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Privates go public

The Spin couldn’t pass up a chance to see local favorites The Privates come out of hiding at Mercy Lounge last Thursday. We arrived in time to catch Brian Ritchey delivering his soulful stylings to a painfully sparse crowd. Ritchey’s voice was smooth, and he and his backing band played a tight, practiced blend of blues and mellow country. Ritchey’s four-minute rock ballads were riddled with blues riffs, and, while most of his tunes were poignant and melancholy, they approached rocking but never quite got there. Folksy Americana artists Cassino were up next. We were intrigued by their drummer, who was especially old and vaguely resembled Edgar Winter. But alas, Cassino turned out to be just not our speed. We catch plenty of folk/country acts around here, so we resolved to spend most of their set enjoying the balmy evening weather on Mercy’s patio. The Privates finally took the stage with their trademark combination of high-energy pop and charming presence. They may be transplants from a handful of Middle Tennessee’s most popular up-and-coming acts, but The Privates play as though this is their first calling. Their set really picked up with a cover of Scott Walker’s ever-popular tongue-in-cheek ballad “Jackie,” which lead singer and jack-of-all-trades Dave Paulson sang with childlike gusto. Per usual, Rollum Haas banged the hell out of his drum kit, once again showing us that he is a contender for the title of Nashville’s Most Explosive Drummer. At one point, Paulson jumped into the meager crowd to dole out paper plates. We have no idea why, but we still felt blessed to receive one. The crowd remained small all evening, but The Privates yet again proved they know how to make us feel good—even on a Thursday.

Had it, lost it

Regardless of whether you subscribe to the Trainspotting theory that lumps Lou Reed in with the has-beens of classic rockdom, one thing’s for certain: The Lou that graced the Ryman last Friday in his pleather T-shirt is but a shade of the the proto-punk visionary that brought the world Velvet Underground. That said, the wailing fans who welcomed the icon onstage with his six-member band didn’t seem to mind one bit. Avoiding the Tai Chi ambience of his ’07 record Hudson River Wind Meditations but for a quick-hit interlude toward one of his power-chord anthems, Reed stuck closely to the script with fan favorites like Loaded’s “Sweet Jane” or, for up-to-date enthusiasts, the drug-addled “Ecstasy.” The formula must be holding up for him, though, as a quick glance over the last decade suggests that Reed’s live material has earned far more critical respect than eccentric detours like 2004’s The Raven, a musical retelling of Poe’s works featuring dramatic readings from actors like Willem Dafoe and Steven Buscemi…what the hell, right? Like so many other past greats reluctant to shed the spotlight, but who have outlived their ability to survive the fringes of progressive rock, Reed seems to have slunk back on his royalties, relying on pure star power for momentum. Instead of the head-buzzed euphoria of what it must have been like to hear “Heroin” back in ’67 in some hazy New York dive, we’re bombarded with stilted guitar licks and lethargic speak-sing. A finale rendering of “Walk on the Wild Side” may have had fans humming out to the Church Street parking garage, but it’s hard to believe ol’ Lou when the rock ’n’ roll animal is long gone.

Day-Glo diva

When The Spin arrived at City Hall at 8:30 p.m. Monday night, Canadian lab-rockers Holy Fuck had already taken the stage with their bloopy, glitchy dance beats featuring bass, drums and two knob-twiddlers. There were a few vocoder-distorted lyrics, but mostly hunched-over, jammy grooves that blended into one big kaleidoscopic melty jam. Over the course of their 30-minute set, we recognized “Frenchy’s” and “Lovely Allen,” both off their full-length debut—songs that also appeared on their 2007 EP.

But for an instrumental set of experimental jamz, it garnered a good crowd response—a crowd full of greater racial diversity than we experienced at most shows, and also full of three-weeks-into-turning-21 drinkers who twirled each other, wore outfits from Forever 21, and generally worked the whole “hipsters trying to get away with it” shtick that explains so many getups inspired by decades not actually lived/experienced. (Boots with orange fishnet socks and a turquoise onesie? Gross.) But it was a pulsating, mutating beat of awesome with Holy Fuck, and we found ourselves wishing that we still dosed up, or at least got really high sometimes. Soon, the set was over, and next, M.I.A.’s DJ Million $ Mano took the stage and launched into a pop-friendly set, beginning with Three 6 Mafia (as a shout-out to Tennessee), as well as Bell Biv Devoe (yep, “Poison”), Salt ’n’ Pepa, The Outfield and a remix of Justice’s smash hit “D.A.N.C.E.” The club filled in, people looked like they suddenly wanted to draaaaaank and bodies were movin’. From here to Vanderbilt, people from all walks of life were workin’ what their mama’s gave them. M.I.A.’s music really is border-crossing, if you allow that to include crossing zip codes. As the beats throbbed, people waved their hands in the air and got all stumbly and rowdy for M.I.A. It was 9:45 p.m. She took the stage just after 10, following a backdrop video that played the radical election speech of Kouichi Touyama, a left-wing dissident who ran for Tokyo governor and posited that the country should be destroyed. A few people booed, but as the speech got nuttier, the crowd cheered. We assume that’s because white college kids will cheer for anything being destroyed. Then M.I.A. came out in a shiny jacket of her own and said: “I didn’t do a soundcheck today. So this is as real as your gonna fuckin’ get me, Nashville.” She launched into “Bamboo Banga” and then “World Town” and played a set that incorporated Kala and Arular, all in front of a huge streaming video of third-world images, Contra-looking palm trees, dancing and general Nintendo-like images, logos, lasers and gunnnnzzz. The beats were hot and the thumps were primal, and we were treated to “Pull Up the People,” the luscious “Sunshowers” (which gave her backing vocalist a chance to belt it on the chorus) and “$20,” which has M.I.A. covering the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind.” Then it was “$10” off her first record, a song about child prostitution that is oddly totally danceable and brought a big crowd of people onstage to shake their moneymakers. That’s the thing about M.I.A.: Violent terrorism never sounded so damn fun. Same goes for infectious disease: “Bird Flu” was a big hit, and an encore brought “Galang”—and crowd-surfing. Then we got “Amazon” and the big finish, the gunshots-for-beats “Paper Planes.”

Missing City Hall already? Tell us about it at thespin@nashvillescene.com.