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Stephen Malkmus Show Makes Me Appreciate Jon Anderson
Admittedly this is one of the most out of touch things I'll ever share, but Stephen Malkmus' show at the Philadelphia's TGIF of "legendary" rock clubs, the Fillmore at the TLA, furthered my appreciation of Yes frontman Jon Anderson. After a grandiose musical introduction, Anderson's vocals would set up some 9-minute cosmic musiical excursion by the rest of the band. While Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire, et al noodled away, Anderson would shake a tambourine, walk about the stage, cheer on his bandmates, but never turn his back on the audience. When things settled down long enough for Anderson to rattle off a few more spacey couplets, he was one more Boss. He was always the anchor for the audience.
Follow up:
As much as singing is key to the role of a frontman, that role of focal point for the audience may be more important. Around a frontperson who's willing to be larger than life, all sorts of nonsense can take place on stage. All night, as Malkmus and his equally detached, introverted band, The Jicks, jammed away on song after song (mostly from the new album, Real Emotional Trash) until devolving into an embarrassed, self-consciously feeble parody of a big rock song ending, I kept trying to imagine how much better this generally good, musically interesting show would have been with some extroverted clown like Jon Anderson, Ian Anderson, Damon Albarn, or Thom Yorke fronting the affair. Malkmus sang the entire set hunched over his angled-too-low boom stand, which was turned away from the crowd. As he sang "side-saddle," with bangs covering his closed eyes, the woman playing bass would often roll her eyes to no one in particular. The multi-tasker across from her, a guy in a Lost in Space jacket, who promised to add a little flare to the set yet rarely delivered it as he ably played guitar, two sets of synths, cowbell, and assorted percussion - wouldn't bite on the bassist's bad attitude. He readily joined Malkmus on a string of dual leads, which made me and many other dudes in the audience grin and bob our heads but seemed to have little-to-no effect on the grinning, head-bobbing muscles of either guitarist. How can two guitarists play dual leads without looking at each other with either a fierce bonding face or an ironic grin? Drummer Janet Weiss bashed away enthusiastically and added some welcome vocal support, but without a drum riser on a too-low stage for the theater, I had to stand on my tippy-toes just to get a peak at her black bangs and nice cheekbones. There was much to enjoy about the music being played, but little to get out of seeing this band in person. Weird.
The audience, however, seemed pleased as punch. Although there was not that one moment of eruption from the crowd over the start of a beloved song (he skipped many of my favorite solo songs, and I didn't recognize any of the Pavement songs that I know [I''ve become a fan of Malkmus' solo albums much more than I ever liked Pavement]), they applauded wildly at the end of each dissolving jam. Honestly, there was much to like from the sounds on stage, even as the mix got increasingly muddy, but I couldn't shake the thought that Malkmus is a lousy frontman. With a sold-out house of satisfied customers, I've got a lot of nerve criticizing Malkmus' skills as a frontman, but what's the point of going to a show if the focal point of the band is too shy to engage in the audience? He "got into" some of his solos, but all in all he made Tom Verlaine, another introverted musician's musician I've seen, look like Ted Nugent. God bless you, frontpeople of rock. Even if all you do is sing a few couplets in a ridiculously high voice and then bang a tambourine that no one hears, you help me focus on The Show.
16 comments
yeah...as a friend of mine once said, malk's onstage demeanor suggests that "the pleasure is all yours" (it's certainly not his).
just go back to the records and enjoy them. they're pretty great.
live, he does little to help himself.
somewhere i have a review of a "face the truth" show i saw in rome...but what's the use: not much different than what you describe above.
this is what made the "cheerleader" dude in pavement so necessary.
It's not just that he's a sort of unenthused frontman. What's amazing to me it's that he almost seems genuinely intimidated by it...AFTER ALL THIS TIME.
Or maybe it's just too much of a bother. He still hasn't learned to project his voice, or sing into the mic.
At some points, he forgets that it's time to get over to the mic because a vocal parts coming. So we miss an entire line as he's singing the words 5 ft from the mic while walking towards it. At others, he looks like he hasn't completely mastered his own material, forgetting lyrics, or the guitar parts during passages where both were conceived and executed in the studio, and never played at the same time live until it was time to hit the road.
Again, I find that level of a lack of commitment to the *little things* necessary for honing one's performance pretty amazing in someone who has been playing out for almost 20 yrs now.
hvb may be unimpressed with Jack White's shau mach-ing capacities, but Malk makes Jack look like a cock master for the ages.
here's a youtube of malkmus that aint so bad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEanHqTHIyA
i'm sure if he had gotten to this level of performance, you'd've been thrilled.
what songs did he play last night?
He played just about everything - if not everything - from the new album. He opened with that "Elmo Delmo" song, which was pretty bold and set the tone for a jam-heavy night. Later in the set, when he played "Real Emotional Trash", Chickenfrank and I were reminded of "The End" and "L.A. Woman" - in a good way. He played "Baby Come On", "It Kills", and "Malediction" from Face the Truth - meaning he played only one of my half dozen favorite songs from that album (no "No More Shoes", although that would have been redundant with the title track from the new album; no "Mama"; no "Post-Paint Boy"...). He played a song or two from one of the first two solo albums, the names of which I couldn't recall. Again, none of my personal "hits" from those albums, such as "Jenny and the Ess Dog", "Black Book", or that boogie number about pirates from the first album. Then there were 2 or 3 songs I couldn't recall; maybe they were Pavement numbers I didn't know, or maybe they were from the Jicks album or two I don't own. I don't know. He ended with some tender song with a pretty cool guitar passage that was vaguely familiar. Maybe I've heard it on the last Pavement album. There seemed to be no Pavements anthems, like a "Cut My Hair". I kept wondering how many of the people in the packed how were waiting on the Pavement set. They didn't respond quickly to any of his solo songs. I felt like I knew and responded to his set list about as well as most others in the crowd. That surprised me.
Here's another head scratcher from last night: after the first 3 or so songs, Malkmus handed his Jazzmaster off to a roadie and switched to a Les Paul. When the roadie handed him back his Fender a song or two later, Malkmus then spent about 2 minutes tuning it up! What did the roadie do with that guitar during the 8-minute jam with the Les Paul? There was LOTS of tuning going on and really bad stage banter, often initiated by the Jack of All Trades and the Bored Bassist to fill time while Malkmus tuned and discussed possible songs to play next with Janet Weiss.
Weiss was really good and really good on the new songs, but she struggled with the couple of songs from Face the Truth. The drummer on that album had a jazzier approach that she couldn't duplicate. The verses in "It Kills" didn't roll the way the old drummer could make them roll.
Of course, it's a fine line. Too much mach schau and you end up becoming the Bay City Rollers. One band that I think gets it just right is The Hives. Power, glory, uniforms, energy, just enough bravura to establish a love bond between band and audience (Band says: Come on, you know you love us! Audience says: We love you! Band thinks: We need you to love us -- what more can we give to make you love us? Audience thinks: Look how hard they work for our love! We love them!) Anyhow, check it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shbwokU0Y_c
Mod, if you're not too angry with me for dissing your Ronstadt love-fest, can I get your thoughts on this? Oh, and Mockcarr -- you've actually seen the Hives live. How do you think they stack up in the mach schau category?
HVB
Me: I know, right???
And thanks for the rundown on what he played. On the "face the truth" show, they were going to walk off stage without having played "Kindling for the Master" AND "Pencil Rot", and I requested them from the front row. They put their guitars back on with a shrug and delivered the goods, but it was almost like "eh..."...I mean, pardon me for putting anybody out!!!
HvB: Fair enough. Not being completely familiar with the details of your opinion on Jacks' shau-mach-ing, i was just using him as a foil to convey just how wooden and under practiced Malkmus is at the whole performative aspect of his career choice to be a....performer. and for the record, i don't disagree with your assessment of jack. in fact, i say things along similar lines in the Racs thread.
All the passion was saved for the solos in the middle of the songs which were very good. Seemed like Malkmus only felt and acted bigger than the audience when he was jammin.
Malkmus probably continues to feel this way. At times, it looks like he's trying to subvert the audience's expectations: no more so than in the heavy jamming aesthetic his music has. What could be more uncool than to redo the whole 60s San Francisco sound? But he's doing it, and people like it, including me.
Dr. John, when punk rock started, the bands DID commit to entertaining the audience. There was plenty of showbiz fat that was rightfully shed, but the PUNK bands put out for The People bigtime. They projected a sense of fun, of...something. By the time of the "punk rock" of Pavement's beginnings, sure, there was little to no regard for any sense of communicating with the audience, that is, in a way that any two stoner friends might communicate in private. Is that a good thing? I don't know. I like Malkmus' music and his musical approach, but he was a terrible performer, and if his audience hadn't been so under the spell of their own younger days, they might have also been wishing for a Jon Anderson to pull it together. You want to compare him to the '60 San Francisco scene, well, where's his Pigpen to provide focus? Where's even the wise hippie figure of a Jerry Garcia? Jefferson Airplane had GRACE SLICK in her prime to help focus attention. Janis Joplin was much larger than life. I don't see where San Fran bands of that era lost sight of the need for a frontperson and reaching out to the audience. Don't bring up some faceless, second-rate (in terms of success/reach) band like Moby Grape or Quicksilver Messenger Service. They suffered for having no personality up front.
i like malkmus's solo stuff, too.
you may be right, but your explanation of his live demeanor strikes me as obscure.
it doesn't look to me like he's actively applying (or working off of) his first band's punk aesthetic, as you suggest (besides, using the word "punk" to describe pavement is a reach).
his performances are affectless and suggest that he's either *not very good* (and under practiced) at playing and singing his own songs, or, by the same token, that he's losing interest in everything they entail except the extended jams.
he has said as much...
(http://www.spin.com/articles/spin-interview-stephen-malkmus?page=0%2C2):
Spin: With the Jicks, you've started playing in much more of a guitar-hero way.
SM: I probably feel like, with my limited vocal range and limited topics that I'm even interested in singing about, it's logical that I'd rather just get to the instrumental part. I like singing and I like melodies and stuff, and in concert I like to let it go and feel the singing, but in practice you don't really want to do that over and over again. With guitar, there's always something to discover.
i concur. the two times i've seen him solo, and the multiple times i saw him with pavement, it was always as we're describing.
in fact, when i saw him in rome, he seemed scared to take the stage.
the main clown was that "cheerleader" dude we've mentioned before (Bob Nastovitch).
But Gary Young, a great, but erratic drummer who left the band before "Crooked Rain", was *quite* a clown, too.
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