popwreckoning

On the first of a two-night run at the Paramount in Seattle, Vampire Weekend redeemed themselves Wednesday after a last-minute cancellation last month at Marymoor Park. While it may not have been a summer Sunday night at an outdoor amphitheater, the show was still lovely in the recently remodeled classic Paramount Theater with its phenomenal acoustics and towering ceilings.

While I haven’t been to the Paramount in over a year, I completely forgot that when the Paramount says the show starts at 7:30, it doesn’t actually mean that’s when the doors open, so I arrived literally during the Head and the Heart. Hearing some friends gushing about them afterward, I felt terrible that I didn’t get to see more of their performance.  But I did go home to listen to the the local six-piece’s soft piano-laden pop harmonies, and I strongly suggest you look them up. I didn’t get the chance to see them for more than a few minutes, so learn from my mistakes. I mean, most of the crowd didn’t give them nearly the love they deserved, because they were just anxious to see Vampire Weekend, take two.

Shortly before 8:45, Vampire Weekend took the stage, decorated with floating chandeliers ascending and descending high above the band, like their first album cover come to life. Starting right into their new single “Holiday,” the band played their hearts out with the 18-song set and a 4-song encore.

“It’s not a Sunday in the Park but thanks for being here,” Koenig exclaimed to the crowd. “We can pretend it’s a nice summer day.” The theme of redemption rang throughout the night, with Koenig actively including the people in the show. In fact, at one point during “Giving Up The Gun,” a fan got up on stage with a homemade sign with the resounding chorus line “Go on,” and she flailed it around wildly next to keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij.

“Good for her!” Koenig said, as she jumped off the stage at the end of the song.

As I stood to the right of the stage, I couldn’t help but notice how light Chris Baio is on his feet. Seriously, once you see his fancy footwork, it’s hard to pay attention to anything else during the show. I mean, “Cousins” and “A-Punk” already made me want to dance, but seeing Baio’s moves made it impossible to resist shaking my hips just a bit.

Who am I kidding? I didn’t stop dancing. Well, except during the slow and ethereal “I Think Ur A Contra,” which I was so pleased to hear, because they didn’t play it at Sasquatch back in May, and it’s one of my favorites off Contra. It was a nice break from the otherwise effervescent hits.

Another nice surprise of the night was a Springsteen cover. I’m sure plenty of the kids in the house had never heard Springsteen’s “I’m Goin’ Down,” but Vampire Weekend did the song great justice. Hopefully it isn’t a one-time thing.

After their cheeky hit “Oxford Comma,” the band stepped off stage the first time, which was short-lived as they jumped back on stage with “Horchata.” Naturally everyone went a little nuts.

“We haven’t played this song in a long time, but someone on Twitter requested it, saying ‘You owe us!’” Koenig said, and then agreed with said tweeter, starting into the riffs of “The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance.” It wasn’t nearly as energetic as one would expect in an encore, but it was so charming that the guys tried their hardest to redeem themselves after the disappointing cancellation last month. In case you aren’t familiar, it was August 31, and the Dum Dum Girls and Beach House had both finished their opening sets, the crowd sat around for an hour before the band announced that the show was cancelled. Koenig’s voice had been strained that day and when he saw a doctor he recommended Koenig not sing because of inflamed vocal chords.

Needless to say, the crowd was less than enthused that they had to drive home without seeing Vampire Weekend. So three weeks later, all the Marymoor Park tickets were honored at the two-night run at the Paramount.

“I don’t want to apologize too many times, so I’ll say thank you,” Koenig said. “We couldn’t ask for anything better than for you guys to give us a second chance…and then plus to get to play with Seattle’s own the Head and the Heart. We’ll never give you the run-around again.”

Finishing out the lengthy set, for “Mansard Roof,” Koenig instructed the crowd, “the only way to dance to this song, just go with it,” is to do spirit fingers. Spirit fingers, you ask? Why yes, actual spirit fingers. “And your arms may get tired, but this is a short song!” So everyone’s hands went up, with their fingers wiggling up to the sky as the quick song built to the final song of the night – “Walcott.”

As the second song referencing Cape Cod, it was quite an epic sing-along with Baio on an upright bass and Koenig shouting out jubilantly “Don’t you wanna get outta Cape Cod tonight?” over and over again until I feared his voice may give out again.

Going back to what Koenig said about never giving Seattle the run-around, I can’t help but agree with an inexplicably loud guy from the crowd:

“You’re forgiven!”

Set list:

“Holiday”
“White Sky”
“Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”
“I Stand Corrected”
“M79″
“Bryn”
“California English”
“Cousins”
“Taxi Cab”
“Run”
“A-Punk”
“One (Blake’s Got a New Face)”
“I’m Going Down” (Bruce Springsteen cover)
“Diplomat’s Son”
“I Think UR a Contra”
“Giving Up the Gun”
“Campus”
“Oxford Comma”

Encore
“Horchata”
“The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance”
“Mansard Roof”
“Walcott”

The Very Best recently premiered this video for the “Warm Heart of Africa” featuring Vampire Weekend‘s Ezra Koenig.

This video is great and this song is great. It  will be stuck in your head all day. Trust us.

“Do you know what ‘moto’ means?” singer Esau Mwamwaya of the Very Best asked the crowd at DC9 Monday night. (I presume he was asking if we knew what it meant in his native Chichewa, the national language of his homeland, Malawi.) The crowd, smiling back at him, collectively shook their heads. “It means ‘fire’!” Funny you mention something incendiary, Esau, because on a cold Monday night in Washington, the “band” from London figuratively lit a fire under the audience at the sold-out DC9 with their brand of African tinged dance music and turned the club into an all-out dance party.

The opener for the night was the Brooklyn-based duo Javelin. Not sure where they got their name – maybe cousins Tom Van Buskirk and George Langford were good at track and field in high school? These days, I imagine the two must be flexing their muscles carrying all their gear around – a whole table full of electronics including several synths and a drum pad, colorfully painted boomboxes they call “boombaatas” that form large speaker totems, and a collection of maracas and cowbells.

Javelin’s brief but entertaining set of pop / hip hop / electronic music at times lifted lyrics from songs of days gone by like Mariah Carey‘s “Fantasy.” Another example: they commandeered the words from the children’s lullaby “Frere Jacques” and turned into something completely different. Who would have guessed that song could ever be so dancey? And with humorous song titles like “Lindsay Brohan” and “Soda Popinski,” you’d have to smile. My faves from the set were “Twyce” and “Vibrationz,” the latter name-checking Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Marky Mark (aka Mark Wahlberg when he was a singer way back when). If you’re going to name your song “Vibrationz,” it’s totally appropriate to give a nod to the only two songs from popular culture that also mention such scandalous quivering.

The Very Best is a trio comprised of singer Mwamwaya and the London-based DJ/production duo of Radioclit (Swede Johan Carlberg and Frenchman Etienne [DJ] Tron). I first became aware of them when the title track of their first official full-length album, “Warm Heart of Africa”, was added to the BBC 6music playlist. The song was an instant hit with me, buoyed by the gaiety of vocals from Mwamwaya and guest Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend (who incidentally also cowrote the song) and joyous instrumentation. I was a little skeptical how this live exhibition would turn out when Carlberg first came onstage and immediately broke out a large album full of CDs and popped a disc into his Philips player. Thankfully though, my uncertainty quickly dissolved as the band got going.

For the live performance, singer Mwamwaya alternately stood, danced, and interacted with fans directly in front of Carlberg, who played DJ and assumed additional audience warm-up duty for the evening, waving his arms back and forth vigorously to get the crowd going during songs. For added oomph, they even brought with them two energetic dancers, resplendent in jackets that read “TVB” on the back; Mwamwaya proudly announced that the girls had come “all the way from the UK!” “Julia” and “Warm Heart of Africa” from their official first album were warmly received. So was “Tengazako,” a track from their 2008 free-to-download mixtape that featured an obvious sample from M.I.A., causing everyone in the club to do the gun-toting moves that I have only recently learned are requisite when hearing her “Paper Planes.”

Generally, you can expect a headlining act to play for a significantly longer period of time than their opener. Unfortunately for those of us gathered to see this band at DC9, this wasn’t the case. The two of them were clearly not prepared for such a lively reaction from their Washington area adoring fans and as such weren’t equipped to do more than the eight songs they played us. At the tail end of their set, Carlberg asked the audience what song they wanted, and after some random shouts and murmurings, it was decided that the Very Best’s cover version of Vampire Weekend‘s “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” would be the tune. After Mwamwaya left the stage, (the crowd didn’t want to let him go), Carlberg stayed behind to spin records, and the audience continued dancing to the pulsating beats on offer. I think if they keep this up, the Very Best could very well be the next global phenomenon.

The Very Best: myspace
Javelin: website | myspace

Remind me why we need another indie-pop super group? Members of Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot populate Discovery and that’s a bad place to start. But the real burning question is why do these guys think that it’s okay to make R&B music the hipsters can jive to? It’s not. Now they have some hooks, that’s for sure; you’ll hum some of this and it can be downright maddeningly catchy. But it’s so trite, so immediate and embarrassing in its guilty pleasure-ness that I have a hard time ever believing that someone would cop to actually owning or listening to it…at least not someone from the massive circles of fans that orbit around their day job projects.

Discovery is a derivative version of Justin Timberlake’s solo output blended with Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak. It’s Aphex Twin, but substitute misguided posing for actual ambition. While Discovery has a trick or two up their sleeve, they seem fine with bludgeoning those tricks to death. Like the circular arpeggios—I playfully dub them “digital waterfalls”—that dart around “Osaka Loop Line”; solid idea, but when used constantly, it loses the intrigue. “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” sports an ear-turning, choppy female hook reminiscent of that Dirty Projectors song everyone is in love with right now. Except that it also features some awkward lyrics (given the voice singing it) and you eventually have to listen to the rest of the tune. Ohh, and if you’re as tired of autotune as I am, don’t even bother with “Carby”. These guys didn’t get the memo from Jay-Z.

The album is mercifully short, clocking in at around 36 minutes, but the length just reminds you of how much drivel is actually here. I mean, did we really need an electro-twee remake of “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5? This would have worked way better as an EP. The even shorter length would have forced the guys to distill the quirky, indie-dance vibe they were going for into something actually appealing and worthy of more than a cursory spin or two.

Discovery – “Osaka Loop Line”

Tracklisting:
01. Orange Shirt
02. Osaka Loop Line
03. Can You Discover?
04. I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (featuring Angel Deradoorian)
05. So Insane
06. Swing Tree
07. Carby (featuring Ezra Koenig)
08. I Want You Back
09. It’s Not My Fault (It’s My Fault)
10. Slang Tang

Discovery: website | myspace

Musically speaking, it is love (and the lack thereof) that is responsible for some of the greatest rock songs ever created. Do you think Phil Collins would have ever written “Against All Odds” if his wife hadn’t left him? Would Ricky Martin have felt compelled to pen “She Bangs” [Ed. note: "She Bangs" was written by Desmond Child and co-writer Walter Afanasieff; it was only performed by Martin. Collins, on the other hand, did write his own songs] if his love interest who “looks like a flower, but stings like a bee” was totally lame? Apparently, songs like these just don’t write themselves! Although psychologists would agree that love means the same thing to everyone, there are still different forms of it in existence that often present themselves in different stages.

This week I focus on my three favorite stages: Euphoria, Desperation, and Stalking. Pseudo disclaimer: This post is intended for humorous purposes only and these views do not necessarily reflect those of Popwreckoning staffers. Some of the events may or may not have happened in real life and reader discretion is advised. And now… Welcome to Under Cover: The Love Edition.

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Stage 1: Euphoria
This is the phase when your friends are just about sick of you and there’s been considerable talk of defriending you on Facebook. You can’t stop smiling, giggling, or talking about how perfect your significant other is, something funny they said/did, or even how shiny their bike is. Instead of annoying just about everyone (apart from your love interest, as he/she is probably the only other person enamored by all this), stay in your room and dance around to this song since it was written for people like you.

Fleetwood Mac – “Everywhere” (original, 1988)
If you know me at all, you know I love writing about Fleetwood Mac (see: here). Every time I hear “Everywhere”, I feel like I’m dancing around in this enchanted forest in a pastel gossamer petticoat when the love of my life rides in on a unicorn with animated blue birds on his shoulder and asks me to get into the sidecar for a little joyride… but then I wake up, of course. The message of the song is pretty simple: I dig you, can we hang out more often?
When it comes to love, I say keep it sweetly simple and straightforward. No muss, no fuss, “Oh I…, I wanna be with you everywhere” basically sums up that internal need to waste all your time doing absolutely nothing with him/her because it never really feels like a waste of time. This is when playful conversation during a mundane trip to the grocery store can honestly feel like the best day of your life. With her dreamy delivery, wistful and fun background vocals, and that magical constellation of synth sounds, this song embodies all those wondrous feelings of love. It’s just a shame this wasn’t released until a year after the ever-charming movie The Princess Bride; perhaps, one of the most delightfully quirky love stories ever made, “Everywhere” would have been a great selection for the closing credits.

Vampire Weekend cover (2008)
Taking a break from singing about Ivy League pretense and Mansard roofs, Vampire Weekend took it old school and added a male perspective to “Everywhere” with this, dare-I-say, super cuuuuuuute cover. Singing about the same euphoric world of puppy dogs, ice cream and rainbows, it just goes to show that even though “men are from Mars and women are from Venus,” we still engage in the same giddy and sappy expressions of love. This rendition shares all the innocence and purity of the original with cascading keyboards, soft background vocals, and that punchy little bass line that makes you want to hop about in a forest with furry little rabbit friends. Lead singer Ezra Koenig’s voice couldn’t be anymore adorable here and I think it’s this boyish vocal delivery that makes this song as good as it is. As far as indie band covers go, this one definitely topped my “Best of 2008” list.
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Stage 2: Desperation
This is the phase when things stop being perfect, your hormone levels have calmed down, the enthusiasm starts to wane, the calls aren’t as frequent and you’re not quite sure why. Perhaps there’s this overwhelmingly unsettling feeling that strange things are afoot. The ubiquitous goofy look and incessant giggling have now turned into marathon phone calls to friends analyzing the future of your relationship, if there even is one left to salvage. You’re getting closer to being defriended on Facebook, but your friends resist doing so and instead urge you to tell your significant other that you’re not ready to throw in the towel just yet. Here’s a song to play if you have issues getting those words out.

Pete Townsend – “Let My Love Open The Door” (original, 1980)
If you don’t know who the great Pete Townsend is, I urge you to seek professional help immediately at the nearest Guitar Center or classic rock radio station. In the movie of my life, this song would most definitely be on the soundtrack, perhaps even in the trailer. “Let My Love Open The Door” is one of my favorite love songs that basically spells out the reasons why you should be with Townsend or anyone else in his position: quit being idiotic and miserable already, I love you, so let’s be together and let me show you how wonderful your life could be with me in it! He holds the key to your heart and is planning on coming over, so consider this ample notice to clean up and get that heart ready along with those hors d’oeuvres. His plea may be a desperate attempt to open the eyes of the heart, but he sings so sweetly that it becomes genuine, endearing, and very hard to ignore. When tragedy befalls you / Don’t let them bring you down / Love can cure your problem / You’re so lucky I’m around / Let my love open the door / To Your heart. He’s cocky. Sure of himself and his honorable intentions. And persistent. And I like it!

M. Ward cover (2005)
To be honest, the first thing I thought upon hearing this cover was “Hmm, it’s good, but I could totally picture it being played at a Starbucks or something” (not that there’s anything wrong with that). And lo and behold, my research ironically proved I was correct in my assumption! Rants of all things hokey aside, this song actually gave me a few tingles. M. Ward put out a fantastic cover version of Townsend’s classic number that is folky, bluesy and definitely kinda-sorta gave me some goose bumps as a very pleasant surprise. There’s just something about his husky and soulful vocals that I’m having trouble putting into words, so maybe you just need to hear him to understand why he’s so good. Wildly creative in its production, M. Ward features this twangy guitar riff that is definitely not from the original but totally breathes new life into the song. This version makes me want to lay in a hammock on a beach, clumsily strum my guitar and hope the imaginary animated music notes I’m producing float in the air near a potential love interest and summon in their heart a desire to be with me too.
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Stage 3: Stalking
This is the phase when obsession starts running the show and a madness sets in that completely takes over your otherwise rational brain. You were once a National Merit Scholar, for Pete’s sake! You have yet to notice that you were defriended on Facebook by all your family and friends since the time you now spend stalking your once love interest makes it hard for you to log on as much. But you don’t care because isn’t stalking just another way of saying “I love you,” anyway? Honestly, stalkers get such a bad rap; albeit a tad misguided, they are regular people like you and me. This one-track mindedness needs no judgment since we’ve all been there at one point in our lives or another. Well, actually I was talking about you, not me. I’m not a stalker. Eww. All kidding aside, stalkers also deserve love or at least their own anthem.

The Police – “Every Breath You Take” (original, 1983)
I think the funniest part about this song is that most people assume The Police penned a romantic number vowing to be monogamous with the potential love of your life. Lead singer Sting himself has said that when married couples would tell him they played “Every Breath You Take” as their first dance number, he would chuckle and say “Good luck.” This is certainly no Bollywood love song; instead, it’s a dark, thinly-veiled reference to lovelorn stalkers everywhere.  No offense to anyone who didn’t pick up on this, but I find it rather surprising. When I first heard this as a child I found the ambiguity of this song fairly obvious after the “Every move you make, every vow you break, every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I’ll be watching you.” And even when he sings “Oh, can’t you see / You belong to me,” something told me he wasn’t about to ask his girlfriend to wear his ring and go steady. There’s something sinister here in his need to control and he’s clearly flirting with the dangerous levels of obsession that can accompany love. Maybe the best indication of this insanity is Sting, with a ferocious and smoldering look in his eye, who plays his double bass so intently in the music video that he may as well be carrying a hacksaw and waiting for his estranged lover to come home so they can “talk.” All hope isn’t lost since all of these issues can be worked out in couples counseling because at the heart of this display are genuine feelings of love. Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the: Since you’ve gone I feel lost without a trace / I dream every night, I can only see your face / I look around, it’s you I can’t replace / I feel so cold and long for your embrace. And let’s not forget the “I keep crying, ‘Baby, baby, please!’” that follows. It’s such a simple way of putting such powerful emotions into words and I find this verse to be the best-written (and my favorite) expression of yearning I’ve ever heard.

Millencolin cover (1992)

One of my favorite Swedish punk bands to listen to as a kid, Millencolin prove that even punk rockers fall in love sometimes. The differences from the original are incredibly obvious as clearly this would be considered the quintessential “punk cover” as it features a sped up version that cuts the original song time by half, rocks harder and is rougher around the edges. Gone is the smooth huskiness of Sting as lead singer Nikola Sarcevic is known for more stoic, vibrato-less vocals, but this works well with his own band’s original material. There’s nothing romantic about this version but then I thought that may not have been the original point of covering this song; essentially, this version is likely intended as their unique interpretation in paying homage to The Police.  And for those who love fun facts, I was once told Millencolin coyly changes the lyrics at the end in one of the innumerable “I’ll be watching you” choruses to say “I’ll be f-cking you.” If you listen really really closely, I actually do think I can hear that. Hmm. Not the most romantic or original sentiment I’ve ever heard, but it certainly still gets the point across.