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!)

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.

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, 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.

The book starts off with an explanation of musical theory, which is quite useful for people like me who know less terminology and more just what they like; Levitin recommends that actual musicians just skim or skip the section. He doesn’t provide quite as thorough a foundation on the science, just enough for the lay reader to follow. It can get a bit dry, but it’s accessible.

The central part of the book is the most interesting – exploring how the brain interprets the sounds it hears, how it perceives some of these as ‘music’, along with more specific things like how different timbres are produced (which I’ve always wondered). This is the nitty-gritty heart of the book, the part that proves science doesn’t take away from the wonder of things.

The end of the book is weaker; one of the least successful chapters in Your Brain is the second-to-last, where Levitin attempts to explain people’s different musical preferences. Is it something to do with the music they’re exposed to as children? While I can see that as being true in my case – I have pretty much the same taste in music as my mother – the genres my mother likes hadn’t been invented when she was a girl.

So, it’s something to do with the complexity of the music? Well, I can buy that, but it doesn’t really tell you anything. You don’t have to be a neuroscientist to figure out people like different levels of complexity of their music.* There’s no theories presented as to why. The complexity of the music they were exposed to as children? Well, how does children’s music fit into this? I might get ‘Skini Marinki Dinki Dink’ stuck in my head, but I can’t really say I enjoy it.

The kind of music you listened to as a teenager then. You’re always most nostalgic for music from when you were 11-14. Apparently. I can hardly see myself getting misty-eyed over Eminem.

The explanations Levitin offers are obvious ones, and not satisfying. The book could’ve done as well without the attempt. It felt like the chapter was tagged on because it’s something people are interested in, but it failed to present an interesting discussion.

The last chapter was more satisying, though still a brief once over – theories on the evolutionary history of music. You could read an entire book on this topic (I recommend The Singing Neanderthal for its unusual but convincing thesis on the subject) but I feel like the point of the chapter was more to shoot down Stephen Pinker for calling music “evolutionary cheesecake”. I’m all for shooting down Stephen Pinker, and Levitin does it well, but the topic really deserved more.

Despite these failings, the book overall is worth the read, filled with all sorts of cool tidbits. It makes me want to drop my geology degree and run off to study cognitive neuroscience instead. It’s an interesting subject, and This is Your Brain on Music a good introduction.

*The topic actually came up on my last geology fieldtrip. We were in the van, listening, I think, to Neil Young. My friend sitting next to me was very impressed, and congratulated our driver on good taste. It’s the sort of music people like because it’s simple, she said, because they can sing along.

Maybe this is why we don’t seem to be friends anymore.

So I saw them two years ago, stuck them in the ‘not for me’ box, and never thought about it again. I didn’t set out to see them at this camp. “You’ll probably like them,” I told my friends, as we were making our way to the main stage. Our tastes are pretty disaparate, and they may well adore music that bores me rigid.

This is what I call wussy music – it may indicate that the music: is acoustic/electronic, is performed by a singer-songwriter, is angsty (particularly ‘angsty young man’), doesn’t have much going on structurally, is inoffensive but not exciting, is ‘nice’. I use it to describe bands like Belle & Sebastian, Bright Eyes and Ladybird. For an example from Camp ‘09, The Crayon Fields fall into this category. It does not describe Nick Cave, whatever certain workmates of mine might believe.

This is what I went into Over the Atlantic expecting. If only I had actually read their blurb in the program! It would then not have come as a surprise when I found a full band and a tight sound that actually seemed like it was meant for filling large spaces. Although I don’t know I could have predicted expecting all the songs to turn into U2’s ‘In the Name of Love’. I’m not even joking.

I don’t think my friends were impressed, but I was. I haven’t rushed out to buy the CD, but I’d definitely see them live again. It was a sweet set.

On the last morning, my non-wussy friends and I head to the Noisy Stage, to see East Brunswick All Girls Choir for the second time. One of us ruminates as they’re setting up – “I think these guys would have to be my stand-out for camp,” he says. “They’ve got everything – cute girl bassist, rhythm guitarist who gets made fun of all the time…”

Also, as it turns out, a frontman with the ability to get the whole room to follow him outside whilst he sings a song about everyone having a ballsack. Which was actually less hilarious than some of the stuff he’d been saying the day before.* Who cares if they only had five songs? We were there for the comedy!

Only they were too good songs. I guess some bands do have it all.

*I’m not going to explain, you’ll just have to hope it shows up on Youtube.

The Sneaks, Camp A Low Hum, 6th and 8th February 2009

The Sneaks moved to London some time in 2007, so this was the first time I had seen them since then. It’s nice to know some things don’t change – there might be a few new songs, but what you get is what you want: half an hour of concentrated dance fun times.

They played twice, once on Friday night outdoors, and again on Sunday afternoon on the Noisy Stage. The latter would have been the best dance I had all camp – not only do The Sneaks have incredibly fun tunes, but when they’re tunes you know, it’s easier to rock out and let go.

So So Modern, Camp A Low Hum, 6th February 2009

It’s a funny feeling when you see your old favourite band in the first time in ages, and you find they’ve all grown up while you weren’t around to see it happen.

So you could say that So So Modern didn’t quite scratch the nostalgia itch that The Sneaks did. Because most of their material was new, and I didn’t know how I felt about it. They’re damn fine musicians, of course, and put on an amazing performance. They only played the once, on Friday night. I was sensible with them and didn’t even try to get close – the nature of the main stage, where the field cupped upwards at the edges, meant the view was pretty good anyway.

The new songs seem to be less random than the old – less of the spontaneous changes which made them so much fun to dance to. (Which admittedly means normal people probably find them more dance-able…) I’d like to get the chance to hear them again, but, in bloody annoying news, both their gigs later this month are while I’m away on a fieldtrip. The geology department just doesn’t want me to have fun.

Grayson Gilmour, Camp A Low Hum, 8th February 2009

Last time I saw Grayson, things were kinda spoiled by my sister fainting (no, not when he came on…). This time, luckily, we were all sitting down! It was full band again and it was beautiful.

There was no ambivalence about new material here… ‘Oh, Statis’ in particular is a fucking gorgeous song and I feel like I wish I’d been paying more attention, like I could recall it better. Which is pretty silly. I am totally looking forward to the new album, whenever that may be.

It is a disappointment then, when the accordion goes away again. For the next song, Ria needs accompaniment. She’s got the backing tracks on her laptop, but she needs something more. She needs an air pianist.

No-one volunteers. We are sitting right where she can see us, where she can point an elegant finger and say, “You. You look like you could play air piano.” We are stunned for a few seconds, then Carmel says, “I think she means you, Hera.”

So up Hera goes, and she does make a good air pianist. It’s only for one song, then she jumps back down and we listen.

Ria has a gorgeous voice. That’s important, when most of the songs you are singing are in German to a Kiwi audience. I would like to hear her sing something from Brecht; I think she could put on a good show. She sings two songs in her ‘bad English’ – I don’t know if they’re German songs she’s translated or what, but melodramatic ballads are all the more fun when you can understand what’s being sung.

At the end, the audience demands one more song. “With the accordian!” Carmel calls. There’s no accordion, in the end, but it is awesome anyway.

—

Ria will be playing Mighty Mighty on the 25th February. Visit her Myspace for more info.

Except last weekend, and now I actually feel like going out again.

Isobel and I attended the first Camp A Low Hum together in 2007. This year I went and all she got was an eight page letter from me telling her how much fun I’d had without her. And even an eight page letter is just edited highlights. Here are some of those highlights:

• Crazy German lady forces friend to play air piano
• Seeing bands from Camp ‘07 again, even the ones I forgot about