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knitting factory; november 15, 2007

travis morrison hellfighters, georgie james, aqueduct

so i work a lot. being an entry-level architect is inarguably time-consuming. but since my office is in tribeca, i jumped at the chance to walk around the corner and check out these bands at the knitting factory. i wasn’t disappointed.

travis morrison opened the set around 8:30, which feels early even for a school night. the crowd treated them accordingly, it being far too early to rock. i am always exhausted by this cool-kid shit, and last night was no different—i can just be confident that those “cool kids” missed out on traveling along all the great rhythms that the hellfighters produced.

last time i saw tmh, they headlined the mercury lounge, and their sound was completely different. in summer of 2006, they were more fluid, and expelled a feel of bongo-lounge rolled up in spoken word poetry. last night at the knitting factory, i felt more connected to old d-plan and that dc sound that i crave. the drumming was tight, almost militaristic. heavy on the downbeats, almost marchable. the “our nation’s capital” influence? it pervades all my favorites (q and not u, fugazi, etc. ) and is so distinctive that it defines the dc sound for me.

travis morrison himself is an incredible live performer. he channels troubadour-like expression to really convey his lyrics across to the audience. he’s witty and also weird, but in a way that’s so nuanced that it makes the venue feel smaller and more like hanging out. his between-song banter is priceless, comprising in-jokes with himself, the crowd, bandmates. travis has always been a showman, and you can tell he believes in the music and wants to convey the depth of his creation. it’s kind of awesome. his voice is slightly nasal but always reminds me of a books-on-tape narrator; rich and illustrative and following a larger narrative that we (the audients) can’t sense. he also dances, which i prize highly among all traits in men.

the set list last night was probably a little short for my taste. we got a taste of the new album, all y’all, with the charismatic “moneytown.” travis’ lyrical delivery was spot-on, capable of being both sarcastic and needy in “i’m not supposed to like you but i do.” there were also a strange number of apple pie references which i can’t profess to understand. . in addition to old-hellfighter bongo smoothness, i detected a bit of watered-down go-go drumming interspersed with typical angular-military tightness. this is one of the reasons i really appreciate travis morrison; he’s capable of experimenting with beats! he lives that miscegenation that sasha-frere jones grumbles is absent from music. morrison is a sucker for a good baseline and tight drumming, and he's open to appropriating and enjoying beats from every which way. all the songs tmh performed were rhythmically tight, featuring those quintessential beats locked tightly together with instumental layering and travis’ well-delivered vocals.

i also wanted to send kudos out to the hellfighters. they synched well and sounded great, especially the newest additions, thomas orgren on bass and vince magno who bolstered keys and the rhythm section. travis is lucky enough to be able to cull the best of northern virginia talent into a solid backing band for his creative genius and on-stage antics. i was lucky enough to enjoy dancing to their show last night.

i mostly attended last night for the hellfighters, but i won't mince words of praise for georgie james. they were great. when i saw them last, they played pianos at cmj and it was nothing more than a way to familiarize oneself to their existence. the set up was short, it was a washed-out day in a place of people who were tired and strung out. last night was a complete difference, and it was a delight to jump around during their set. unfortunately, i think they could have been mixed better. it was like someone adjusted the set-up to "loudness" and never changed the levels to be customized for the band. the vocals were shamefully indistinct from the instruments which produced a muddled sound. oh, and georgie james deserves so much better!! i like them-- i love dual vocal pop, i like narrative songs about places and place-based anxieties, i love q and not u. i enjoy listening to their music and jumping around! but i didn't really appreciate the mixing last night at the knitting factory.

and aqueduct? how can i even begin! i think the kiss of death was when the man with the blackberry was taking a picture of the band on stage using his blackberry. this just indicates how different this band's musicality (and cultural epicenter) are from my own. their overly dramatic onstage presence and the cult-treatment of mid-90s nerd culture are mawkish and tired. (no, not nerdy like interesting bookish or successful computer nerds. not nerdy like those rawk dudes in weezer. nerdy like emotionally autistic or nerdy like having no perception of other people.)

their music is danceable and occasionally cute, but overall it lacks depth and the nuances that make good lasting tunes. c'est la pop, n'est pas? two summers ago, i had a love affair with aqueduct's ditty "growing up with gnr." it is epic! it has guitar lines that buffet you about like a small dinghy lost in a growing storm surge. but, i do not think that aqueduct live is able to channel or prolong that epic, swelling sound. it just comes off as over-theatricized and lacking in musical innovation; not what you'd hope from a billing where travis morrison opened the evening, and started off so strong.

editor's note:

travis morrison hellfighters will be playing union hall in park slope tonight with the ever-enjoyable takka takka. will i be there? will you be there? there's only one way to be sure!

screenprintemps

you may recognize the image- ryan shot this one down at coney island. i converted it to a silksreen and inked it black and my own green. the moire effect is mostly due to the computer, so i'm happy to share that it looks less orthogonally pixelated in real life.

short stop-action film

set: intersection of worth and broadway, lower manhattan. 9 pm. an early fall mist hangs high in the sky, not obscuring vision, but blotting out the lights and feel of the skyscrapers. our street feels like a room. a few pools of water have gathered from this afternoon's rain, filling in the potholes and the sidewalk ruts. the streetlights glimmery vague-ishly orange in the puddles. few people pass and even fewer cars.

nearby stores: the north side of worth is lined with dramatically lit merchandise from the parade of mannequins at strawberry. the south side of worth is lined with dramatically lit merchandise from the parade of mannequins at steps. the street slopes down on the north side, so the strawberry mannequins reign supreme over the street. they're lounging gauntly, defiantly challenging you to purchase their cheap wares. on the south side, the steps mannequins are street-smart. one may even pretend a ghetto booty. they're smaller, more savvy, less posh (but still just as cheap) as their competitors across the street.

rising action: the camera is motionless, at the ready in the center of the intersection, faced squarely down worth street. the angle is wide, so the underlit mannequins are visible, even amounts of each building balancing the shot. the camera never moves throughout the whole scene. somewhere far away, you hear the breaks squeal on a speeding cab. the puddles shake from the subway. did that mannequin move?

crux of the matter: here the action needs more creative legwork. obviously the mannequins come alive and fight each other in the middle of the street, strawberry fashion soldiers versus steps fashion soldiers. i think it would be more fun if we watch each civilization rise through bare combat to the development of firepower, all within a single night. there should definitely be much breaking of glass windows, melting of plastic bodies and general mannequin grotesquery. i think it would be neat if they destroyed each other completely so when i walk to work the next morning, there's no trace of a battle. the camera doesn't move the whole time and the final shot should probably be the early morning light breaking over the hudson. with some sea gulls picking over trash and maybe one limb in the trash heap.

ok, friday night festivities are now go!

RYUJI SAWA THE RETURN

november 6, 2007
theater for the new city

from every press release, you'll hear this: "Ryuji Sawa: The Return is a Japanese show incorporating dazzling elements of Japanese popular theater, including Kabuki dance, Taiko drumming, sword fighting, martial arts and instant costume changes."

this may give you an indication that this show is awesome, but it doesn't inform you of the true wonder of "ryuji sawa: the return." the show is stunning- beautiful, emotional, silly, melodramatic, confusing, shiny, and loaded with expert talents.

ryuji sawa: the return is a series of loose vignettes, held together in a dreamlike pseudonarrative by nothing other than the very presence of ryuji sawa, or, in some cases, his imagination. some are not true vignettes but rather are dance or song or talent (?) interludes that splice together the true vignettes, which borrow plot elements from Japanese history.

the “talent” portions are by far the most amazing to those of us who might describe ourselves as initiates to the japanese off-broadway scene. a 12-year old boy, ozora takami, described as a ”japanese fan dance prodigy” is absolutely amazing. his talents extend farther than “fan dance” and his fan dance is more impressive than i’ve ever seen. he also twirls katanas (fake?) and staffs in addition to his fan work. his fingers are nimble, his movements quick and calculated, all the twirls and flips perfectly practiced and executed in time to the music.

what i find sort of confusing is how this kid, obviously a celebrity in “traditional” j- culture, is whisked away to america to perform to a small crowd in the east village. i’m sure he’s much more in-demand in japan! and soon he’ll be too old to be a child prodigy or a national icon. i’d live those days up while i had ‘em, man, i wouldn’t travel to the other side of the world to be underappreciated. it also seems to me that it must be tough to do traveling show business with your life- particularly at such a young age. remember when you were twelve? yeah, middle school sucked. but at least you weren’t angsty (or teased by your schoolmates) while being billed as a child expert at traditional dance.

the other off-shore talent was two taiko drummers who performed in the style of old tokyo. they’re one of the top taiko groups in japan! and it was really really incredible. they shouted, they danced, they echoed back and forth between the drums without sacrificing the basic underlying rhythmic structure. the dynamics and timing were crucial and the spirit was really engaging.

(L-R): Ryuji Sawa and Ryoki Kiuchi
Courtesy of David Gibbs/DARR Publicity

the theatrical portions add in a generous amount of what other audients described as “1970s las vegas authentic glam”. it’s true, the effects were over the top (including disco balls and a fog machine) and all of ryuji sawa’s costumes were almost blindingly flashy. i was more impressed by the melodrama so thick you could eat it with a spoon. is this a feature of traditional japanese theater? i’m definitely going to have to do more research.

i was really impressed by how the audience was inherently involved in all the action. it really didn’t seem like there was a “fourth wall” at all—but rather that the acting was an extension of a conversation or explanatory dialogue. sawa frequently addressed the crowd during the highest emotional points- freezing and making faces before he stabbed an enemy, freezing and making faces when parted from his love interest, freezing and making faces as he gurgled and stumbled to a dramatic death.

all of the martial arts sequences which were so over-orchestrated that at one point i looked around for a conductor. it was exactly analogous to watching an esther williams synchronized swimming sequence... the practiced emotional responses, the tightly-regimented group movements, the confirmation of audience expectations about plot ups and downs. in this respect, i was amazed (rather than sickened as i sometimes can be by traditional american musicals.) there was little space on the stage, and the martial arts portions were dancelike and flowing, their campy aspects understood as part of the convention and not a hindrance to communication.

another thing i need to research is homosexuality in japanese culture- and what is the standard treatment for what americans would consider “homo” elements. americans obviously revile these elements as a standard treatment. (except for liberal educated new yorker elites, who welcome them in artistic mediums or for other creative endeavors.) the reason this occurred to me is that there were a number of important dramatic elements in the vignettes that would indicate homosexuality to american audiences. (luckily we were a few of the only judgemental whiteys in the mostly japanese and surprisingly elderly audience.) for example, all characters, but men especially, performed what the playbill described as “instant costume changes”. i think that there were some points where the costume change was not quick at all, and rather more akin to a strip tease. but, the hairy legs of japanese men are a turn-on not for me! for whom, then? other japanese men?

i think that the layers of clothing, of transparent material, and their transformative removal was a thematic element that united all the vignettes. sawa’s characters were frequently stunted by some emotion until he removed his outer garment and transcended the circumstance to defeat the bad guys in a bout of fantastic dance-fighting. you see what i mean about melodrama...

the presence of homoerotic symbolism was racheted up by the performance of takami, the fan dance child extraordinaire. in the opening scene of the production, takami is dancing around to traditional music in jeans, garbed as a boy. by the end of the song, he is made-up and costumed before our very eyes as a maiden geisha, demure and dancing to more modern japanese music. throughout the show he is on set alternately as a male or female character- essentially with no difference. i, however, read into his performances that he more enjoyed being the young warlord wielding a sword, and that his face was more rote and forced in his performance as a young geisha wielding a fan. true? hetero-american confirmation bias rearing its ugly head? my companion, also a caucasian american, added independently that he thought takami preferred his male roles.

(L-R): Ryuji Sawa & Mari Okamoto
Photographer: Hideyuki Tatebayashi

which brings us to gender roles. (you thought i could post a review without considering these?) i would like to better understand what the historical context of women in japanese culture. in most of the vignettes, they seemed to be merely just ancillary characters to sawa’s magnifique. he rescues them, he saves them, he must leave his weepy wife to go to fight, he must escape his ex-lover etc etc etc. women seem to function as no more than a impetus or excuse for sawa’s characters to fight. at one point, i was reminded of kurt russell’s character in deathproof, tarantino’s latest oeuvre. sawa’s posture, hair, occupation (fighting vis-a-vis being a car dude) and attitude toward women—all similar to russell, and all similarly upsetting during the bulk of the performance. (ok, subtract the ending off deathproof because i feel sort of like tarantino slapped that on there to mollify me personally.) sawa was the “big man” in almost every scene. is this misogyny typical for japan? or is it just a sawa thing? he was the most successful combinor of rockabilly and sword fighting so maybe he’s 1960s-nostalgic in slightly un-pc ways like david lynch. (perhaps i've already had this same sort of conversation about racist nostalgia and how that pervades all lynchian structural symbolism?) but, sawa also dresses in glammed-up kimono, does strip tease, and delicate fan dance as well? you can see why further research is required.

i don’t want to “spoil” the plot (or dreamlike psuedonarrative as i think of it) but you should go see this. if only for the kabuki “thriller” dance sequence and the incredible taiko drumming. and the glitzy costumes. and the marvelous martial artistry. and the child prodigy dancer.

(L-R): Ryuji Sawa
Courtesy of David Gibbs/DARR Publicity

the joys of grownuphood

i'm teaching myself how to burp the opening bars of el scorcho.