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- Dan Deacon @ the 9:30 Club, Washington DC
- Canadian Invasion @ North Star Bar, Philadelphia
- Happy Birthday!
| Dan Deacon @ the 9:30 Club, Washington DC Posted: 25 May 2009 05:55 AM PDT Peabody alum Dan Deacon brought his strangely popular act to the 9:30 Club for the last date on his US tour — he and all 13 (or was it 14?) of his on-stage ensemble. The ironically dressed kids in the audience lapped up his arrhythmic beats and sped-up Castlevania synths, but frankly I didn’t see the appeal. I tried to pick-up and at least nod my head to a beat during his first “song,” but the three percussionists on stage bashed away in such a tachycardic way that doing so was beyond me. Everyone else seemed to manage it though, they even danced, although the dancing was more akin to the spastic tremblings of a too-long-in-capitivity primate than anything resembling normal funky getting-downness. Deacon’s set-up consists of a lo-fi lighting rig, a ballooning backdrop screen made of a bedsheet that could use some tightening, and the entire stage covered in instruments and musicians. Everyone then seemingly plays everything, at the same time, and we are amused at the glowing green skull that is employed as a stage prop. None of this really seemed all that great to me (although I did try to get into it at first, I really did) but the rest of the crowd was enthralled. I was wondering why but I found out soon enough — party games! Dan Deacon uses party games to distract from the “music” and that’s what people come to the shows for! What a neat trick. A rambling spiel preceded every “song” and all but the first and last consisted of various games to keep the audience amused. Let’s see… there was a dance-off, and there was some slow-dancing that was re-interpreted collectively by the audience. Then there was a bit where everyone formed a tunnel and everyone else danced through it and then the tunnel got longer and came upstairs and… yeah. There were some other things too, including Deacon controlling the audience’s voices en masse by the simple movements of his left hand, which was actually quite cool. The lights went up and down based on Deacon’s desires, and everyone played along swimmingly. All in all, what came to mind was performance art — Deacon as conductor, not just of his “band” but of the entire audience, all of us there to be part of his art, taking part in a work that only he can fully envision. There was no game for the very last track, except for everyone on stage crowd-surfing off it one at a time, including Deacon himself. That left no-one to actually play along and, tellingly, it ended up being the best track of the night — a ravey tune with actual discernible beats that sounded perfectly good until Deacon made it back up on stage to noodle along and add some of his indecipherable distorted-chipmunk vocals. In recent interviews Deacon has described his music as electronica and has railed against those who classify dance music as too simple. However, Deacon’s music live isn’t really dance music as you can’t really dance to it — it’s lacking in rhythm and melody, let alone feeling. It’s electronica in that it’s made by electronic instruments (apparently — the live set up included multiple basses, guitars, drum sets, woodwind instruments, and God knows what else as it was so crowded up there) but it doesn’t really resemble even the less dance-oriented IDM stuff on Warp Records. Oversimplicity definitely is not a problem here; in fact, there is far too much going on and what’s left is just noise — noise and performance, with games and gimmicks added to keep us entertained. You have to wonder how well a Dan Deacon show would go down without all the added hoopla, how interesting would just the music be? As it was, I found myself hoping the various audience members who were invited up on stage towards the end would accidentally break something. Deacon apparently hates to be called a novelty act, and argues that dance music is a serious business: it’s real music. I don’t think dance music needs Deacon to defend it, in fact it seems to be the other way round — by labeling himself as electronica he’s giving himself more credibility than he deserves.  Photos: Dese’Rae Stage Related Posts |
| Canadian Invasion @ North Star Bar, Philadelphia Posted: 21 May 2009 09:45 AM PDT Last week, Philadelphia’s Canadian Invasion played in the hometown’s legendary North Star Bar with New Jersey’s The Yarrows and Cut Off Your Hands all the way from New Zealand. The Yarrows got the show off to a slow start with their drugged out, mellow tunes. After Canadian Invasion took the stage, the energy in the room increased tenfold, thanks to the band’s fun and poppy sound and front man Andy Canadian’s (guitar, vocals) fictional anecdotes, kicking off with recent release Three Cheers For The Invisible Hand’s first track, “Pop Magic Fantastical Masterpiece”. Chris Morita (guitar, vocals) then lent his vocals to a cover of Vampire Weekend’s “Mansard Roof”, which the band performed on local public radio station WXPN earlier the same week. Drummer George Groves rocked the skins as guitarist Eric Miller just shredded some wonderful classic rock influenced riffs. After a delightful set from Canadian Invasion, the night’s headliners, Cut Off Your Hands, ripped through the North Star Bar with the energy of a tornado.        Canadian Invasion will be appearing on WPRB’s “Nocturnal Transmissions” on June 19th — tune in to 103.3 at 10PM to catch them in the act. Set List: Canadian Invasion: website | myspace  Related Posts |
| Posted: 21 May 2009 09:05 AM PDT A very happy birthday to our darling LA-based (via Detroit, via Pittsburgh) writer Sara Swiecki! Related Posts |
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