NOISE POP '09f

Single Syllable First Names ? Bob and Mark at the Swedish, Keep it Classy Folks

Words by Jake Butler

I had been to Cafe Du Nord numerous times, and had always heard rumor of this mysterious “Swedish American Hall” that lie above us in the strange world above street level just past the Church St. MUNI stop.

I walk into a sea of seated concertgoers who would likely give up their first born before their seat. There’s probably 70 chairs or so in the center, with limited seating along the borders of both the base level and the balcony at the Swedish American Music Hall. I instantly notice that there is an abundance of blazers, makeup, dresses, and straight up classy folks. This was balanced out by the sleeve-tatted, leather jacket, new school fans of good music. You had a spread of folks spanning from the young, Husker Du-story-driven attendees to the Sugar-fan, solo-Bob Mould fan base. It was quite a collection and I believe everyone got their fill.

Mark Eitzel kicked off the evening for me. My sister f-in’ loves lounge music so as soon as Eitzel hit those pipes, I texted her about some stuff she had to check out.

Mark sucks you in with his very personal, ridiculously good storytelling. He then keeps you trapped with his brutally honest vulgarity. Let’s face it, no matter how straight edge, religious, or anti-social you may be, vulgarity is a part of life, and Mark Eitzel includes it in his music in just the appropriate, human proportions.

Whether it be a girl rolling on ecstasy at the Rickshaw Stop or an All-American packing heat in a patriotic speedo, Mark’s got a story for you. He stands in the ultimate juxtaposition of the bands I’ve seen downstairs at Du Nord, sporting only some horns and a clarinet by way of some additional musicians.

I would later find out his familiarity with these musicians was merely cursory, but that never came through in the music.

Bias disclosure – with any act that includes a flugelhorn (as Eitzel’s did), my eyes glaze over and I fall in love with the group.

Mark maintains a physically tugging, slightly incapacitating (due to the effort exerted) sound. He’s been fighting for some time to get this stuff heard, and dab-nam-it, it’s happening! Eitzel simultaneously croons, cries, chronicles, and cites the best of the best of interesting bar stories I’ve ever heard.

The horn/woodwind backing group for Eitzel was minimalist, sometime not even playing on a song, but the clarinet player reminded me how beautiful that instrument can sound. Eitzel’s steady references to San Francisco (kicking off with “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”, citing Mission Rock Cafe and Rickshaw stop in story and song) made me feel at home.

As Eitzel’s set came to a close, he would sit on the edge of the stage to get up close and personal with the crowd, and at it’s conclusion he made a b-line for the bar.  One word – awesome.

And then you tell me I’m seeing Bob Mould – I’m in!

I would later dis-confirm the rumor that Bob’s moving to the bay, as he currently owns some real estate that needs to re-consolidated first. I would also later shake Bob’s hand and be incredibly jealous of my friends that they weren’t me at that exact moment I shook Mr.  Mould’s hand.

Bob Mould took the stage and it was just the right size for a man and guitar. He forewarned us that his voice was a little off and just recovering, and this would prove true towards the end of the set. But for the most part, his voice was honest and visceral, a little rough around the edges but with a solid core. He opened with “Wishing Well,” which definitely kicked things up a notch from the previous set. His punk pedigree from the Husker Du days definitely plays a role in all of his songs.

The corner of the room I was standing in seemed to be packed with the diehard fans, because they were singing every song, and these were tracks that traversed a few decades.

Mould surprised us with some tracks off his forthcoming album, due in mid-April.  The title track, “Life and Times,” was great. It had a melancholic pain to it that his voice matched perfectly, complete with its stressed, hoarse imperfections. He followed this up with “The Breach,” and if these two tracks are indicative of the rest of the album, its a must-buy for me.

Mould would don his Stratocaster for a few songs and kick in that good ol’ rock & roll distortion. He kicked into “Celebrate Summer,” which an audience member had requested earlier in the evening. He tried to get somebody up on stage to sing it with him, but I think we were all just too much in awe to do so.

You could tell his voice was really starting to bug him and he didn’t want to do anymore damage to it, so left us with on last song – “Makes No Sense At All,” before departing into the San Francisco night.

Favorite Moment: When Bob Mould played “Makes No Sense At All” and finally got a fan with the guts to sing onstage with him, all the while pitching in a line or two here and there when the audience member lost his place.

I Need That Record!: My final movie at Noise Pop Film Fest 2009

Words by: Ben Richardson

The uncertainty and unease that surrounds today’s music business is hardly news. Decades of mismanagement and greed have exposed rotten timbers, deep down near the keel of an industry that seems to be mired in the doldrums. The number of major labels has shrunk, as they continue to foist cookie-cutter artists with high promotion budgets and low standards on the beleaguered public, while blaming illegal downloading for their declining sales. After spending years trying sell music like toaster ovens or Big Mouth Billy Basses, it seems like something’s gotta give.

The first victims of this trend are America’s independent record store owners, who are closing up shop in record numbers. Squeezed by file-sharing, undercut by Best Buy’s slashed prices, and subject to hostile landlords and evaporating customer base, the nation’s Quixotic champions of community and rarity are experiencing a period of unprecedented ruin.

Enter Brendan Toller, and his invigorating documentary I Need That Record!: The Death (or possible survival) of  the Independent Record Store. Begun as his student film at Hampshire college, Toller’s film is a tour-de-force, instructing without being didactic, plucking the heart strings without being maudlin, and presenting the burgeoning crisis in music retail as a palatable, human story.

Through touching interviews with crestfallen store owners, and meetings with a host of big name musicians and luminaries (Thurston Moore, Ian MacKaye, Mike Watt, Noam Chomsky), Toller paints an impressive portrait of an industry that has been in a death spiral since the first radio payola scandal. Using statistics and the testimony of his subjects to great effect, the filmmaker delivers a thoroughly comprehensible picture of the current problems, while preserving the human center of the film, which focuses on the shuttered record shops.

There’s a lot of information to be digested, some familiar, some not, and Toller does an admirable job of not getting bogged down in the details. Clever collage animation sequences by collaborator Matt Newman add a fun visual punch, sometimes to advance the narrative and sometimes to illustrate a particularly important point. It would be hard to walk out of the movie without feeling that you have learned something, and, more importantly, that you might want to do something to help.

Toller and his interviewees lionize the community aspect of these independent stores, and rightly so. Store owners seem to glow when they talk about the thrill they get helping customers find the perfect record, or when they greet the repeat customers who come in day after day, year after year. At times, it appears that the fierce loyalty the stores cultivate among their fans–and their status as the ideal music-talk scuttlebutt–serves as their only hope for survival.

The film is yet to find a distributor, and Toller is travelling around the country himself, screening it at festivals in the hopes of garnering wider exposure.  It really cannot be recommended highly enough. If it doesn’t screen in San Francisco again soon, keep your eyes peeled for its DVD release this Fall. Independent record stores are undeniably in deep, deep, trouble, but at least they have a documentary this good in their corner.

Quality uncompromised: Sholi at BotH

Words by: Nicole L. Browner
Photos by: Adrian Bischoff
Whereas many of the Noise Pop shows offered headlining spots to the big out-of-town bands, this Bottom of the Hill show allowed San Francisco to boast its local talent on the rise: Sholi’s Noise Pop performance doubled as their at-home record release party for the album they’ve released on Quarterstick last month.

Opening for the night was their longtime associate, Jake Mann (Crossbill Records) and friends. Jake bashfully draws upon classic sounds from the decade before: the eager tempo of Pavement, Jeff Tweedy’s rural charm and even a little Neutral Milk Hotel with the newly added trumpet. Keeping things simple was the crux of the Mann band’s routine ? singing and playing bass, Jake added that he hopes to be noted as the first capoed bass player ? and was clearly having fun onstage.

As act one finishes up, Bottom of the Hill is thickening and somehow does produce the effect of deterring eyes from the main event. Going on my fifth night of this Noise Pop week, I?ll contend that Saturday?s crowd was the most attentive and courteous. And I?d yet to see a volunteer come up to tell a joke during a guitar-tuning break ? which yes, actually happened later in the evening.

Next comes Everest, a band with rich history and incredible musicianship that impressed Neil Young enough to pick up (on his Vapor Records) and even take to Europe. Lead singer Russ Pollard admitted the shocking fact to me that he?d learned to sing just as Everest begun, as in the past he?d been drumming (Sebadoh, Alaska!, Folk Implosion and help to the Watson Twins).

The five piece pounded out both ?Trees? and ?Rebels and the Roses? from their full-length Ghost Notes, but played mostly unreleased songs they’ve been writing on tour. These new songs pack in more zeal and a stronger incentive for the band to let loose with their stage activity, rounding in close to compliment the utmost stunning basslines from Elijah Thomson.

Pushing the subtle hints of twang over the edge was The Dead Trees, an alt-country group on Milan Records who did tourdates in Europe with Little Joy last month. Despite not standing out in much regard (and sounding uncharacteristic of their native Portland), I still started to wonder how this bill was chosen. First a charismatic pop set, and then on to acts deserving to open for Band of Horses or Son Volt? Well, it was pulled off by the mere fact that every band brought their a-game to the stage on this occasion. If Noise Pop is a time to win over a fan on the fence, to bring a new face into local venues and to give exposure to bands that need just one opportunity to woo a crowd, this show exemplified it.

At this point the record releasers take the stage, San Francisco?s Sholi ? starting out with the always mesmerizing ?All That We Can See? followed by another older track rejuvenated on the album, ?Any Other God.? Their Quarterstick debut embraces both quiet and soft just the way these two songs do. The magnetism between Payam Bavafra, bassist Eric Ruud and drummer Jon Bafus shows mostly during the live set, but easily overlooked is Greg Hagel in the corner, maintaining melodic sounds from the keys and Macbook sitting in front of him. But his charges pulled him in soon enough, as he strikes the floor tom and snare aside his post during “November Through June.”

Sholi kept with a perky setlist, including their rendition of the Iranian pop singer Googoosh’s “Hejrat,” (translates to “Migration”). “Tourniquet” was a high point, as it allowed Jon to display his wide range of stylistic ability. Before you know it, this shuffling song (throwing me back to the soothing Engine Down) slides into a 30 second pop beat, only to just as quickly disappear underneath Jon’s jittery timeclock percussion.

In-between song banter never comes out the way anyone wishes, and like I mentioned earlier there was a stage guest who offered comedy when Sholi assured they’re anything but a funny band. Just to be tasteful I won’t retell the joke, but I’ll give a hint: it was about tampons.

The crowd warmly received each band on Saturday night, which set the show apart from the rest of the week’s (at least in my experience). And as for the Quarterstick rookies, I’d assume they better get used to headlining packed venues — Sholi’s new album has the potential to bring success wherever they take it.

Soldiers Under Command: Stryper at ATA

Christian glam metal. These days, it seems almost impossible, but for much of the 80s, it was big business. California band Stryper were one of the first “contemporary Christian” bands to achieve crossover appeal, shifting millions of copies of their hit albums Soldiers Under Command (Enigma, 1985) and To Hell With The Devil (Enigma, 1986). They had the teased hair, twin guitar solos, and piercing vocals of their more sinful contemporaries, along with black and yellow striped stage outfits that signified Christ’s suffering under the lash. Bibles were tossed into the audience at their shows, as the band attempted to convert the fallen with the help of history’s sleaziest music genre.

Stryper fell apart in 1993, as record labels jettisoned their Aqua-Net armies in favor of the “Seattle sound” that was quickly sweeping the nation. The band’s former members languished in obscurity in 1999, when performing opportunities began to sow the seeds of a possible reunion. Soldiers Under Command, a 2004 film by directors Greg Fiering, Matt Luem, and writer James Reid, depicts the band ten years after the break-up. Stryper’s been invited to a Southern California Christian Rock Expo for a one-off show, and the group’s four members are grappling with the possibility of a more permanent reunion. There are financial and logistical concerns, but also another overweening question: Does God want them to get back together?

Though the film is only 18 minutes long, it captures enough bizarre behavior and head-scratching quotation to justify a much longer movie. Drummer Robert Sweet, with his yard-long blond tresses and Sunset Strip fashion sense, seems hopelessly stuck in the eighties. “Stryper’s a Lazarus,” he says, eyes wide. “Just waiting to come back up.” His bandmates are more subdued and sanguine about the reunion, but similarly convinced that if the Almighty wills it, they will rock together once again.

The enthusiasm for a long-moribund Christian hair band is almost overwhelming. The fans in attendance at the expo are a bad combination of enthusiastic and unhinged, and their lack of self-awareness when interviewed about their undying love for Stryper makes for heady viewing. For such a short documentary, the film is a remarkably complete bit of story-telling, conveying the band’s rise and fall and rise with surgical precision. As four aging metalheads who love the Lord charge into their reunited set in front of a quarter-full auditorium, it’s hard not to root for the “yellow and black attack.”

Seven Signs: Music, Myth, and The American South at ATA

An afternoon that starts with John Darnielle doing an Ace of Base cover can’t be all bad. Back at ATA for my third and final Noise Pop Film Festival double-feature, I was heartened by the quality of the now-customary Wolfgang’s Vault retrospective.

Too bad the movie that followed it was so disappointing. The directorial debut of J.D. Wilkes, frontman for Th’ Legendary Shakers, Seven Signs purported to tell us something about music, myth, and the American South, themes that are familiar but always worthy of revival. Wilkes, a Kentucky native, has a unique perspective on the region, and a fledgling but not insignificant eye for stark documentary image. Unfortunately, he has yet to learn how to make a coherent movie.

The film is comprised of a series of loosely connected vignettes, all tenuously connected to Wilkes’ attempt to portray the “real” South, which he believes has been papered over by the commercialized rapine of things like KFC, NASCAR, and The Beverly Hillbillies. The director seems to hope that if he concatenates enough examples of his movie’s three titular themes, the connection will somehow become clear. Soft-spoken men in overalls speak to an idealized, metaphysical homeland, giving way to young musicians in thrift-store cowboy shirts and oh-so-retro horn-rimmed glasses, who are quickly replaced by a lone, goateed college professor and a rogue’s gallery of Dixie oddities and eccentrics that are introduced haphazardly and without due explanation. There are strange people in the South, you say? Funny, I thought there were strange people everywhere.

Wilkes clearly loves the part of the country he grew up in, and he has knowledge of and access to a wide array of provincial points of interest that might otherwise have never found their way onto film. Given this unique understanding, it is even more frustrating that he can’t think of anything meaningful to say. Wilkes also, perhaps unwittingly, managed to make the whitest movie about the South ever committed the film. I’m sure some angry, anonymous person will appear in the comments to correct me if I get this wrong, but I can think of three instances in Wilkes’ hour-long movie in which African-Americans are anything but passerby in the background. He includes an interview with a Creole violinist who discourses briefly on the ethnic Jambalaya that consitutes Cajun and Creole culture, saws at his violin, and then is never seen again. After that, it’s a lame ghost story about a pregnant slave murdered by her master, and a man in South Carolina with no hands who sells corsages on the street. Again, my notes are not as clear as they could be on this point, but I’m almost certain that the only 100% black man that appears in the movie–the florist–comes right after the segment about Big John Strong’s freak show.

If you couldn’t tell by all the pre-emptive exculpation in the above paragraph, I want to avoid accusations of racism. Wilkes filmed the South he knew, and just because that doesn’t include much material about black people doesn’t mean he’s a bigot. At the same time, this oversight (and I’m reasonably certain that is what it was) speaks to the problem at the core of the movie: It’s not enough to make a documentary about all the weird, interesting shit you know about. You have explain why it’s interesting to you, why other people should care, and how it fits into some kind of context. If you avoid topics that are of crucial import to your subject matter, you have to account for this omission. And when you’re talking about the American South, its myths and most importantly, its music, isn’t race and the involvment of African-American people one of the most crucial topics?

Despite the film’s many failings, there are moments of small beauty. Wilkes’ interviews tend to culminate in impromptu backwoods jam sessions, and the collaborations between him and some of his most rural interview subjects are simultaneously haunting and touching. The film’s ongoing trope–in which Wilke’s commissions a salt-of-the-earth sign painter to create a set of misspelled religious exhortations (“Beleive”), and then tacks them up in the places he visits–gets old quicky, but some of the shots of the signs languishing in the middle of eerie, Southern Gothic backdrops serve as powerful evocations of the environment the filmmaker is hoping to portray.

A director’s first film is almost invariably rough going, and I must be sure to leaven this review with the hope that Wilkes takes another crack at it. There are few people with the wealth of life experience he enjoys, and even fewer who are inspired to turn this knowledge into a documentary. If he learns from his initial mistakes, he will have a lot to teach us. Until then, we can enjoy his harmonica playing, which is wonderful.

A.C. Newman shines at The Independent

Words and Photos by: Ben Van Houten

Opening with “There Are Maybe Ten Or Twelve,” the first track from his new solo album, A.C. Newman delivered an hour-plus set of stately chamber-power-pop to great applause on Saturday night at The Independent. After weeks of hand-wringing about Get Guilty–Was the production too muted? Were some of the songs too long or too slow?–it was welcome relief that the live show rendered these questions moot via an enthusiastic set from this former San Francisco resident. Yes, Newman announced, he lived for a period of time at Broderick and Eddy, noting that, memorably, “there were a lot of murders.”

Fronting a six-person band with three guitars, the New Pornographer managed to capture the beauty and elegance of the new album but with an additional “pop” that brought out the best of “Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer” and “The Palace at 4 a.m.” Newman’s several multi-instrumentalists meant that more layered songs like the waltz “Young Atlantis” retained their beauty too, and several tracks from 2004’s The Slow Wonder (including “Miracle Drug” and “On The Table”) were a welcome treat. Solo and with the NPs, Newman has stacked up a series of releases that rank him as one of the most consistent songwriters in indie pop, and if this sets the bar high for each new release, his set Saturday demonstrated an ability to reach some very rewarding high points.

I only briefly visited Dent May’s MySpace page before going to The Independent, but it set off all sorts of irony warning bells, from the sparkle-filled background to the Lisa Frank picture to the can of Tab listed under “Influences.” Thankfully, though, my initial skepticism was melted away in the face of overwhelming sincerity once the Mississippian May hit the stage. Dent plays the “magnificent ukulele,” but thankfully doesn’t treat it as a novelty instrument, just one of the pieces that fits together into some wonderfully baroque pop music.

Great three-part vocal harmonies made for a very pleasant listening experience, but I’ll admit to getting a little worn down by the end of the set. The music was spot on, but I wasn’t as sold on the depth of May’s lyrics. Alternating between character vignettes and love songs, none of May’s stories stood out as particularly clever or engaging on first pass but I’m hoping that future listens will reveal lyrical ideas with the depth and humor of a Jens Lekman or Stephen Merritt.

Since first hearing “A Truce” late last year, I’d been looking forward to an opportunity to see LA singer-songwriter Devon Williams. The song is the sort of buoyant twee pop that Belle and Sebastian so excelled at it, and it was a set highlight last night for Williams and his band, who were performing their second ever show together. A trio sporting a guitar-bass-drums lineup, the set featured a heavier emphasis on jangly electric guitar than I’d expected, lending Williams’ songs an 80s Brit-rock feel punctuated by an exuberant cover of The Only Ones’ “Miles From Nowhere.” It was a strong performance overall, blemished only by some awkward between-song banter that included such not-destined-to-become-classic bits as “What’s the deal with the name ‘Noise Pop’?” and “Let’s hear some jokes!”

Noise Pop: Saturday Preview!

Tomorrow is the last full day of Noise Pop, and it’s a duesy. But before you start your night of shows, head over to the Pop N’ Shop at The Verdi Club. This awesome independent design fair has become one or Noise Pop’s coveted non-music events, and includes designers and artists selling clothing, jewelry, posters and more. It takes place from 12pm-4pm and is free!

Saturday will also feature a couple of matinee shows, one of which is at Bottom of the Hill with The Matches, Dizzy Balloon and Ex-Boyfriends. Oakland’s The Matches are guaranteed to put on a fun show with their brand of pop-punk:

The Matches – “Wake the Sun”

As night breaks, you’ve got some fantastic options. The Independent will host New York’s self-proclaimed “New Pornographers on acid,” AC Newman. He plays with Dent May and his Magnificent Ukulele (MS), Devon Williams (LA) and City Light (Seattle). This feels like a rare line-up for the Bay Area — a great grouping of some of indie rock’s up-and-coming bands. 8pm, $15.

AC Newman – “There are Maybe Ten or Twelve”

Cafe Du Nord also has a fantastic lineup with Portugal. The Man, Girls, Love is Chemicals and Agent Ribbons. Portugal. The Man playes a unique breed of indie with plenty of synth sounds and noises, and various vocals overdubbed and effected to their heart’s desire. 9pm, $13. For the full night’s schedule, head over to Noise Pop’s website.