Month: March 2006 Page 2 of 3

If you split the theme song to “Are You Being Served?” through a prism it might conceivably separate out into Prolapse’s “Visa for Violet & Van” on the spoonful-of-sugar-makes-the-noise-go-down side and Ladytron’s first single “Playgirl” on the other.

I must admit that I never liked the British sitcom this theme song derived from. The show was ugly and dull in that drearily 70s way —all polyester and over-emphatic, wincing attempts at humor. But the theme song —all forty-five seconds of it— evoked a halcyon time of glamour and jet-set living, a forgotten near-past that never really existed anyway. It’s done with breezy humor and a knowing wink, topped off with a soupçon of jaunty Whipped Cream and Other Delights-esque cheesiness.

Prolapse, bless ‘em, rhyme “risqué” with “stingray” on “Visa.” (Leave it to the professionals, kids.) That’s not the only reason to love this song, which first appeared on a CD accompanying Brit music mag Volume and reappeared (in slightly noisier form) on the band’s third album, The Italian Flag.Linda’s airy, slightly bored recitation of coolly playful nonsense (a metaphysical shopping list?) contrasts perfectly with Mick’s gruff, intense philosophizing. It’s held together with an irresistible lock-groove bassline and delightfully wheezy synth howls. Only Prolapse could corral such a potentiallyawry song with such effortlessness.

Ladytron’s “Playgirl” evokes a suffocating world of hermetically-sealed femininity —the laugh that trills through the song is brittle; the protagonist “sleeps [her] way out of [her] hometown;” she “choke[s] on cigarettes” to mark time. It’s as heartbreaking in its way as Roxy Music’s excoriating “In Every Dream Home A Heartache” (although less noirishly psychosexual), concisely outlining a life that’s almost over before it’s even begun. The fact that the song is also ridiculously catchy rescues it from mawkishness.

Photograph by Madame Yevonde, circa 1938.

Much of Prolapse’s oeuvre is out-of-print. Try Amazon, Ebay, or your local purveyor of fine used CDs. Ladytron’s first album, 604, is readily available.

”Are You Being Served?” Theme

Prolapse, “Visa for Violet & Van (Volume Version)”

Ladytron, “Playgirl”

A little over a week ago I went to Kid Congo Powers’ record release party at Tonic in NYC. I’d tried my damnedest to talk myself out of going (NYC being a bit of a trek and all) but the lineup just kept getting better and better and I couldn’t in good conscience stay away. The show didn’t disappoint, touching on just about every facet of Kid’s long and storied career. (The video for “Hit the North” (-uh!) didn’t get an airing, but that was just about the only glaring omission.) The Sassiest Boy in America (aka Ian Svenonius) DJed. The NYC version of Congo Norvell reunited for a one-off; Kid’s new band the Pink Monkeybirds played a loose-limbed, delightfully louche set; Julee Cruise, Kid, and Markus Schmickler (Pluramon) formed a pick-up band; and Thalia Zedek joined Kid in a Gun Club medley to mark the tenth anniversary of Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s death.

The following day I went to see The Downtown Show. The most delightful discovery of the show (besides the pieces by Spalding Gray-era Wooster Group) was a short video performance art piece byAnn Magnuson. I got to wondering what she’s been up to. Turns out she’s recording an album in LA with Kristian Hoffman —who, coincidentally, was in the LA version of Kid Congo’s former band Congo Norvell. It should be ready by late spring or early summer.

This week I also finally saw The Nomi Song. I’d heard Nomi’s music here and there —I still remember being stunned into silence by his performance of “Total Eclipse” on Urgh! A Music War, which I saw as an impressionable pre-teen. I was slack-jawed with amazement. (Although not as slack-jawed as I was at my first viewing of Lux Interior —whoa!) The documentary itself was fascinating, and ultimately quite heartbreaking —presenting a portrait of a man who was kind, gentle, and painfully, painfully alone. It’s all there in his sad, expressionless Nomi face, with its poignant moue of surprise and its sharp angles. The human softness and expressiveness at war with the cold, angular outward appearance. And you hear it all in his incredible, soaring voice. Brimming over with emotion, it is almost inhuman in its distillation of heartbreak into such crystal-clear, beautiful notes.

I hadn’t realized until watching the film that Hoffman had also been Nomi’s primary songwriter. Hoffman —who started proto-New Wave band the Mumps with high school classmate Lance Loud (An American Family) and has gone on to collaborate with a roster of musicians as diverse as Nomi, Lydia Lunch, James Chance, Dave Davies, Rufus Wainwright, and the aforementioned Kid Congo— started his career writing literate, wry, lush pop songs at a time when wryness was not valued overly much (unless it was delivered via the alien visage of Nomi, a case of novelty trumping archness).

Hoffman was heavily involved in the Downtown scene, including the “New Wave Vaudeville” series that marked Nomi’s stunning début. So was Ann Magnuson, and in the early 80s the two collaborated with Robert Mache (who’d played in Hoffman’s lounge act the Swinging Madisons) to form Bleaker Street Incident —a loving parody of bleeding-heart folk-rock long before A Mighty Wind. The band was a proving ground for the mix of hallucinatory lunacy and incisive parody that Magnuson would later use to great effect with Bongwater (Exhibit A: The Power of Pussy’s nine-minute magnum opus, “Folk Song”). Hooray for unhinged, improvisatory rants —no-one does them better than Magnuson.

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The Gun Club, “Ghost on the Highway” (from Fire of Love)

Klaus Nomi, “Mon Coeur”

the Bleaker Street Incident, “Trigger Happy”

For more on the Bleaker Street Incident, look no further than Kristian Hoffman’s homepage. (You can find updates on the collaboration with Ann Magnuson there too.)

Cass McCombs live Doug Fir Lounge Portland, OR 08.20.2005

Cass McCombs/The Decemberists
Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
Providence, RI

Cass McCombs’ timeless, unassuming songs and warm, humble demeanor were somewhat lost in the cavernous, imposing primness of Lupo’s. Why then did his songs play so much better than the Decemberists’ self-conscious, sometimes awkwardly formal song cycles?

For one thing, Cass’ songs of love and loss were accentuated and answered by the echoing, tumbledown openness of the club space itself. It’s a little bit lost, is Lupo’s. Despite a new coat of paint and some attempts at modernizing the place, it’s at heart an old theatre from a forgotten era. It had been shut for a number of years before Lupo’s moved in and gussied it up, and even today you can still see the unvarnished, humble backstage area in the wings, probably unchanged since the theatre was built in 1916.

McComb’s inward-looking, Hopperesque slices of Americana —tales of heartbreak and loss, buried under a self-effacement that would seem a little pathological if not balanced by the tonal clarity and melodic simplicity of his music— were a perfect fit for the bruised, slightly battered but regal space. Accompanied by an additional guitarist and a multi-instrumentalist who also traded deft harmonies with Cass, the songs were starker-sounding than on record but by no means dimmed. There’s a tenacious kernel of hopefulness at the center of these songs that saves them from becoming bleak —from the mournful, nostalgic “Mother and Father” (“Library doors are locked/You wait for day”) to the hazy, romantic urgency of “Sacred Heart” which brings to mind Strangeways-era Smiths. Leavened by a gentle wryness and gorgeous, airy harmonies, his music won the crowd over, slowly but surely.

By stark contrast, the Decemberists’ songs seemed both overstuffed and emotionally monotone. They were trying too hard, and it showed.

At the risk of being misinterpreted, I think they’re a band that is too damn smart for their own good. It’s not that I’m arguing for some sort-of “dumbing down” of rock music, or saying that the music of the Decemberists fails to engage because of its very cleverness. I appreciate the care that goes into their songs. I admire the craft of Colin Meloy’s literate, thoughtful songwriting. That said, I don’t feel as though music and lyrics add up to as much as they should. There’s a hint of smugness in Meloy’s self-presentation —a self-consciousness— that grates. The coolly detached formality of his songwriting sits awkwardly at odds with the dramatic, often raucous vibrancy of the music. The band isn’t afraid to let go, but Meloy is, and the group as a whole suffers for it. Even the addition of Petra Haden (late of that dog.) to the touring band failed to loosen Meloy’s somewhat starched reserve. But then, even if it their set failed to engage me emotionally or viscerally, the crowd —comprised of the most beaming, optimistic, utterly wholesome group of kids I’ve ever seen at a show— looked fully enraptured. I felt almost guilty for harboring unkind thoughts for their beloved bandleader. But nottoo guilty.

Decemberists merch is singularly pretty though. I nearly bought a poster before I realized with a start that I couldn’t possibly hang a Decemberists poster on my wall when they irritated me that much. It’d be …wrong.

But damn, it was pretty.

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Cass McCombs, “Sacred Heart”

For more information on Cass McCombs, visit his official site or that of his record labels, 4AD andMonitor. You can also add him on Myspace!