Friday, July 10, 2015

A Matter of Life and Death

Given my hard-to-stay-dead crisis of not being able to love any new music, it seemed to make the most sense to stick with happy/poppy/fun records to snap me out of it. What I needed was a good time! It sure didn’t make any sense to get a record about death.

Plus I already had a few records by this artist and felt I may have maxed out on him anyway.

But then, my son Michael - an adult now, who makes his own choices - comes to the rescue and gets this record anyway. And although I tend to stick to those records I myself buy, in this case I’m happy to make an exception.


Carrie and Lowell.jpg

Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell

Sufjan sometimes does long, sprawling albums, filled with orchestrations, like Michigan and Illinois (one of my faves from the last decade), and experiments in electronica like The Age of Adz. He even wrote a symphony about the BQE. link

But occasionally he’ll just write a bunch of tunes, perform them in a simple setting, and end up with a simple, straightforward album. Before, it was the religiously themed Seven Swans. And now, it’s Carrie & Lowell, about the death of his mother.

Now before you get all weepy about it, or worse, feel like you’re being forced into having to like something because of the subject matter, Sufjan points out how their relationship was complicated by her substance abuse and mental health issues, necessitating her leaving him when he was three, to be brought up by others.

So it’s hardly a miss you so much ma weep-fest, There’s an admission of the pain and regret left in the wake of such a relationship and the death that ends it, preventing it from ever being fully repaired.

But he doesn't try to just get by on the gravity of the theme, slipping in some sub-par songs because we feel sorry for him. He puts together eleven excellent to brilliant songs. There’s no skimping here at all.


The first song - “Death With Dignity” - actually starts with an uplifting melody and guitar figure, and ends with some subtle pedal steel guitar and almost Beach Boy-like harmonies. It's a microcosm of the rest of the album - a deft mixture of pain and joy.

Next comes “I Should Have Known Better”, and again, the music is sweet and muted, while the lyrics probe how to better handle such a complicated relationship, and ending hopefully by looking to the future, embodied by his niece.

“All of Me Wants All of You”, about a less than equal relationship, opens up a bit more musically, which is nice, since it staves off the claustrophobia one might feel after a couple of very low key numbers.

“Eugene” is a sweet, short folk song - just guitar and vocal like you’d expect from Cat Stevens. And since Sufjan is a religious fellow, here’s where I note the swimming instructor, pouring water on his head and mispronouncing his name, like a very public and very imperfect baptism.  It’s just one of the many religious and mythical references here that will take me years to figure out.

“Fourth of July” may be the quietest song on the record, but it’s also the most intense. The lyrics are a dialog between him and his mother both before and after her death. It’s a quiet masterpiece:
Did you get enough love, my little dove,
Why do you cry?
I’m sorry I left,
But it was for the best
My little Versailles.

It’s followed by the most beautiful song I’ve heard all year. The lyrics to “The Only Thing” are full of despair and thoughts of suicide, but the melody is so sweet that one is left feeling full of hope. The guitar interlude followed by the final verse may be the most sublime musical moment I’ve felt for years.

And after the poppy - relatively speaking - title cut, it gets quieter again,and stays that way until the end, which might be forbidding for any but the true believers. It’s all right, though, By now I am one.

I like how Sufjan, while keeping things sparse, doesn't get lazy with the instrumentation. He finds the exact string instrument that's right for the song. And I'd tell you what those instruments were if I could get the damned liner notes to open.

And he doesn't stint on the melody. Oh, he gets a bit prissy with his vocals occasionally, but only if the tune or the theme calls for it.

Those melodies are very straightforward, so it’s easy to get lulled into thinking you know what you're getting on first listen. But like John Prine and Neil Young before him, he’s written music that is so strong it stays with you long after you thought it would lose its power.

And it was this very mistake that led to my disappointment at his recent show. If I had just stayed with the album a little longer, the concert would have been brilliant.  I’ve had similar missed opportunities, like Elvis Costello in 1981, who, in the prior year, had put out three albums containing a total of 55(!) songs, all of which he seemed to play that night, and none of which I’d heard as yet, and REM in 1985, when in retrospect it would have been a good idea to have picked up their debut EP Chronic Town, which brought the show to a rousing finish.

By the time I saw Sufjan, I’d clearly underestimated his album. There was another level of enjoyment I hadn’t gotten to by then that I’d only reach over the next few weeks, when we played it over and over and over again.

I thought Aphex Twin would be the right way back into happy music, now I think Sufjan Stevens is. Of course, if I heard Carrie & Lowell in January, I may have never left the house again. But to paraphrase “Game of Thrones”, to get to happy, head to sad.

Yup, Carrie & Lowell is one of those "demanding" albums. No fun - the one thing I was looking for - at all. And yet, it's the best thing I've heard all year.

I guess Mick was right. If you try sometimes, you get what you need.

A

“The Only Thing”

Friday, July 3, 2015

Old Man Attends Concert, Nearly Has A Good Time

I could go on Facebook and say it was the greatest concert ever, but that wouldn't be true. I could have said we had a wonderful time, but I didn't.

It was just another concert, and it turned out the way concerts generally turn out for me. Okay, but frustrating as hell.

Why does this always happen? Well, it could be my impossibly high standards, but circumstances do enter into it.

We had tickets to Sufjan Stevens at the newly - and awesomely - refurbished Kings Theatre, and there was no reason to think we'd have anything but a wonderful time. Except all of my prior concert experiences.

Unlike my fellow near 58 year olds, I won't lie to you and tell you about all the concerts I've been to. When I was younger I DIDN'T go to a lot of concerts. I didn’t see Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones. So when I did get to go to a show, I’d invest so much emotional capital into it, it would be almost impossible for the show to satisfy me.

Other folks would come to have a good time, by dancing, standing and talking to friends. But I must have been starved for entertainment, because. I’d sit there leaning forward, never taking my eyes off the stage, making sure I was taking in every sliver of the experience.  And heaven help anyone who came between me and that experience.

I'd be there hoping for a PERFECT show, which would comprise the following:


  1. Great seats.
  2. Nobody's fat f*cking head in front of me.
  3. A great song selection. A corollary to this is that there’s a good mix of old and new.  Too much old is playing it safe, too much new is not fair to the audience, and reeks of hawking new product, like a 1978 Dave Mason concert that my friends and I would later refer to as the “Here’s another one from the new record…” show. 
  4. Faithful but enthusiastic renditions of the songs. Not robotic note for note replications of the record, but also not drastically different arrangements of them, a la Dylan.
  5. If you’re a solo act, a good band
  6. A good sound system.
  7. No assholes. which means nobody talking throughout the show, and nobody screaming out during quiet songs.
  8. A three hour show.  Okay, this isn’t as important as it used to be. I’d have to hit the bathroom during such a marathon.  And I saw a pretty short Elvis Costello show in 1979 that was nonetheless one of the more intense concerts I’ve ever seen, and so I didn’t leave feeling gypped, like that other EC, whose 1974 show was the epitome of the bad concert. I’d waited months for that show (and years for him to come out of hiding) and it sucked, striking out on virtually all of the above criteria.
As you can see, I tend to place a lot of expectation on an event involving a multitude of factors and thousands of people out of my control. And I usually was disappointed.

Would Sufjan do any better, I wondered? It’s funny how things change, though. I’d set my expectations so low I’d almost forgotten we’d even gotten the tickets.

When we entered the theater, we couldn’t believe our eyes. It had been closed for a long time, but had just been refurbished, and was absolutely beautiful.

And the opening act - Moses Sumney - started at eight sharp! - was really very good. A perfect start.

So Sufjan comes on and starts off great, playing songs from his new record. And playing them. And playing them. About seven in a row, actually.

Now, given my inability to appreciate music the first time I hear it, I try to prepare for a show by listening to the new album a few times ahead of time. Arcade Fire didn’t give us much of a chance releasing The Suburbs the day before we saw them in 2010. Sufjan had a little more consideration. But I still felt rushed, and only got a few grudging listens in.

A good, but solemn, record. And while you can definitely put it on when you're in that mood, you may not want to remain in that mood for the length of an entire concert, which should be a little more, uh, fun. And given how I’d been feeling in general, more solemnity was the last thing I needed.

He did play some other songs, but they seemed few and far between. And it took him almost half the show before he even talked to the audience.  So it was a little too much like going to mass.

But how did we do overall?

1. Seats? Row S. Excellent. A-
2. Fat F*cking Heads?  Not bad - I had a great view but there was the young lady who insisted on resting her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder, blocking my wife's view. But then she'd lift it again. And then put it down again. I was outraged by proxy, but Mrs. Jaybee said she didn’t mind. B+
3. Song Selection? As I said, too many new ones. B
4. Faithful but enthusiastic....?  A
5. The Band? Excellent! Stripped down, and mixed gender, too! A
6. Sound System? Usually excellent, but sometimes the guitar was too loud and Sufjan also tried - in the wrong way - to expand the tone of the material. B+
7. Assholes? Surprisingly, sensitive Sufjan draws assholes just like any other artist. Despite threats to the contrary, talking during the show was pretty minimal, but there were the douche bags who screamed out during the quiet parts of songs. What are these people thinking? That they're adding to the experience?  And a new phenomenon. People showing up late for the show! Like an hour late. Really? Is this just one stop in your wonderful evening? Who are these people who buy tickets to shows and come in when it’s more than half over?  That’s like buying a pizza and throwing away four slices on the way home. B
8. A three hour show. Not even close, but I don’t care anymore. A-  

Overall, the show gets a strong B+, with the song selection being the biggest problem. Which is a damned shame since I’d find out later how great, and how durable, these new songs were.

But it's like deciding when to eat dinner. At my age, I spend a lot of time not being hungry, only to immediately follow that with that nice hungry feeling, but only for about five minutes. It’s immediately superseded by nausea, thus making the timing of a meal challenging, to say the least.

And with new songs, if you overplay them you get sick of them songs before the show. You need to play them just enough to want to look forward to hearing them again. And then stop until the show.

So I went into the show  thinking I’d gotten to the essence of these songs - thinking I was ready to really enjoy them. But I was wrong. It was too soon. I’d only skimmed the surface. But I’ll talk about that at another time.

So it wasn’t a great show, but I’d only blame Sufjan for the abrupt end to “Chicago”, which should have gone out on a fading choir of angelic voices. See?

We’ll go back to the Kings Theater in October to catch Yo La Tengo and I’ll report back on my narrow comfort zone and the potential attendant assholes. Let’s see if I, or they, learn anything.