Check it here, if I haven't sent it to you already. Let the anxiety and regret about time well spent kick in... now!
Here's what I've managed to take in thus far. Last Friday, Nina and I hopped the G and headed to Brooklyn Bowl to see Fang Island, whose intricate guitar arrangements I'd really enjoyed when I listened to their Myspace cuts -- there are some complicated melodies in there, but the production had a cool, lo-fi edge to it as well. We got there a tiny bit late for their set (again, what is up with bands actually taking the stage on time?) but we got to see a lot of it. ...And, you know, it was okay. Their technique was definitely beyond question, and they brought a lot of energy to their playing, but there was something a bit too, I don't know, rehearsed, about their performance. Not a single note out of line. And they were all very clean and dressed very neatly, even the dudes with beards or baseball caps. So I guess I was a little disappointed. But they finished up with a foot-stompingly good performance of their album single "Daisy," which is pretty hard not to love -- it's such a fun song to hear, and, I'm guessing, to play.
After we left, we called Evan up to see if he wanted to grab a drink. He told us he'd left his apartment to beat the heat and was holed up in the Bushwick Country Club, so we headed east to meet him, taking note of the changes to the landscape as we walked: Berry Park Beer Garden (ugh, no), Spritzenhaus (avoid!). It was pretty late by the time we got to Grand St., but there was a road crew out repaving the entire street with a fresh layer of steaming asphalt. They had pods of bright lights set up to illuminate the work of the steamrollers (as well as a strange machine that Nina pointed out whose purpose seemed to be drawing furrows in the ground with its single, enormous finger) casting all the shut-up storefronts in an eerie midnight sun.
At the Country Club we drank the special, a tall can of PBR and a shot of Old Crow (which I'd learned about from Paul F. Tompkins' Driven To Drink) with an optional shot of pickle juice to chase -- only Nina was brave enough to take that one. While waiting for the bathroom, I witnessed the following interaction: A guy and a girl ahead of me on line are talking, maybe flirting a bit. He goes into the bathroom, she's still waiting in line. A separate, very drunk dude comes up to her and attempts to turn her to his affections: "You know, you won't have to put the seat down when he's done. ...'Cause he's gay." She didn't hear him at first (or could not believe what she was hearing), and said, "What?!" He repeated himself, slurringly, but clarifying his position somewhat. She regarded him coolly. "I know what you're doing," she said. "And you're pathetic. Just leave me alone. Just leave." Yikes!
We ended up sticking around 'til closing time, and, although it didn't feel very late to me, I felt compelled to hurry home and jump into bed. I live in fear of what Nina calls "blue o'clock," that time of early morning when the pre-dawn sky begins to lighten to day. To me it signals that I've lost the battle for a good night's sleep and that the next day will be a wash, although I suppose I've had plenty of evidence to the contrary. But I feel compelled to avoid it anyway, and so we snagged a car back to home base, where I made it into bed without seeing that dreadful color out the window.
On Wednesday we went back out to Williamsburg to see Shilpa Ray opening for Man Man at Music Hall of Williamsburg. I'd been smitten with her (and her Happy Hookers) since I saw her open for Kittens Ablaze at a CMJ show at Cake Shop two years ago. The Kittens were underwhelming when I saw them again, but she was fantastic. Her performance is still disturbing to watch: Her pretty face contorts into a fucking mask of tragedy when she really gets to howling, and the way she pumps the harmonium makes her look like she's wringing out a blood-stained shirt. Oh, man, though -- those songs are good. I particularly love "Beating St. Louis," a long, less scream-y one they played towards the beginning of their set. I payed more attention to her band this time, too. The big guy who plays bass does it without a pick, and some of his riffs are Freeman-esque in terms of their complexity. Her drummer's really fun to watch, too -- he's very active, arm- and leg-wise, while sticking to straight-ahead, non-showy rock and roll beats. We clamored for an encore, to no avail.
It took Man Man some time to set up -- they've got a number of... props, I guess you could call them, include a free-standing bicycle wheel and a big stylized drawing of a cut gemstone that pulsed with green light and hung in front of the middle one of three keyboard stands. We used the time to explore the second floor of the Hall (even though its layout is exactly the same as Bowery Ballroom's), eventually situating ourselves at the top of the bleachers -- the perfect vantage point from which to fret over how much keyboard they were gonna have. Their set turned out to be okay, but not great. They sound a lot like Tom Waits, particularly his more antic stuff like "Singapore" -- rhythmic, heavily syncopated piano melodies, with lurching, gravelly vocals. I think they're mostly known for their stage show, though, and there were some interesting touches: Honus Honus, the lead singer and ostensible front-person, did some Jerry Lee Lewis-type acrobatics while seated at his keyboard. During a drum solo in one of the later songs in the set, one of the other keyboard players dropped and did push-ups for the duration. There were feathers thrown, a confetti cannon. They all had face-paint on, and, as if the whole thing were a Park Slope street fair, there was a chick at a booth in the lobby who'd paint your face so you could look like the band. Mostly I was just waiting for it to be over -- and I thought it might be after the first two encore numbers. But it wasn't. They played an encore that was almost 40 minutes long!
I was cranky and feeling sick by the end of it, but Nina helped mollify me by taking me to Rainbow Falafel, the joint right by the train station. That was great! Three dollars a pop, and their idea of the "works" includes pickled package and just the right amount of hot sauce. Mwah!
So what's next? The inimitable Ken South Rock are back safe and sound from their heroic Japanese tour, and they're playing a series of shows in Brooklyn, the first of which is this Saturday. Peelander-Z's playing next Thursday. And my band, the good ship Bel fucking Argosy, is playing our Otto's residency on the 13th and then a show at Legion on the 16th with MiniBoone that's part of, oh man, the Northside Festival. Happy Summer!
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