Public Assembly, May 29th

Jack Lesser photo courtesy of the inimitable Richard Gin.

Full disclosure: I've known Jack Lesser since the tail end of eighth grade, when we were the requisite misfits in our Brooklyn Tech orientation group, and I was also present at the Mighty Handful's first rehearsal over a year and a half ago -- salient facts which probably make me the most authoritative and least qualified person to write about them. Since they boozed on the scene in late 2007, the Handful have created a niche for themselves as Brooklyn's raggedly glorious answer to Crazy Horse and the Replacements -- you see them for the camaraderie, for Jack and Hank Crawford's guttural Charley Patton screams, for the bromantically pugilistic qualities of rock and roll lost upon a generation of art school aesthetes. That all of the founding members of the Handful could pass for members of the latter group and include one decent artist -- bassist Tola Brennan -- among their ranks makes the whole situation deliciously subversive. As I've remarked to more than one person, "They look like Arcade Fire or Beach House, but they're really the latest incarnation of the Stones in drag, a 50s R&B revue with crypto-disorted guitars and a funky drummer..."

Emerging from the same fecund Park Slope teen rock scene as noise-rockers Fiasco (the anti-Handful; naturally, the two bands enjoy a synergistic Television/Ramones-esque relationship) and Radiates, the Handful have maintained a brutal underground ardor as the likes of Spin and Pitchfork solicit articles about the former band, playing the last punky vestiges of the all-ages circuit and getting banned from a venue or two. With all of the members going off to college this fall -- Jack deferred from SUNY Purchase for a year and worked as a legal receptionist, which seemed oddly appropriate -- and side projects on the rise (Jack has a new band, Tola is writing 8-bit chip music, et cetera), their future is uncertain. But as any fan of the band will tell you, it's that kinetic ambivalence which makes them so exciting in the first place. When 90% of the Brooklyn scene is content to indulge in the pro forma professionalism of a road-weary jazz combo, the Handful remind you that it's only rock and roll. Band members are late, gear is missing, Jack is sick... but the show always goes on, sometimes miraculously. Implosion, I have learned, can be a beautiful thing.

This is precisely what happened on Friday night at Public Assembly in Williamsburg. The Handful were playing in the pomo Dick Clark thrall of an all-ages matinee; needless to say, the promoter was rather diffident about the whole affair and didn't particularly care as I stood outside with Jack, Tola, & Mark DeNardo of Graffiti Monsters (also on the bill) and shot the breeze for a while. Although his flair for self-promotion arguably exceeds that of Jack and Hank -- he played a favorably-received set at SXSW, for example -- the colorful DeNardo shares their affinity for keeping it real in the rapacious indiesphere. With Grafitti Monsters, Mark, a couple of drummers, and a Game Boy player have combined his lifelong penchant for aggresive punk with chic 8-bit and electronic/Dan Deacon-y flourishes. Although I only caught the tail end of their set on Friday, they are certainly worthy of your attention in the future. Check out http://www.myspace.com/graffitimonsters and http://www.markdenardo.com/ for tunes, videos, and pics.

With keyboardist/resident Brian Eno Jack Greenleaf indisposed along with the horn section, the concert promised to be the Handful at their barest, always a delectable treat. Alas, Felix Walworth -- the aforementioned funky drummer -- was running late on the ever-unreliable G train, leaving Jack and Hank to prevaricate with headliners Shapes and various other musicians to bide some extra time. Arriving in the nick of time, Felix landed on the drum throne with the usual gusto, and the Handful did not let broken guitars and borrowed amps diminish what was easily the most powerful rock and roll performance I have seen yet this year. Although Hank grumbled about being off-key afterwards, the Handful on a bad day beat most professionals on a good day. Dark and lambent, contradictory to the core, one certainly hopes that the Greg Shaw of a future generation will put out some sort of documentation in the intervening years if the worst happens. And if they do indeed make it... well, rock and roll is here to stay after all.

The Mighty Handful are playing Hillstock with a billion other DIY bands at 967 Bergen Street on Friday. Catch Grafitti Monsters at Union Hall on June 11th.