Two Suns

Bat for Lashes w/ Other Lives
8/15/09

My niece, Keighlyn, and I heard the celestial Bat for Lashes, aka British musician Natasha Khan, and her stellar, instrument-swapping band a few weeks ago in DC at the 9:30 Club. Khan and co. were on a month-long US tour to promote "Two Suns," their Mercury-prize nominated second album.

While the album is primarily a requiem for a lost relationship (as in "we're two suns spinning at two different speeds" from the show's opener 'Glass'), the two suns also refer to earth-goddess Khan, and her blond, vixen alter-ego, Pearl. (Or perhaps to two similarly doe-eyed, self-possessed young women... Was it just coincidence that we spent the afternoon before the show at the Air and Space Museum?!) Natasha sang and played piano, guitar, and autoharp, and was joined by musicians Ben Christophers, Charlotte Hatherley, and Sarah Jones on percussion, bass, piano, autoharp, and backing vocals.


The coolest band from Oklahoma, Other Lives, opened the show with a great set of folk-rock, including a mean rendition of 'The Partisan' (a WWII-era song often played by Leonard Cohen).


Other Lives' Cellist Jenny Hsu


Jesse Tabish




Bat for Lashes' Natasha Khan

Like many of the musicians I've embraced lately, Ms. Khan is a child of the 70s. In some ways I think that's why her music resonates with me--we grew up with the same cultural references, listening to the same things. From the opening lines of 'Glass' I can imagine her singing 'If I only could, I'd make a deal with God, and get him to swap our places.' Besides that angelic yet fiery voice, with Kate Bush she also shares a mystical quality, and one that doesn't come across as pretense or corny. At one point during the show, we all even howled like wolves, but it totally works.

In addition to "Two Suns," the two hour show featured songs from their 2007 debut album, "Fur and Gold" (also a Mercury prize nominee). Of the albums' opener, 'Horse and I,' Radiohead's Thom Yorke (with whom she toured in 2008) said "natasha khan of bat for lashes ain't scared. i love the harpsichord and the sexual ghost voices and bowed saws. this song seems to come from the world of grimm's fairytales, and i feel like a wolf."

Although Khan's voice is often compared to Kate Bush or Bjork, there are hints of Polly Jean, especially in songs like 'Trophy' with it's lower register chorus of "heaven is a feeling I get in your arms." One of my favorite songs of the night was 'Siren Song,' with Natasha alone at the piano singing a beautiful song about ambivalence.



Ben Christophers (a bit of a Thom Yorke vibe, eh?)


Two Chucks (but mine are 20+ years old!)


The show's closer, the crowd pleasing 'Daniel', is a song about Mr. Miyagi's apprentice. Seriously.


Back home in Baltimore at the world's best record store...



Set List:
Glass
Sleep Alone
Horse and I
Travelling Woman
Siren Song
Wizard
Trophy
Tahiti
What’s a Girl to Do
Pearl’s Dream

Encore:
Prescilla
Good Love
Moon and Moon
Two Planets
Daniel

She's clearly a child of the 80s-look at that outfit!



And just for fun..

My new favorite musician...

http://www.batforlashes.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_for_Lashes

The spark in your eyes belies the apocalypse inside you.

TV On the Radio
9:30 Club, DC
June 8, 2009

Polly & John

Is it narcissism that my god is a tiny, dark-haired woman, reserved, yet full of fire?




PJ Harvey & John Parish
June 5, 2009
Warner Theatre, DC

With Eric Drew Feldman, Giovanni Ferrario, and Jean Marc Butty.

Set: (not necessarily in order!)
Black Hearted Love
Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen
Rope Bridge Crossing
Urn with Dead Flowers in a Drained Pool
Civil War Correspondent
The Soldier
Taut
Un Cercle Autour du Soleil
The Chair
Leaving California
A Woman A Man Walked By/The Crow Knows Where All the Little Children Go
Passionless, Pointless
Pig Will Not
Cracks in the Canvas
Encore:
False Fire (John on vocals)
April

You don't know me I am an introvert, an excavator...

Santigold w/Amanda Blank and Trouble Andrew
Ram's Head Live, Baltimore
5/31/09

The innovator herself, Ms. Santi White (AKA Santigold-- previously Santogold before she was nearly sued by an infomercial star!), played to an appreciative but under capacity crowd at Ram's Head last night. (Her show at 9:30 Club next week is sold out--what up Baltimore?) She's quite the performer and perfectly adorable-- those Gap ads don't do her justice. (Like Karen O, she often dresses like it's the late 80s, so her loveliness goes unnoticed.) All I can say is that I danced like I was in my living room with the shades drawn. I even hit the stationary woman next to me (I apologized!), and got beer spilled down the back of my pants, but it was well worth it.

She played most of the songs from "Santogold" plus a fab tune from her days heading the Philadelphia-based band Stiffed. She was joined onstage twice by her two openers, Amanda Blank (whose set we missed), and Trouble Andrew, who was quite entertaining himself. During the show she was flanked by 2 back-up singers/dancers, who were as cool as members of the British guard, and who Santi described as "badass bitches." When she brought members of the audience onstage for one of the encores, she cautioned them to stay away from these humorless ladies. They were dressed like they stepped out of a bad 80s sitcom, but they pulled off their moves with aplomb.

It's challenging describing Santigold's sound to others. City Paper described it as "the Pixies fronted by MIA. " A friend said he imagined that's how Beck would sound if he took female hormones. While even Santi herself understands the MIA comparison, I do not. They're both women of color playing genre-bending music, but for me that's where the similarity ends. The Beck comparison is probably more accurate (who could dispute his genre-bending?). However, to me she sounds like Siouxsie Sioux if she was born in Philly instead of London. Sure, her self-titled debut album contains some rapping, but she's not rap or hip-hop. In an interview with the NME she famously called being labeled hip-hop racist. She's got a point. Like another Brooklyn band I love, TV on the Radio, she's an African-American woman playing indie rock. I'm not sure why that's confusing to music writers or music fans, especially considering that African-Americans invented rock 'n roll. The evolutionary mechanism that's given us humans the ability to make quick categorizations is becoming quite a liability, especially given the increasingly global nature of the world. It's no longer safe or good to fit everything into a little box. Ms. White certainly doesn't fit in one.

I think that's why her music resonates with me. Even though it's an innovative blending of styles, it's somewhat familiar as well. Perhaps it's also because we're contemporaries (like TV on the Radio, or the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, or Beck) and we grew up listening to the same kinds of music. (It's cool to have been born in the 70s!!!)

So if you haven't heard her, check her out!




Trouble Andrew's "mascot, " complete with skeleton mask (?) ! He didn't play an instrument or sing, but occasionally honked an ear-piercing bull horn and scattered dollar bills in front of a fan... I could have done without the shtick, especially since they had a decent sound. They warrant further examination, I think.


Cool chicks, Crystal and Miriam, check out a door to nowhere.


Well you're a liar and your cues are all wrong, but I can't count all the ways you woo me...



And I like sometimes to wave it high, up where everyone can see...

Sincerely, L. Cohen

Leonard Cohen
May 11, 2009
Merriweather Post Pavilion
7:30-11:00 PM

I need to see you naked in your body and your thought
-Aint No Cure for Love

I'm good at love, I'm good at hate, it's in between I freeze
-A Thousand Kisses Deep

All I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
-Hallelujah


Leonard Cohen played with Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters (vocals), Roscoe Beck (bass, vocals), Neil Larsen (keyboards & Hammond B3 accordion), Bob Metzger (electric, acoustic & pedal steel guitar), Javier Mas (bandurria, laud, archilaud, 12 string acoustic guitar), Rafael Gayol (drums, percussion), and Dino Soldo (sax, clarinet, dobro, keys).


Cutie pie sound guys in fedoras


Jack and Evelyn before the show


Another fedora


Mr. Cohen on his knees


Sharon Robinson


Whither Thou Goest

Setlist:
Dance Me to the End of Love
The Future
Aint No Cure for Love
Bird on a Wire
Everybody Knows
In My Secret Life
Who By Fire
Chelsea Hotel No. 2
Waiting for the Miracle
Anthem
("We're so privileged to be here with you when the world is plunged in chaos...we'll be back for the second half of the show")
Tower of Song
Suzanne (Leonard on guitar)
The Gypsy's Wife
The Partisan
Boogie Street
Hallelujah
I'm Your Man
A Thousand Kisses Deep (spoken word)
Take this Waltz
I'm Your Man ("And if you want another kind of love, I'll wear this old man's mask for you.")
Encore 1: So Long, Marianne
First We Take Manhattan
Encore 2: Famous Blue Raincoat
Encore 3: If It Be Your Will (spoken word)
Democracy
Encore 4: I Tried to Leave You
Whither Thou Goest

Stop Falling In Love With Everything That Lets You Down

Tommy Keene - 5/2/2009
The Talking Head, Baltimore

Twenty-some years after hearing the Replacements 'Alex Chilton' for the first time on my sister's college radio show, and a good 10 years after hearing the man himself play with a reunited Box Tops on Public Square in downtown Wilkes-Barre, PA, I've finally gotten around to really discovering the music of Alex Chilton and Big Star. Aside from knowing that he influenced everyone from the Replacements to Counting Crows ("I wanna be Big Star") I never knew much about him, save that he was trapped during Hurricane Katrina. Thanks to my friend Tom, who knows more about music than anyone I know, I discovered the melodic melancholy of Mr. Chilton and company. Elliott Smith, who'd covered several Big Star songs (notably Thirteen and Nighttime), and certainly no stranger to beautiful pain himself, was in many ways a musical heir of Chilton and Big Star. Another musical heir, who I had the pleasure of seeing/hearing in Baltimore last night, is Tommy Keene.

Tommy Keene, a Maryland native who has been playing/recording since the early 80s, is someone I'd never even heard of until about a month ago. This is surprising, given his long career and musical collaborations (notably playing as the Keene Brothers with Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices fame, another band I discovered thanks to college radio--I put 'Surgical Focus' on many a mix tape for some undeserving boy). Perhaps it's incorrect to call Keene an heir to Chilton--at 51 he's not even a decade younger--because while the music has a similar sensibility, Keene is clearly his own musician. The word 'power pop' gets thrown around a lot, but I don't really know what that means. Defining a musical genre based on affection for the Beatles and intelligently written pop tunes is limiting, since, like any label, it doesn't really tell you anything meaningful. (Interestingly, wikipedia's definition of 'power pop' would also fit Kurt Cobain, who, despite appearances to the contrary, was totally a melody junkie.) Tom's disclaimer (knowing my musical taste) when giving me the first Keene mix was that Tommy Keene isn't Radiohead. Maybe not, but he's a stellar performer/lyricist/guitar player who writes thoughtful, well-crafted songs.

Keene played at the Talking Head, a venue more intimate than anywhere I've seen a show (it's probably the size of my apartment), and my new favorite place to hear a band. (According to Rolling Stone's 2008 "Best Of" issue which rated Baltimore as having "the best music scene," the Talking Head is named for native son David Byrne, but I haven't been able to corroborate that). The 2 dimwitted door attendants at Sonar had never even heard of the Talking Head, even though it's housed within Sonar's walls ("What?--the Talking Heads aren't playing tonight, it's Sum 41, you got the wrong night babe..") You can imagine how much I appreciated being patronized by some stoned chick in smeared eye makeup who was younger than me. But it was fortuitous timing. As we stopped to talk to a friend of Tom's in the small alley leading to the club, Tommy Keene, his band, and what looked like his family, came around the corner behind us, and graciously greeted their fans on their way inside.

Now, I have only recently discovered Tommy Keene's music. However, the small crowd gathered at Talking Head knew his catalogue inside and out. I kinda felt like I did when I saw the Watchmen on opening night at the Uptown in DC and the mostly male audience cheered for every special effect. It's always super interesting, and a privilege for sure, to intimately observe a subculture of devoted fans. And man, were they devoted. There was a burly guy in a Ravens jersey with both arms and fists in the air during most of the show. The guy in front of me did an exaggerated head-bang to seemingly every drum beat. Out of the corner of my eye I spied the guy next to me playing air guitar. Seriously.

But I have to say, Tommy rocked. He may have only been playing for 30 people, but he played like he was playing for 300. It was the last night on their tour, and he was clearly enjoying himself and the attention from his adoring and extremely well-informed fans who knew everything he played, from his 80s material to his latest, In the Late Bright. His voice is reminiscient of Chilton's, but deeper and rougher, the perfect marriage of Paul Westerberg and Elvis Costello. Physically, he looked to me like a cross between a young Jimmy Stewart and Mel Gibson (circa Lethal Weapon). He has this everyman countenance, with a touch of madness in those intense blue eyes. And his playing matches him--it's pleasing, but is not sugar coated pop--and he's such a skilled musician that it doesn't even occur to you to be wowed by it. He makes it all seem easy. Flawless.

Why, then, hasn't he been on my radar? It's a mystery to me that every true music fan I know knows Chilton, but doesn't know Keene. It must be frustrating for Mr. Keene to be playing this tiny club for less than 50 people, while Sum 41 played to a packed house next door. And it frustrates me as a music fan. After the show, Keene mingled with fans--signing CDs, posing for pictures-- and graciously answered a new fan's lyric question, saying "I'm not sure, email me" (and I totally will-- it's a shame he's gay!)



For the last encore, Keene announced a surprise guest on drums, his 14 year old nephew, Hunter Keene, for their amazing cover of Lou Reed's 'Kill Your Sons.' The doe-eyed Hunter, a dead ringer for Atreyu from the Neverending Story, didn't appear to have any difficulty keeping up. In fact, he totally upstaged the rest of the band with his fierce playing. In a few years he'll be in some huge rock band. Perhaps mainstream success won't elude him like it has his uncle.



For more info on Tommy Keene, check out Tom's blog posting and Keene's recent NPR interview.

Setlist:
1. Late Bright (from IN THE LATE BRIGHT, 2009)
2. Secret Life of Stories (from IN THE LATE BRIGHT 2009)
3. Highwire Days (from BASED ON HAPPY TIMES, 1989)
4. Down, Down, Down (from SLEEPING ON A ROLLERCOASTER EP, 1992)
5. Nothing Can Change You (from BASED ON HAPPY TIMES, 1989)
6. Paper Words and Lies (from SONGS FROM THE FILM, 1986; CD reissued with RUN NOW EP in 1998)
7. Save This Harmony (from IN THE LATE BRIGHT, 2009)
8. Goodbye Jane (from IN THE LATE BRIGHT, 2009)
9. Black & White New York (from CRASHING THE ETHER, 2006)
10. Turning On Blue (from TEN YEARS AFTER, 1996)
11. Underworld (from SONGS FROM THE FILM, 1986)
12. Realize You're Mine (from IN THE LATE BRIGHT, 2009)
13. When Our Vows Break (T. Keene-J. Shears) (from BASED ON HAPPY TIMES, 1989)
14. Back To Zero (his "signature song," first real single, from PLACES THAT ARE GONE EP, Dolphin Records, 1984)
15. Compromise (from TEN YEARS AFTER, 1996)
16. Long Time Missing (from ISOLATION PARTY, 1998)
Encores:
17. Places That Are Gone (from PLACES THAT ARE GONE EP, 1984 - original version on the CD compilation THE REAL UNDERGROUND; a later, rerecorded, version appears on SONGS FROM THE FILM, 1986)
18. Kill Your Sons (Lou Reed)
(from SONGS FROM THE FILM, 1986, also appears as a live version on RUN NOW EP, 1986)