Much Better Sundays

I had never heard The Tiger Lillies before their show last Tuesday. I went on the recommendation of a friend, trusting that any music described as ‘alt-cabaret’ and ‘Brechtian’ was going to be right up my alley. What a good decision that was! There are so many people I know who would have loved this show; I just have to gloat to them that they missed out on all the songs about cannibalism, kicking babies down the stairs, freak shows and all the other horrid delights of the Tiger Lillies.

The evening began with the support act from Jane Keller (vocals) and Carey McDonald (piano), who got things off to a riotous start. Any middle-aged woman who comes on stage in a long coat and short dress with no stockings is going to be awesome in my book, and she was hilarious, with her tales of casual BDSM and the woes of being an alto, all the while also being an excellent singer!

The hilarity did not end when the Tiger Lillies came on, although it alternated with the melancholic and the truly creepy. I never realised how creepy those brushes on the drums could sound. Drummer Adrian Huge was excellent, playing the drums almost like someone might tap a xylophone, not just with drumsticks but with baby dolls and differently sized yellow plastic hammers (in the one instance ‘of instrument destruction’, after which he contritely put the drum kit back up). During the ‘encore’, a set of pots and pans descended from the ceiling. It was a sad moment when they began to rise back up.

Obviously this is a very theatrical kind of performance, but they are all such excellent musicians you feel it must be good to hear on album as well. Frontman Martyn Jacques plays variously the guitar, piano and an absolutely gorgeous accordian, whilst he sneers and shrieks. His voice alternates between falsetto and deep growl, as he takes on the character of each song with vigour. Adrian Stout plays the straight man while the others go over the top, and as well as the contrabass, plays the saw and the theremin. I’ve never seen a theremin used before, and it definitely adds to the bizarre atmosphere.

The songs are dirty and macabre stories of strange characters, either killed or killers (or failures at such). And yet, even if you took out the car-crash fascination of the lyrics, they would still be good songs. As it is, this is the only gig I’ve ever been to where I’ve heard people snorting with laughter. It was an extremely entertaining evening, and now I’m off to listen to their Twopenny Opera (even ruder than the Threepenny Opera!)

Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos, with Telekinesis and Everything, Now!

Austin, Texas, 23 May 2009

It’s hard to believe that I’ve spent a total of five weeks in Austin, Texas, the “World Capital of Live Music”, and I’ve only seen two shows there. The first was Polka Dot Dot Dot, back in January. The other was on Saturday night, at some bar that I forget the name of. Someone gave me free cherry-mint flavoured water, so I was happy. I was also happy because of the music, which I hadn’t seen in a very long time and which was good. Possibly this had more to do with the happiness because the cherry-mint flavoured water was actually quite odd.

I think my excuse is that Austin is very big. I’ve also been suffering from standing-still-depression, which tends to follow going-places-ecstasy. Austin, like many US cities, is very daunting without a car, and the sheer size of its music scene makes it difficult to know where to start. I ended up at the gig on Saturday because I went with a friend (if you want to talk about daunting sizes of things, his music collection is around 160GB). Anyway. This is a review, not a diary. On with the music.

We missed the first band, Everything, Now!, because they started playing early. What is this? I was disappointed because they all had very impressive beards and apparently give out vegetables which is certainly a step up from the baked goods at other shows. The next band, Telekinesis, had one very energetic singing drummer who was sweating a lot from exertion. Unfortunately the other three members seemed to be somewhat in awe of him so formed a kind of silent unmoving tableau around the furious man. Their music seemed OK. Maybe I should go listen to it again. Or you could, if you wanted to. I’m too excited to talk about the headliners.

Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos hail from Indiana. That’s in the mid-West (widely regarded as a kind of cultural desert). They have many members… let’s see, eight. I am told their genre is “sex folk”, but if you don’t know what that is that’s OK, because I don’t really either. Many of their songs do seem to be about love but that’s hardly unusual. And they are folky, in that way that everybody seems to be nowadays, not that that’s a bad thing, I like it. In fact their brand of alt-country folk-rock is tops, possibly because of the triangles.

I think I like them particularly much because every member of the band seems very individually special. They are very participatory. Also because they have a big sound representative of all their members. And also because their lead singer, Richard Edwards, is a classic. He is very pretty, smokes cigarettes on stage and looks so tormented when he sings that you can almost smell the tears. The shaggy dark haircut and stubble add to the appeal. My friend tells me that he was looking remarkably sober on Saturday, normally he is very doped up and picks fights with the other members on stage. 

They played songs, like you do at a show. My favourites were ‘Broadripple is Burning’ and ‘Skeleton Key’. Nobody really danced, this upset me a little. I would really like them to come to New Zealand. I think we would appreciate them. In fact, the best place for them to play would be Camp A Low Hum. Imagine the fun they would have! That we would have! We would dance like crazy things. The girls would form a line for Richard. Casey, the theatrical percussionist who looks like a mix of Martin from the Sneaks and Matthew Crawley with eye make-up, would be a hit. I am going to go and petition Blink to make this happen. You should go and listen to their music so you too can appreciate them and support me in my cause.

So, how awesome was Amanda Palmer when she played Wellington last week? All the awesome, that’s right. I’m not saying stuff didn’t go wrong, because a lot went wrong. Playing standing up is harder than you’d think (even if the short people do love you for it). The keyboard conked in the middle of more than one song. But it didn’t matter, because it was Amanda fucking Palmer, and she was awesome.

It didn’t matter because the experience of being there was more than just the music. What she played and how ‘good’ it was doesn’t figure much in my memories of the show. More of it is how Amanda actually engages with her audience – I think the only person I’ve ever seen talk more was Ian MacKaye with The Evens.

It’s not just a few jokes and stories, it’s how she makes the audience feel like they matter, what she’s willing to do for them. I mean, she must have been bloody exhausted, but that didn’t stop her from giving us her all.

Here’s Amanda Palmer singing ‘New Zealand’, a song she wrote in 25 minutes after someone expressed jealousy that Australia got a song:

Thus fueling the trans-Tasman battle for another generation!

At the end of the show, after the encore, she came out in her bra & stockings, climbed onto the bar with her ukelele, and we all sang along (not for the first time) as she played ‘Creep’. Isn’t it nice to have an excuse to be dorks en masse?

To fangirl about someone else for a second, Battle Circus opened the show, and they played a great set. It was gratifying to see them get a good reaction, because Wellington has not had a history of appreciating them – my mother, who has been to three of their shows here, will vouch for this. They deserve a big audience.

So, one of the boys who I did geology with has a blog. Really, I should have known better than to read it. Seeing as how we once had a heated debate on whether or not women were inherently more emotional than men, it was inevitable that something should piss me off.

So, in his latest entry, he starts off talking about bands, and the nature of hit singles. Which would be all very well, except that he has to go and say this:

In a recording studio though, or just a jamming jive session, and the men are playing their instruments and making the beats together just so. And then the observing crowds of women are in moving agreement that it is a good song being played and that they are hearing.

Because bands are only ever made up of men. Us ladies just have to stay in the audience and worship. God forbid a woman should pick up a guitar, or play the piano, or ever try and create anything. No, that never happens.

And why is it only women listening to the music? If only! Then I wouldn’t have to get annoyed at tall guys who stand in front of you and get in your space. But funnily enough, heterosexual men are quite happy to listen to music created by other men. Sometimes they even dance.

The perceived musician-audience divide is pity enough without having to go and gender it. It seems to me that in doing so, you’re reducing music to a matter of courtship. The men are showing off their skills, and the women are judging them on it. And this wonderful, transcendent-immanent thing called music is reduced to being all about sex.

Sure, I appreciate it when a band has cute guys in it. I also appreciate seeing awesome women up on the stage, and funnily enough I appreciate music even when I don’t find any of the band members attractive, I appreciate it when I have no idea who they are, and I don’t care. It’s the music that moves me, not the musician.

Speaking of that non-existent entity, the female musician, Amanda Palmer played Wellington last night. It was awesome, and she totally wins at everything. But I think that will have to be another post in itself.

This is Your Brain on Music is one of several books to come out in recent years to explore the science of music. Daniel Levitin is a former record producer turned neuroscientist, interested in how music works, how your brain makes sense of it. I’ve come away from the book with a new appreciation for just how clever a contraption the ear is.

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