Brits and CanucksWhile Tokyo Police Club played simultaneously across town, Mercy Lounge offered its own bill of buzz-worthy indie darlings last Tuesday. Opening were England’s Fuck Buttons, whose full-length debut Street Horrrsing received the equally coveted and maligned distinction of Pitchfork’s “Best New Music.” Watching the duo launch into a set of big, pulsating crescendos of swirling melodies and occasionally noisy drones, we could empathize with both the praisers and naysayers. At their best, Fuck Buttons’ textured synthesizers and circuit-bent-something-or-others build and release tension perfectly, yet are just weird enough not to alienate. But for an experimental project, Fuck Buttons travel a well-trodden path. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the second half of their set grew a bit tedious with the formula behind each crescendo growing more and more predictable. They don’t quite venture into the dangerous territory that we’d expect from a band with “fuck” in their name. Headlining were Ontario, Canada’s Caribou, who covered most of the psychedelic rock band bases—unorthodox stage setup (drummer up front), projected visuals that could only be described as “trippy” and a bunch of really sweet gear. Originally the one-man project of Dan Snaith, Caribou’s set leaned heavily on their latest and most full-band-oriented album, Andorra. With Snaith on guitar, keys and using his newly realized tenor, the full-band performances of his recent ’60s-tinged material translated perfectly, but the live renderings of Snaith’s more electronic-based back catalog fell a little flatter. The Krautrock-informed The Milk of Human Kindness at times sounded more like paint-by-numbers post-rock, and tracks from Up in Flames lost a bit of their bite without all the studio pizzazz. Still, the musicianship of the four onstage compensated for the lulls—props to last-minute fill-in drummer Ahmed Gallab, who covered for the injured Brad Weber—and the modestly packed Mercy Lounge audience never seemed to disapprove.
Bruton, shots, freeOne of the most surreal and entertaining events in Nashville last weekend was almost not even in Nashville. Yes, it took place at Mercy Lounge, which is most definitely a Music City venue, but rather than the club being filled with the usual mob of locals, local firewater company Jack Daniel imported about 200 European music fans for a private show. Drink tickets flurried like winter snow, spurring a free flow of whiskey from behind the bar. Opening the show was alternative rock band Logo. We’d like to offer some more detailed adjectives to describe their sound, but the band’s watered-down, nondescript “alternative rock” riffs and always vaguely familiar melodies didn’t offer us much in the way of inspiration. Much more interesting was the crowd out on the deck, where foreign tongues and variations of English dialect were swirling past our ears from all sides. From behind a wall of smoke and illuminated by lamps bright enough to blind Mr. Magoo, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club immediately started shaking the floor and stirring up a frenzy from the very first note played. BRMC peddled their flowery psychedelic garage rock—it played slow, and packed an incredibly mean punch to the ear.
Rac steadyThe Spin heard the soundtrack to the summer of ’08 Monday night, and The Raconteurs played it. Remember driving around in your crapmobile the Saturday after school let out, cranking up the classic-rock station for all those soaring endless-youth choruses and twin-guitar harmonies and full-band jams with the sweet sweet musk of vinyl? Life imitated Dazed and Confused all over again as the Racs geared up for their summer tour with the first show of their sold-out two-night stand at the Cannery Ballroom. The mysterious Magic Wands—boy, girl, drum machine and trippy projected backdrop—didn’t play long enough to wear out the novelty of their unicorny odes to teenage love and the dark arts, like some sci-fi convention hybrid of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Berlin and Timbuk 3. Instead, their engaging, smartly timed 20-minute set left people wanting more of their ground-glass bubblegum choruses and crashing-wave guitars. They made a pleasingly odd counterpoint to The Raconteurs—who, by contrast, hit the stage swinging their dicks like Louisville Sluggers and socked every song into the rafters. Releasing their new CD Consolers of the Lonely only in specially marked boxes of Count Chocula or whatever evidently paid off, as even Jack White, looking like an escapee from the Basement Tapes jacket-photo shoot, expressed surprise at how quickly the audience had absorbed its lyrics and la-la-la sing-alongs. No wonder: From the grinding opening groove of “Consoler of the Lonely,” every hook-loaded, arm-windmilling song sounds as though the sun had melted a whole stack of Who, Badfinger, Thin Lizzy and Boston LPs into a foot-thick brick of Super Seventies goodness. Literally finishing each others’ thoughts in a kind of live stereo separation, White and mop-top co-leader Brendan Benson swapped verses and swatted rhythm-guitar riffs back and forth on “Hold Up,” “Old Enough” and the band’s early signature single “Steady as She Goes.” The songs all depend on sudden stops and dramatic zero-to-60 shifts in dynamics, and drummer Patrick Keeler and the bass player—introduced as Jack Lawrence, but a dead ringer for one of Slap Shot’s Hansen Brothers—took every curve like a Formula One racer. The whole band is fearsomely tight, even though the arena-rocking songs beg for more interaction (with the audience and each other) than the group showed last night; at times, The Raconteurs as a band resemble five fingers on different hands that somehow clench into a single fist. But that’s a quibble. That thing on the floor after the closing “Carolina Drama,” wet and dripping? That was your face, rocked off. As for the venue, the last-minute switch from the Mercy Lounge to the Cannery had the advantage of letting in lots more people (most of them 6-foot-plus and down front) while frustrating scalpers. Unfortunately, it had the disadvantage of putting the show in the Cannery. The sweltering L-shaped catacombs with the undersea acoustics turned the hellacious climax of “Blue Veins” into a murk of indistinguishable noise. It did the band no favors for presentation, but it did allow them to pack in a hometown crowd that was unusually responsive—like, breathing and everything!
Please send all face-melting Raconteurs’ show tales to thespin@nashvillescene.com.
