Live review: Willy Mason, Oxford Zodiac, 8 May

The live show used to be Willy Mason’s ideal environment, and his main redeeming feature. The fact that his world-weary tales of hardship and political disaffection didn’t quite accord with his youth, or his apparently affluent background, mattered little: cheerfully touring the world with an acoustic guitar, a disarming manner and a passion for discovering like-minded souls, he seemed to inhabit the Guthrie-esque fantasy his debut album created. Equally, his clumsy voice, clumsier-still undergrad musings on life, love and global capitalism, and the fact that he has only two or three great songs, could be ignored: enjoy the endearing sing-a-longs and the everyman persona, kids!

What happened? For starters, it sounds as if his new album, If The Ocean Gets Too Rough, is as dully earnest and self-important as the reviews say – less of the light wit, more of the bad similes. Every song seems to reference the ocean, rivers, sleep and death. Energy … sapping … Secondly, Willy’s got a band. This seemed promising: by the look of them, he and Conor Oberst are going head-to-head to assemble the best replica of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue. But, while Bright Eyes’ version lacked subtlety, at least you know why they’re there: by contrast, I’ve never seen a band do less work, or have less effect, than Mason’s backing players. Is he not paying them? The only time they come to life, they concoct an aimless jam in the middle of the fourth of a five-song encore. A five-song set would’ve been tolerable (especially had he included ‘Oxygen’, his best song). But this was an ordeal.

In other news:

Head over to unhemmed for non-stop esoterica, lo-fi fun and the power of suggestion, Warczarwa-style. If you know who Louis Fournier is, and what he done, holler at my man over there.

The Hold Steady, Oxford Zodiac, 25 February

The UK music press has been quick to mythologise the connection that the Hold Steady's articulate blue-collar rock has made in an imagined American 'heartland'. But transposed to the UK (and, Craig Finn complains, deprived of offers of dope as a result), can their bittersweet communal schtick live up to expectations? The show begins well: the band bounds onstage and launches into 'Stuck Between Stations'. The sense of goofy joy is infectious: Finn paws at his beard and grins, while the band summons the spirit of Cheap Trick and Thin Lizzy. The crowd's response is enthusiastic, the entertainment enhanced by the mustachio'd keyboardist's resemblance to rotund scouse comic Alexei Sayle.

As the set progresses, considerable amounts of beer are imbibed, the Hold Steady living up to their reputation as a good-time boozy bar band, much like Guided By Voices before them. The bassist rivals Sebadoh's Jason Loewenstein for impressive rock smoking. For the drummer, bottle-opening duties come before time-keeping. Finn is lost in his indie reverie, spewing his stream-of-consciousness lyrics and bantering with the crowd, allowing songs to tail off rather than ending them emphatically. This is not without effect on the performance: having pushed the stronger tracks off 'Boys and Girls' to the front of the set, the mid-section sags (insert paunch joke here...). . Such boozy communion is not without its attractions, but the band are pre-supposing a connection with the crowd that they haven't quite established.

The band rallies for a finale of 'Southtown Girls', bringing onstage departing-support-band the Checks for a celebratory jam, redeeming the set's looser moments. No doubt the Hold Steady will be back with shorter, tighter sets for the festival season, making plenty of converts. Having done so, their sloppy but passionate headlining performances will be all the more popular. B+

More fun:

Buy 'Boys and Girls in America'

The Hold Steady - 'Chips Ahoy'

… And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Oxford Zodiac, 19 February 2007

As the title of their new record suggests, the Trail of Dead are a ‘divided’ band. On record, they’ve departed from their early template of Sonic Youth squall and gothic bluster, in favour of a critically-derided commercial sound, indebted more to Oasis and the Beatles. On Worlds Apart, this didn’t seem to pay commercial dividends, only alienating their existing fanbase. Time will tell whether So Divided, a slightly more successful reconciliation of anthemic punk and more conventional indie song-writing, will do better, or whether the Trail Of Dead’s main income will continue to be soundtracking video games and moments of emotive rage on The Shield.

In a recent Pitchfork interview, Conrad Keely expressed bitterness and frustration at losing money on records and on the road. Considering retiring to a studio to focus on writing for soundtracks, he nonetheless retained an urge to perform. The release of tension involved in performing, then, in palpable tonight. Anchored by their mainstream aspirations and tricksy arrangements on record, live they are a different band completely – the Trail Of Dead of old, still one of the loudest bands on the planet. They announce as much with their opening salvo of ‘It Was There That I Saw You’ and ‘Separate Ways’ from ‘Source Tags and Codes’. The volume pulses, and Jason Reece’s old-school blast-beats propel a wall of guitars forward. Conrad’s stabbing guitar and howled vocals bring to mind the full-frontal hardcore assault of Les Savy Fav, backed by the heart-punching dynamics of Willhaven. In the words of Shakin’ Stevens, “lovely stuff”.

A couple of newer tracks make it onto the setlist, but older tracks get more response, and the set is paced accordingly: ‘Totally Natural’ is an ear-bursting finisher. In some bands this reliance on old material would be an obvious criticism: anybody who came to the Trail Of Dead on the last two albums (anyone?) would be a little baffled and perhaps disappointed. But this misses the point: the Trail Of Dead could have been playing entirely from ‘So Divided’, or a set of Justin Timberlake covers, for all the volume gave away. Reacting against the supposed division of their careers into good early albums and poorly-received new work, they’ve become two bands – the crazy hardcore punk cyclone typified by Jason Reece, making an arse of himself as usual, falling over and inciting the crowd to do some gak, and the pretentious studio indie of Conrad Keely. It will be interesting to see how long the Trail Of Dead can live this double life, but for now, they’re welcome to my money in at least one of their guises.

More fun:

Final-Fantastic homepage

Patrick Wolf – Live, Oxford Zodiac, Tuesday 6 February 2006

It’s easy enough to lump Patrick Wolf in with fellow travellers in the new-weird vanguard such as Antony, Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart. But in the live arena, what’s common to those three is a focus for the more outré aspects of their music: for Antony, the voice, often accompanied by minimal instrumentation; for Joanna, the harp; for Devendra … it’s the beard. Patrick Wolf is as much hindered as he is aided by his range of talents and ideas, and outside the studio this shows. The voice occasionally commands: a combination of Scott Walker’s gravitas and Jarvis Cocker’s directness that comes as a surprise from such a young performer. But mostly, tonight, it’s leaden, and fails to lift his complex, multi-part songs. The costumery, too, is arresting: Ziggy Stardust’s trousers, Adam Ant’s naval tailcoat. But Wolf never completely embraces the idea of an ‘in character’ performance, undercutting the theatrical presentation with his often raw, personal lyrics. This would work if the songs could carry the sentiments, but too often the performance is incoherent, and the presentation seems to serve as a necessary, but unsatisfactory distraction. On record, Wolf is, at times, a staggering talent. But live, as with most performers for whom ambition comes before achievement, a leap of faith is required. For tonight’s similarly-dressed teenage crowd, that doesn’t look like it was too difficult.

C+

More fun:

Good review of the album at Resonator.