The beauty of rock and roll is that it's anybody's game. Throughout its history, there are those who have taken up the gauntlet of rock with little or no background or preparation. The Sex Pistols are one of the biggest, most influential bands of all time, and it's hard to imagine that any of them could read sheet music, or were familiar with the definition of the term "fugue." Even a band like Radiohead, who are known (especially recently) for being avant-garde experimentalists, are fronted by a man who admits to not knowing (or needing) any degree of music theory to operate.
This is the challenge that we as fans and purveyors of rock music must constantly struggle with. Is the music we listen to legitimate on an artistic level, or is it just pleasant noise created (and enjoyed) with a childlike naivete?
If I asked the members of Durban Poison this question, I imagine they would probably laugh. This is a band that seems to exude the kind of youthful enthusiasm that makes rock such a compelling musical medium for so many. They have taken up the DIY ethos of garage rock with an almost effortless, carefree mentality, and the result is the sonic equivalent of improvised, free-verse poetry.
My band played a show with DP way back in the fall of 2009. I believe it was a battle of the bands at the Cambie, a run-down dive of a place in one of Victoria's less-glamorous neighbourhoods. DP's lead singer Matti Corvette came prancing onto the dilapidated, makeshift Cambie stage in what could only be described as a gender-bending glam rock outfit, a strange anachronism that was at odds with the balls-out, punk rock assault on the ears that shortly proceeded it. Still, it was clear that he really didn't give a shit what the anthropoligists might say about his attire: he was having fun, and giving precisely 100% of his effort into what was an enthusiastic, if not technically proficient performance.
So, when I got my hands on their most recent 7", I was prepared for more of the same: enthusiasm, a degree of intentional sloppiness, and a band not overly concerned with conforming to any particular trope. What I found was not entirely within the realm of my expectations. The record, containing their original "Wanna Hear About Dancin'," a hooky, danceable little mid-tempo number in the vein of early Iggy Pop on the A-side and a cover of Rocky Horror Picture Show's "Timewarp" on the B-side, was a tightly-produced, surprisingly taut recording that featured a band coming of age and maturing nicely. The ethic of their image was now distilled into a focused representation of a band intentionally throwing back to a bygone era of fuzzed-out guitars and loose arrangements: the kind of thing that a lot of bands brag about "being about," but don't always really achieve in any meaningful way.
In all honesty, I could see these guys rocking a stage in Detroit circa 1978 and killing the place. There's a fun, honest expressiveness to their music that defies you to sit still and listen to it. It's meant to be enjoyed amidst a throng of like-minded music fans, as if the sound waves were destined to be absorbed by a messy moshpit of sweaty aberrants.
The music itself does nothing to open new doors, or innovate, or experiment, or any of those delightful little ideals that are usually seen as essential to music being considered 'good.' But sometimes, we just want to hear a band embracing a well-defined genre and doing it well. If there's anything that Durban Poison brings to the table that is refreshing and "new," it is that they honestly do want to send you back to the seventies, when music was a little more innocent, and when enjoying it wasn't so much goddamn work.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Show review - Godspeed You! Black Emperor
It might seem like a truism, but I'll state the obvious anyways: some things can't be expressed with words. A lot of things, actually. Think about all the fights you've had with your significant either, where, in trying to navigate the complex web of social delicacy, you duke it out over major issues with shrugs and pursed lips and the spaces in between "I don't know"s. The most contentious of issues, both personal and interpersonal, have been exacerbated or settled with this sort of human inflection.
Never has this been more true than in today's world, where human beings are growing ever less descriptive in textual communication, despite being ever more communicative on the whole. There's a text message for every occasion, even if we have to outline the specifics of those occasions with contractions, emoticons and colloquilisms.
With this in mind, maybe this is the perfect time for Godspeed You! Black Emperor to get back together, when daily we're accosted with images of riots in the streets of Cairo and Tehran, the symbols that the world is changing and that, in our increasingly wordless world, we might not be able to describe our feelings on the matter. Almost a decade after they stopped playing shows, the world is predictably all the more fucked up in their absence, and in desperate need of someone--anyone--to attach some emotional sentiment to it all. Shit, baby, that's what these eight minstrels were born to do, and we all like to see someone fulfill his calling.
Wednesday night they were in Vancouver, playing the well-used old Vogue theatre in front of one the most loyal and appreciative crowds I've ever seen. They probably could have filled a space twice the size, but these post-rockers aren't really into excess--the space was intimate enough (any more intimate and one would run the risk fo being swallowed whole by their symphonic energy) and the acoustics, if not ideal, were passable. I hope if they roll through Vancouver again that they can line themselves up with a more suitable venue, but the Vogue digs were adequate.
Known for being a tad unbearably pretentious in their politics and aesthetic, I wasn't sure what to expect seeing them in person. Their minimalist visual show, achieved via the use of four generic projectors and one very deft projectionist, is well-documented, and somewhat at odds with the massive sound that the band projects. Certainly, one could envision the use of lasers, lights, LEDs and who knows what kind of gadgetry to accompany the larger-than-life dynamics of their set, and it would fit the bill. But there's a comfort in knowing that the band is all about the music, and that the stage show simply reflect the fact that, yes, you could observe the band at work with your eyes open if you so prefer, (and yes, there is a point to all this music and it does have a message, even if that message is sometimes reinforced by over-exposing images taken out of 15th century biblical propaganda), but you're probably better off closing your eyes and letting your ears take over.
I spent a lot of time at this show with my ears open and my eyes closed in this manner, letting all manner of texture, melody and percussion wash over me like a tidal wave. It was an exultant feeling, and one that I've never felt at a concert in quite that way before. Other groups in this vein have tried, influenced by GY!BE's trailblazing sound, such as Explosions In the Sky or ISIS, but these Montrealers are the original and the best, and their years of experience are worn across them like so many well-used guitar straps.
No matter what the group's politics are really about, there's an essential truth revealed in the way they go about expressing it. In the absence of formal lyrics, there's nothing to debate: the music simply is, expressive and bald and unrepentant. This threadbareness strips away all the pretentiousness from the whole affair, leaving us with something at once uniquely beautiful and horrifying. The World Will End, it says, And How Do You Feel About That?
That's really what this is about: feeling something for yourself. You can go to a Strokes concert and Julian Casablancas will tell you to feel apathetic; you can go to a Spoon concert and be told to feel ironic. Most music is instructive in this way, intentionally or not, but Godspeed doesn't let the listener off that easily. You must decide how the music makes you feel, and there can be no equivocation on the matter: it's polarizing stuff, that whether you love or hate, will force you into making a decision (for once in your goddamn life!)
So what was the music like? How was the show? Like the band members realized long ago in their band makeup, words will not suffice. More than any other concert I've been to, it was a whole body and mind experience. It was long, and at times I wanted it to be over, not because I wasn't enjoying the music but because I wasn't sure if I had the emotional stamina to keep up with the onslaught. It was always passionate, always perfectly performed, often repetitive (necessarily so) and always loud. It had the audacity to sit politely in a chair while ripping you a new asshole, in the same way that the bomb that will oneday destroy civilization will be launched by a computer nerd sitting at a desk. It stood on stage for nearly two and a half hours and proclaimed, by way of example, that not everything is on the internet, not all experiences can be compressed into an iPhone app, and that, at the end of the day, it's alright to have feelings, so long as you can accept that yours are probably wrong.
Never has this been more true than in today's world, where human beings are growing ever less descriptive in textual communication, despite being ever more communicative on the whole. There's a text message for every occasion, even if we have to outline the specifics of those occasions with contractions, emoticons and colloquilisms.
With this in mind, maybe this is the perfect time for Godspeed You! Black Emperor to get back together, when daily we're accosted with images of riots in the streets of Cairo and Tehran, the symbols that the world is changing and that, in our increasingly wordless world, we might not be able to describe our feelings on the matter. Almost a decade after they stopped playing shows, the world is predictably all the more fucked up in their absence, and in desperate need of someone--anyone--to attach some emotional sentiment to it all. Shit, baby, that's what these eight minstrels were born to do, and we all like to see someone fulfill his calling.
Wednesday night they were in Vancouver, playing the well-used old Vogue theatre in front of one the most loyal and appreciative crowds I've ever seen. They probably could have filled a space twice the size, but these post-rockers aren't really into excess--the space was intimate enough (any more intimate and one would run the risk fo being swallowed whole by their symphonic energy) and the acoustics, if not ideal, were passable. I hope if they roll through Vancouver again that they can line themselves up with a more suitable venue, but the Vogue digs were adequate.
Known for being a tad unbearably pretentious in their politics and aesthetic, I wasn't sure what to expect seeing them in person. Their minimalist visual show, achieved via the use of four generic projectors and one very deft projectionist, is well-documented, and somewhat at odds with the massive sound that the band projects. Certainly, one could envision the use of lasers, lights, LEDs and who knows what kind of gadgetry to accompany the larger-than-life dynamics of their set, and it would fit the bill. But there's a comfort in knowing that the band is all about the music, and that the stage show simply reflect the fact that, yes, you could observe the band at work with your eyes open if you so prefer, (and yes, there is a point to all this music and it does have a message, even if that message is sometimes reinforced by over-exposing images taken out of 15th century biblical propaganda), but you're probably better off closing your eyes and letting your ears take over.
I spent a lot of time at this show with my ears open and my eyes closed in this manner, letting all manner of texture, melody and percussion wash over me like a tidal wave. It was an exultant feeling, and one that I've never felt at a concert in quite that way before. Other groups in this vein have tried, influenced by GY!BE's trailblazing sound, such as Explosions In the Sky or ISIS, but these Montrealers are the original and the best, and their years of experience are worn across them like so many well-used guitar straps.
No matter what the group's politics are really about, there's an essential truth revealed in the way they go about expressing it. In the absence of formal lyrics, there's nothing to debate: the music simply is, expressive and bald and unrepentant. This threadbareness strips away all the pretentiousness from the whole affair, leaving us with something at once uniquely beautiful and horrifying. The World Will End, it says, And How Do You Feel About That?
That's really what this is about: feeling something for yourself. You can go to a Strokes concert and Julian Casablancas will tell you to feel apathetic; you can go to a Spoon concert and be told to feel ironic. Most music is instructive in this way, intentionally or not, but Godspeed doesn't let the listener off that easily. You must decide how the music makes you feel, and there can be no equivocation on the matter: it's polarizing stuff, that whether you love or hate, will force you into making a decision (for once in your goddamn life!)
So what was the music like? How was the show? Like the band members realized long ago in their band makeup, words will not suffice. More than any other concert I've been to, it was a whole body and mind experience. It was long, and at times I wanted it to be over, not because I wasn't enjoying the music but because I wasn't sure if I had the emotional stamina to keep up with the onslaught. It was always passionate, always perfectly performed, often repetitive (necessarily so) and always loud. It had the audacity to sit politely in a chair while ripping you a new asshole, in the same way that the bomb that will oneday destroy civilization will be launched by a computer nerd sitting at a desk. It stood on stage for nearly two and a half hours and proclaimed, by way of example, that not everything is on the internet, not all experiences can be compressed into an iPhone app, and that, at the end of the day, it's alright to have feelings, so long as you can accept that yours are probably wrong.
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