Magnetic Fields (review)

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS
LISNER AUDITORIUM – WASHINGTON, D.C.
OCTOBER 26, 2008

Stephen Merritt is notorious for depriving his fans of that which they most desire–to see The Magnetic Fields, one of indie-pop’s longest-lived and most eccentric bands, play live. The cantankerous genius recently told Indyweek.com, “Touring is traumatic for me and I try and suppress it. Live music is a mistake, and I regret my involvement with it.” Luckily for Magnetic Fields fans, Merritt briefly surrendered those insecurities this fall, when he and the band packed their bags for an American tour, stopping at Lisner Auditorium housed in our nation’s capital.

The Magnetic Fields began the night with their indelible stamp of bizarre humor. On “Walking My Gargoyle,” (from Merritt’s other band The Gothic Archies), his smooth baritone plunged to the lowest octave possible before causing involuntary face contortions. “Yes, everyone loves my little gargoyle,” he crooned… “I found him on a church, he helps with my research.” Next, Merritt serenaded fans with the story of a nun who dreams of becoming a porno starlet on “I Want To Be A Topless Waitress.” While these madcap lyrics are a trademark, their silliness doesn’t diminish a single note of merit from the band’s comprehensive sound. Shirley Simms’ frilly “tra-la-la” choruses on “Xavier Says” were an homage to Merritt’s Tin Pan Alley heroes Steven Sondheim and Irving Berlin, and a shining example of the classy, vintage sound that the Magnetic Fields inject into their music without sounding old-fashioned.

The band filled the entire stage, using all available space and looked like five small islands, alone and separated with their own talent and instruments, yet the plinky-sweet piano and cyclonic cello on “ Zombie Boy” (Distortion) brought them all together in a sweeping, sonic sandstorm. Sam Davol’s cello was deep and romantic on every song, especially “I Don’t Believe You,” but it was around this point that the absence of the Magnetic Fields’ signature synthesizers started to create gaps, each song sounding gradually more bare without their loopy, quirky accompaniment.

Singer/pianist Claudia Gonson abandoned her piano and stood alone for a gorgeous rendition of “Give Me Back My Dreams,” from Merritt’s band The 6ths (whose tongue twister band and album name, Hyacinths and Thistles is another example of his warped humor). Alas, “Yeah Oh Yeah” failed to deliver the desolate desperation from 69 Love Songs’ version. Merritt turned the should-be hopeless chorus into nagging, hyperbolic “nyah-nyahs,” foolishly ridiculing one of his saddest and most sadistic breakup songs.

When the band departed, playing the inevitable hard-to-get game, the audience was on their toes, anxious to hear their very special and personalized encore, the inevitable “Washington DC.” What they got was a half-assed a cappella version by an apathetic Gonson who barely remembered the words and gave up after one verse. It was a move that was weak and heartless enough to erase the previous twenty-six songs and all their glory. Audible audience gasps didn’t convince the band of a redo, and fans were left, mouths gaping at not only the band’s failed attempt, but their indifference at such a could-be-amazing moment.

So maybe Merritt’s quote about regretting his involvement with live music was some sort of self-fulfilled prophecy, or even just a way to veil his own very real insecurities. The Magnetic Fields certainly has the talent and endurance to deliver a truly amazing live performance, but sadly, he convinced us of how much he detests playing live. The Magnetic Fields just might be better appreciated on a record player, where one can play “Washington, DC” on a continuous loop for hours—the full version, that is.

–Lauren Pezzullo [November 10, 2008]

Election Night- a one night stand for Washington DC

Can you see the crowd surfers?

(I know this is 16 days late and I apologize…)

 

Being a 4 year DC resident has conditioned me to stare straight ahead while I pass people on the sidewalk and I hate that.  It’s not me and it’s not what I feel, but I do it because it’s the way of the city. So at 11pm  on Election Night, when drunk strangers barreled towards me,  I cringed, and maybe even ducked. At first. ( I was in Adam’s Morgan, after all).  But, despite how much this election meant to me, maybe I had underestimated its force on a grand, uniting scale.  City-wide elebrations were inevitable, but what I was about to see would blow my mind. The moment Obama was crowned, (I mean announced), my friends and I ran out into the streets, along with everyone else in the neighboring bars. People were yelling and honking, but that’s any night in Adam’s Morgan.  I wasn’t surprised by anything until we rounded 18th onto U St. I didn’t know it was possible to simultaneously shout AND smile, (a huge, beaming ear-to-ear smile), but I saw it, and so I believe it. Cars rolled by and their drivers hung out of rolled-down windows, honking and cheering fanatically. Grown men skipped and bounced through a chain of never-ending high fives.  DC was speaking a new language– ecstatic bursts of song and shout and sugar-high glee. We finally reached the mecca of celebration: 14th and U St, the notorious corner for shootings and stabbings and also historic spot of the 60s riots, which burned everything to the ground except beloved Ben’s Chili Bowl.  But on this night, violence was a thing of the past. Tonight it looked like Christmas morning, New Year’s Eve and an Andrew WK show all at once, so we jumped right in. 

 

In the streets, bus shelters trembled from the weight of the masses dancing on their roofs, drum circles echoed the block and spread in booming ripples. Strangers embraced and meant it; it was the giddiness of a spontaneous pillow fight, the gratitude of a release from jail and the transformation of hundreds of neighbors who may have passed each other on the sidewalk yesterday without even a nod of hello, but tonight, they couldn’t be having more fun together. And then it was obvious. This election was not just historic and revolutionary for Obama- it was for everyone. It was the people’s Election. It stirred up a city who has grown numb to each other; strangers were now embracing in a place once referred to as “the murder capital.”  A city who once seemed too scared/busy/uninterested to care about each other was now best friends with everyone in sight. A massive, spontaneous march down 14th St in the rain led to the front of the White House, where police ate peanuts and chuckled at the crowd surfers and endless chants of “Na-na-na-na-hey-hey-hey- GOODBYE”!!

 

Like a drunken, giddy one-night stand, the people of Washington DC gave in to their yet unfulfilled desires to mingle with each other on a primal level, to meet a fellow DC denizen without stopping to exchange business cards. They just wanted to feel the warm touch of a stranger that night, and lose all inhibitions together. Well, congratulations Washington DC, for penetrating those stuffy comfort zones and really letting loose for the night, if only that night, to revel in the passionate afterglow of indulgence. Tomorrow morning as you dash toward the metro, suitcase in one hand, latte in the other, don’t feel guilty when you pass that “stranger” from last night. That train is leaving in 2 minutes and it’s not waiting for anyone. Plus, you’re carrying your suitcase in one hand and latte in the other- and you guess you could put them down for a second, but then you wouldn’t even be sure what to say, and–oh, it would just be too weird.

 

Just remember, you’ll always have Election Night.

 

 

 

 

Camping in the Blair Witch Woods

Whoa! Haven’t updated in almost two months. That’s terrible, but that just means that I was having a lot of fun this summer. Here’s a recap:

 

 Went camping with Jimmy, Joseph, the Jens, and Adam to a friend’s cabin in West Virginny (ok, it wasn’t really the Blair Witch woods) over July 4th weekend. None of us had been to the cabin before, and as we drove deeper into the wooded isolation of backwoods West VA trying to find it, the sky darkened and suddenly it was pouring. When, one by one, we all lost cell-phone service (even those of us who get reception in the metro), I pretended to be panicked. But secretly, I was thrilled.

We finally found the cabin, which was supposed to have been empty for months. Then how come the door was unlocked?

We knew things weren’t right when we walked into the dark house and saw only this:

Twilight zone. No, seriously.

Once in the bedroom, we realized we weren’t alone:

When we opened the bathroom door, it was clear that our mutual love of horror movies had backfired on us. Now we were IN a horror movie.

Note the hacksaw, butcher knife, and mysteriously red-stained shirt.

 So what did we do? We watched every horror movie we could that takes place in West Virginia. Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes, you name it.

We wouldn’t have wasted such a perfect opportunity…. 

In honor of the injured bird at the Dupont Circle Metro

 

I almost stepped on him, on the busy sidewalk, and who knows how he got there? He might have been stepped on already. Unless it was fate, and I got to him just seconds after he fell, or was attacked or hit, or whatever it was that caused him to be lying in the path of bicyclers, stomping stilettos, and joggers. He had a deep gash from his neck to the start of his wing (which was probably only an inch long), and I immediately cornered him, away from moving feet. I called the Dupont Vet, and the cheery-sounding receptionist told me that I should “put him out of his misery.” Animal Control said they would come, and I knew it was going to awhile, but I wanted to stay with him until they got there, or until he died, so that he wouldn’t be stepped on. In the meantime, some waste-of-a-life baldy with bologna falling out of his mouth yelled “Kill it! It’s gonna die anyway!” to which I replied, “So are you! Why don’t I ___ ___”! Oops.

 

Animal Control finally arrived, and the bored-looking worker looked surprised when I reminded him to be very careful and gentle with the bird. I watched him walk to his van holding the bird in his clenched palm as if he were holding a fistful of change. I was really scared that he was going to crush him in his hand, just to “put him out of his misery.” I don’t know, maybe that IS the right thing to do in some cases. It breaks my heart to think of an animal suffering, but I don’t think I would ever get over killing an animal, even if it was for their own good. Is that selfish?

 

Either way, I’m so glad I found him when I did. It may sound corny, but I wanted to validate his death, just by witnessing it, or being there to help him through it. Sure, he may not have had a clue I was there or even cared, but no one can say for sure. If you’ve read Where the Red Fern Grows and you don’t feel the same way, shame shame shame on you.

The Fall (a review)

(If you loved The Neverending Story, The Princess Bride, and The Wizard of Oz, you should escape the heat and go see this asap!)

 

 If Salvador Dali was alive today and was also a movie director/producer, he probably would have made something very similar to The Fall.

 

Director Tarsem (Singh), whose work mostly consists of commercials and music videos (most notably REM’s “Losing My Religion”), has breathed air into a dazzling dream world, saturated in eye-spraining colors and stunning visuals—an unchartered landscape where tangled tree roots take the form of a thickly-dreadlocked man; where elephants swim in turquoise waters among humans; where a man’s scream is muffled by a cascade of flapping birds that soar from his gaping mouth.  The Fall is a plunge into a mythical place on the edge of the world, or maybe even a different world entirely.

 

Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) is doughy-cheeked cherub, a five year old girl who roams the empty halls of a Los Angeles hospital in the (presumably) 1920s, her broken arm in an uncomfortably angled cast. After sharing her stolen communion wafers from the hospital chapel, she easily befriends the bed-ridden, handsome but weary Roy (Lee Pace), a silent movie stuntman who is recovering from his recent paralysis and gravely broken heart. Inspired by this endearing snaggle-toothed bandit, he promises her a magical story, if she will smuggle him some morphine pills from the hospital dispensary.

 

The tale he unravels is of himself as the Black Bandit, a Zorro-like warrior with a painful past. He and the rest of his clan are an elaborately costumed five some –the bomb-lined, trench coat-wearing Italian firecracker Luigi; Otta, the devastatingly sculpted ex-slave in a horned Egyptian headdress; the devilishly eye browed Indian widow; and the fresh-faced, monkey-toting Charles Darwin in pink-spotted fur. Like a band of superheroes, each with their own special power and distinguishing costume color, the group seeks to avenge the evil Governor Odious, who wronged them and then left them all for dead on a deserted island.

 

As we are sucked back into the hospital ward, the dual storylines entwine. Roy’s morphine pills start to take effect, and he slowly deteriorates, until the two universes have finally become one swirling, chaotic mess. It’s at this point when we realize that Alexandria has control over the story, and always has, funneling the suicidal Roy’s words beyond the hospital bed and into the open terrain of her imagination. The everyday people around her —the ice delivery man, the one-legged patient, the nurse with the heart of gold— all become the characters in the other world, which makes the five year old girl’s  extraordinary imagination even more believable. As the mayhem in the hospital and the turmoil in the story become indistinguishable, it is up to Alexandria to save this story from its rapid and inevitable fall.

 

 

The Detroit Cobras: Attack of the Golden Oldies Zombies

(A review of a show I saw in Seattle)…                   

                                               

The Detroit Cobras: Attack of the Golden Oldies Zombies                             

                                               

“Honey, you don’t wanna give me that whiskey–It’ll make me punch you in the face” growls Rachel Nagy, the Detroit Cobras retro-revivalist leading lady, when an adoring front row fan offers her Pink Lady-esque idol a sloshing shotglass onstage. “You’ve got a really pretty face there, and I don’t wanna ruin it, so just don’t give me that whiskey shot.”

 

Nagy and the rest of the Cobras, all veterans of the Detroit garage-rock scene, had a tough set to fill at Neumo’s in Seattle last night, after local punk-rock favorites the Whore Moans pogoed through their frantic, screamy set, each song a new mouthful of pop rocks and Jolt soda. Next was the adorable french outfit, Les Sans Culottes, and with jangly hooks and Mamas-and-the-Papas harmonies, they could’ve been on the Austin Powers soundtrack, right behind Strawberry Alarm Clock (not to mention their tight striped pants and hair shags). They served their own mod-flavored dish of The Knack’s “My Sharona” and Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walkin”, proving that the French really don’t hate Americans– or at least not our most exemplary pop songs.

 

Finally, the Detroit Cobras swaggered onstage, and let fly their revamped sixties R&B/doowop repertoire–whiskey soaked. Nagy with her sometimes raspy, always boozy-bluesy voice, changed lyrics from the Little Willie John’s “You Better Leave My Kitten All Alone” from “Well, Mister Dog I’m gonna hit you on the top of your head” to “Bitch, I’m gonna punch you on the top of your head”. She was more reminscient of a pill-popping, middle-finger flipping Johnny Cash than some of the sweet, head-bopping girl groups the band covers. The Cobras blasted through their lightspeed set, covering almost all of 2007’s Tied and True, including audience- arousers“On A Monday,”  “Bad Girl,” and the raunchy Cobras-written “Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat).” Mary Ramirez, straddling her guitar over some chugging surf licks and effortlessly commanding the occasional spotlight, was the Angus to Nagy’s Bon Scott.

 

When watching them perform live, there is no question about the band’s explosive talent, and unique rockabilly-surf-country-blues amalgamation. While they do cover the gems of songs they and their parents grew up with, it almost seems insulting to label them a “cover band”.  They unearth some of the best songs from a fifty year old American music catalog, some now only found in thrift store record bins and midwestern jukeboxes, chew them up, spit them out, let them sit overnight in a bed of cigarrette smoke, and then pummel us with their new life onstage. In an ever-increasing world of preachy ecophiles, the Detroit Cobras are the most badass recyclers around.

 

 

 

 

Guys in wigs: a timeless giggle

Thanks to Youtube, anyone can be famous these days. Post a video of yourself sobbing maniacally over the media’s treatment of Britney Spears, and you’re a small-town drama kid turned glorified internet star overnight! Yes, that would be Chris Crocker, and yes, my roommate and I watched all 50 of his videos one bored night last summer. 

But if anyone on Youtube deserves the trophy for best videos, originality and true hilarity, it’s this guy: 

(also check out Mother’s Day, My Son is Gay, and The Christmas Tree)!

Movie Theater Hitmen?

 

Went to see The Strangers last night at midnight, which ensured that I’d have at least one vivid nightmare (not a problem by me, though). The movie was refreshingly scary: a rewind homage (if intentional) to classic 70s horror movies–simple(r) plots, stripped down, slow-building, and more humanistic scare. In my opinion, all the elements for a perfect horror movie. But that’s not my point today.

 

Imagine a world where movie theatres had “planted” audience members, stealth phonies who weren’t there only to watch the movie, but also to stalk between dark aisles at all those hold-your-breath moments. Picture, if you will, slouching down so far in your seat that you’re almost a puddle of yourself, hoodiestrings pulled taut around your face so as to expose only a breathe-hole and perhaps room for one eye to witness the inevitable canonball lunge onscreen, and just as your body is tensing to the point of cementing (a remarkable defense mechanism!) and your mouth is forming its shape to scream at the horror in front of you…. you suddenly feel two hands thrust down on your shoulders, sending you into a swirling, three dimensional world of panic and terror.

 

Ok now haters, I agree that a movie should be able to scare on its own, which is why it’s likely best suited for old classics like Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween when they’re played on the big screen every October. As much as I hate to admit it, Freddy Krueger has become laughable, which is sad because he used to scare me to the point of immobility. Besides, there are thousands of drama kids who flock to University Mall EVERY Saturday to get their weekly dose of carnal sin and improvised shout-sing-alongs. Of course they adore the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but after they’ve seen it hundreds of times, they’ve just got to bring back some of the magic. Kind of like that Foreigner song, “Feels Like the First Time.”

 

I wonder if this exists somewhere. If not, what a depressing world. If so, I want to find this place. Maybe I’ll open an interactive movie theatre and play only horror movies, 80s flicks, and Quentin Tarantino nights. And Wes Anderson screenings. And every movie that’s every been in 3-D. And Paul Newman movies. And grindhouse specials. And the best of Disney. And serve food that wouldn’t make patrons feel bad about themselves when they walked out of the theater? Come on, all my friends–you all love movies. Which one of you is looking for a new career path?

You mean gays are real people too?!

Last week, the California Supreme Court overturned a state ban on gay marriage, and well-known gays and lesbians including Ellen Degeneres and George Takei (Sulu on the original Star Trek) have already proposed to their same-sex boos, and will anxiously await their marriage licenses on June 16th, the day the Supreme Court’s decision acknowledging marriage equality for gays and lesbians in California will be official.

 

I was so psyched upon hearing the news, and it kept me smiling all day long, just knowing how happy all these people were (there were multiple reports of elated couples proposing to their significant others immediately after hearing the news, even if that meant via a cell phone and not down on one knee at the edge of a sunset-lit mountaintop). I think that pretty much sums it up. For so long, they’ve been taking what they could get (the “civil” in civil union is a stab in the back), so now they just want to snatch up those marriage licenses and finally kiss their new bride or groom at the end of the rainbow.

You can call me Bargain Betty

 

Being a vegetarian creates so many positives in my life. I’m not killing animals, I’m significantly contributing to the reduction of world hunger, I’m helping the environment, reducing my risk of cholesterol and cancer, and providing a safer, toxic pesticide-free womb to any future inhabitant(s) (should that day come). I also consume fresher and more vitamin and mineral-enriched foods than I did when I was a carnivore.

 

But the last best thing about being a vegetarian? It’s way cheaper!

 

In a day when a tank of gas can cost up to five dollars a gallon, I am thrilled to the max about getting a Frisbee sized plate of pinto (or black) beans and rice, free pico de gallo, unlimited lime wedges and smoky salsa, (and a free bag of chips!) for just $1.82.

 

Relatively healthy, stomach-expanding (I can be a fatty-cow and stuff myself at lunch, or eat sparingly, and also bring home a light dinner to eat while I watch the second to last show of this year’s American Idol).

 

$1.82!!!

 

Where oh where can one find such a bargain for a piping hot meal that didn’t come out of a can or microwave? The secret really lies in being a vegetarian. Because the Baja Fresh chain (and most meat-eaters) view a plate of beans and rice to be nothing more than an accommodating side dish, meat -eaters will pay up to $7 plus tax for their carb-a-licious burrito, and we vegetarians, the more ethical and humane of our species, will get five belly filling meals for the price of their one, hurried lunch.

 

Moo!