Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti review / Mohawk 9/8/12 (first show of tour)

hey these guys are a cool band.

Last time i saw them at fun fun fun fest 2 years ago at Waterloo Park. it sort of felt like they were getting close to peaking at that show, and I wonder if they have already. That show was right after Before Today, and i watched it from the side of the stage next to a beautiful dancer who was travelling with them. Flash forward to now: some of the new material is really strong, but i would consider it impressive if the next set is better than the current new set. They played for probably an hour and a half, and I thought the selections were interesting--a fair amount of the older songs they played were some of the more esoteric selections. It was their first show of tour, and there was a new drummer, who should get more comfortable a few shows in. The bassist was able to provide small jolts of energy here or there, but if they weren't naturally syncing in the pocket it seemed like the attitude was "hey im not the one messing up" which works if you're Prince, but hey I think it will be a moot point soon so why get into it. I do think the drummer played well and doesn't really deserve to be ragged on. I know theyve been doing it this way forever, but I think having Ariel not play an instrument at all is a little strange, while the 2 other guys are both playing keys and guitar. Like musically in the live setting he has no ability to lead, because he is just doing vocals (but it was the same arrangement they had during the FFFfest show which was awesome, so its not to say one way or another, really.)

Musically, the MVP of the band right now is Kenny Gilmore, who was playing stage left. He kept a wide douchebag smile on almost the whole show, almost punchdrunk. Especially at moments where maybe the beat was getting missed or something this really helped maintain the vibe, and it was a sweet pro move. I think he is probably one of those dudes where something burns deep inside of him, like he is a crazy person, and he would sooner walk on coals than face the prospect of being embarrassed on-stage because you thought your band was awesome but then it turned out you suck because I donno you got a big head about what you were doing? Dang, talk about a worst nightmare, now you gotta do a whole tour. Basically if you were a sailor in a hurricane, he would be your fellow sailor keeping your ass alive cause this is what you are and what you are doing and were not gonna die on my watch damnit, and hes bailing out water looking like a madman. It was some real lead from the front musicianship. Especially early on he had a few mondo guitar riffs one right after another and to me the vibe was "hey guys remember me im Kenny, this is what I do, im a crazy motherfucker," while some of the other musicianship was maybe a little more jittery to start. It kinda helped the show settle in. It was funny later in the show, the soundman (Their soundman, not the mohawk guy) was like rocking out enjoying the show forgetting he was at work, and Kenny tried to get his vocals turned up (turned on actually) and the soundman was missing his signals and just rocking out, and you could see Kenny get like red and he looked really pissed off in his eyes to me, but he just zoned into that super douchebag smile and i think it got him thru the moment. fuckin funny tho. I had snuck into the green room before the show just to be a fly on the wall and I heard the soundguy say ...he was talking about the list and he said something like "oh they are all very important people, like tour managers and bass players," which i thought was just well played musician humor and quite funny. Im always a fan of hubris in a comedic setting. I had some nice smack for him later, which I kept inside cause I just was gonna try and have a nice show without causing any altercations (a novel concept i know), but I did want to tell him "hey nice medallion, are you from Baltimore?" harhar. i think he would have taken it the wrong way ;p.

The other keyboard and guitar player, I thought he was quite good. His role in the band is sort of as a glue guy. He is responsible for executing the meat of the most douchy overblown sounding riffs, or just play the chords with the autowah on it. Always good to have a guy on the team who will do the dirty work. Still, there was one song later in the set where I saw him doing some straight rocking out and it seemed like "finally, that guy gets a break." I dont know, I imagine he would prefer to be doing some more different kinds of things. He had some cool parts where he was playing 2 keyboards at once, I dont see why he cant play cool lines like Steven Drozd for example. There was at least 1 song where I doubt it was his idea to be playing auto-wah keyboard chords underneath whatever is going on, just because he had already done that on x number of songs and it seemed like maybe this was one where it just didn't work as well, and it sounded a little stale. Hopefully after they gel a little they will let him let loose a little, and he can find little spots to mix it up. There was also one song I think they need to drop from the set because it has the same rhythm on the hook as one of the older songs (which they had already played earlier in the set, i dont know which one exactly, sorry), and the basic idea of the new song is really just the trademark rhythmic pushes, so when its the same exact way its kinda noticeable. Dang, sorry you guys cant just do that anymore, consider yourself a victim of your own success.

As far as certain songs that stood out, I was pretty wasted but I'll give it a shot. There was an older one that sounds like L'Estate but isnt, I thought that was really good. The bass playing, same as the drums, wasnt really in the pocket at this show, first show of tour and all, but I think some of his best bass lines are the kinda moderately slinky walking bass type stuff. There was one song with a cool bass line, really cool changes, but some of the getting around the neck seemed a little, not necessarily forced but it seemed like the primary trick to get that texture, rather than following a melody or something, and getting that effect naturally just cause thats how the melody of the bass line is. Maybe I just need to listen to it more. Some of the older material sounded really good "Bright Lit Blue Skies" and "Flying Circles" came off pretty well, and seemed like especially later in tour they will open up pretty easily. "Hardcore Pops are Fun" I dont think was really the selection I would make off of House Arrest at all. Oh yeah the opener where he goes "My Name is Ariel and I'm a Nympho" it was right out of the gate, but I feel like they should save this one to be a peak of the set, it was maybe their strongest new song I felt, and it seems like the one to go nuts on. Im just a rock and roller from Beverly Hills. That song is sick. It gives Ariel a chance to get more involved. Honestly, I think he should, I dont know how he doesnt get bored doing a tour and not playing an instrument, he should just get a keyboard set up so he could play it whenever he wanted, and then they could have some 5-piece vibes as well as 4-piece vibes (musically speaking.) Just throw another pitch in the arsenal. Whenever I was watching him I felt like he was doing a good job of being a frontman, just looking weird and trying to zone out on it, but looking back on it I am surprised to think of how little I actually spent during the show looking at him---I was mainly watching the instrumentalists. He did have some cool whipcrack sound tongue clicks on a weird beat on one song that reminded me what i liked about his early stuff, but as far as musical moments actually finding their way into the set it seemed few and far in between. But settling in goes for singers too, once the band is settled in maybe it will be easier for him to go nuts in a way when hes singing, and that will pull some more balance back to him.

I think if you divided the show in half where the first half of the show was up until Ariel announced "5 more minutes," the first half was stronger. I never got bored during the second half of the show, partly just cause I think the music is really interesting in general, but it was lacking in standout moments after that point, and I think it would be cool to fire a couple more Aces from the back catalogue.

Anyways it was a good show from an interesting band. Definitely a first show of tour, I hope one of our many festivals can get them back to Austin on shortish order and I can get a chance to see them still on this basic set but once everything kinda settles in. It kind of makes me uneasy to think of Austin as a place where you would start a big tour for promotional reasons for "an indie band", but I think in 2012 that is how it is now. I do think that this band would benefit from not taking anything for granted as far as maintaining a sense of urgency and still needing to hold pushing it forward musically as the reason d'etre and also just jumping in the water as far as having the lifeblood be musical contributions from all 5 guys, because all those guys can play at such a high level I think it would ultimately be limiting if anyone's parts are really being dictated. Gotta get that full band unity-trust-hippie-shit going on. As far as they have come, at this point with all the ladies lining up and fuckin mexican food and fruit platters, probably complacency would be their worst enemy, but here's to shaking/brushing that off, and it was great for me just on a raw level to be so excited about a show for once and they pretty much delivered so word to that.

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saw some great bands at FFF fest

Specifically 3 great bands. I missed my chance to see Dirty Projectors, so it could have been 4, but I think they are still playing the same set that they have been playing, which I have seen a few times, so its not as huge a loss as it could have been.

GENERAL THOUGHTS on FFF:
It was my first FFF fest. I think I was biased against it for some reason, mainly because I am emotional*. (*cheap). But this year, it came to my attention that it was possible to volunteer, so I went ahead and did that. My volunteer position was assistant stage manager to the orange stage (indie stage). It turned out there was already a paid professional who was the assistant manager, so Friday night ("Weird Al") I sort of got lumped in with the other volunteers, to my dismay. Friday was sort of the dry run night for the volunteers, and there were about 12 at the stage, and since none of us were really doing anything I had de facto free radical status. Due to some coordination emails, and my desire to meet the regular stage manager, I had gotten there extra early and been informed by the stage manager to stick around, so I missed the volunteer orientation, and ended up never being on the particular schedule for anything, which would come in handy later. One of the volunteers on Friday said she was only on the schedule to work Sunday, so I sort of just tried to make myself useful around the areas where there were bands I wanted to see, and didn't worry too hardcore about getting there right at noon "ready to volunteer!"

The first great band (of 3) that I would see was on Saturday, ARIEL PINK.

ARIEL PINK:
Fortunately I was on the side of the stage, because I heard that the sound in the crowd left something to be desired for, or that people were exhausted by the end of the (short) set, or something. The sound from the stage was great, except one keyboard was jacked way too loud, but since the guy playing it was switching between 2 keyboards and a guitar, it only ended up marring a small percentage of the set, and really marring is too strong a word. That was the first day, and at the time I was volunteering at the side of the orange stage. We volunteers had gotten a few mixed signal speeches as far as how much watching of bands we could actually do vs. work ("this is Fun Fun Fun fest! You do a little work and there's still 2 Fun's left over" as well as "this isn't Fun Fun Fun for you, you are here to work"). The guy who was the boss was the one who said to have fun, so I tried my best to ignore the other guy. It was cool tho, by Sunday we had smoothed it over.

So yeah, Ariel is in some next level shit territory with his combo of elite musicians, but truth be told, I'm not sure he will equal the brilliance of his early singles, "Helen", "Every Night I Die at Myagis" "Life In LA" etc, etc. The band did play "Getting High in the Morning" and a new one towards the end, but it was pretty heavy off this summers "Before Today", as to be expected. I think 2 guys in his band are veterans from old Subpop bands, probably all of the have some sort of pedigree. They still have room to grow as a band, but I think the influences of the other members is gonna be a bit proggy, especially the bassist, although he is a genius. The driving force is still gonna have to be Ariel, and it will be interesting to see how heavily he leans on his musical geniuses band moving forward, now that he has the musicianship to do whatever he wants. I think the band was feeling it pretty good, he was prancing around for the set and all that. The new one sounded like it could have landed on "Before Today" and I'd bet there next record is going to be something slightly to the left of more-of-the-same from that record, and while I'm sure its going to be great, its going to be a process that is hard to get back from.

I got kicked off the stage for not being "important enough" by a dude working this set, despite the fact that 3-4 of his co-workers were telling me to keep sneaking on stage. I was arguing, refusing to leave the place where I was positioned to work, and eventually a bro a little higher up in the command chain was sent over to separate us. This is how I got bounced down to do what I was "hired" to do, only at the black stage.

A WORD ON THE BLACK STAGE.
The black stage is the reason this festival exists. The orange stage is to make it financially feasible, but really the black stage is where its at. The folks backstage plus the Soundmen were probably the A team, although a couple of the folks really running the Orange stage could just as easily been on the A team as well. Other evidence...check the layout of the festival, as seen from backstage.

BLACK STAGE ---- ORANGE STAGE ---- SCHMOOZE TENT/FOOD - BLUE STAGE (and then in the corner of the park the wrestling / stupid and yet entertaining shit area).

Notice that the Black stage is the farthest from the Schmooze tent. The crowd was way more into the bands there, and from what I saw, with a few exceptions the mid-tier bands on the Black stage were much better. I'd like to think the crowd was more discerning, but there is actually no way (more on that later). From the schmooze tent area you could walk right up to the back of the Blue/rap stage, and also cross to the backstage area of the Orange stage. There was pretty general access (for example Mother Falcon got 19 wristbands for their friends, since there were 19 band members....all 38 could be back in that area), however to get backstage at the Black stage, there was another level of security / a solid choke point, and the backstage area was unconnected to all the previously mentioned area.

I spent the rest of Saturday actually helping out on the Black Stage. It was fun. There was a backline company and they had all these amps and cabs in a truck and we were loading them back and forth. I got a nice save in there pretty much off the bat....all those folks had been working since like 9 in the morning, and my fresh eyes kept some shit that was still plugged in from falling over, which after 12 hours of moving shit over and over gets to be something that can happen. The Dwarfs and The Vandals were good, and then it was time for GWAR. It was hilarious being backstage for that. They have a costume changing tent all set up, and one guy goes back there over and over during the set to get changed out from character to character. Show business folks. And then Bad Religion, who has some hits in my mind as defined by "tracks I liked used in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater" franchise, but really other than that, they are not exactly some mind blowing band. Still it was an interesting end to the night. Went home and boozed it up a little with my roommates and my bro Poncho who was in from Mexico for the festival.

SUNDAY
Sunday I wanted to get there in time to see Deerhunter. I wasn't on the volunteers schedule and again had free radical status as far as when to show up, but of course there is a volunteer check in station at the front, so I met the coordinator there and she sent me to work the Hospitality lounge. I negotiated that I would first check in with the guys from the black stage, and those guys said come back during Snapcase cause shit is gonna hit the fan with backlining Mastadon's gear and they could use all hands on deck. I told them I was theirs for the rest of the night, with the exception of 7-8 for Deerhunter. So I went to hospitality and sliced avocados for a few hours. The guy in charge of hospitality had been to HEB like 8 times in the last couple days. A funny worker bee existence, I feel like I've had similar days in there somewhere. He was a cool guy. I did run into the Deerhunter bassist outside the hospitality tent and traded him a book for getting to see their show from the stage. I got the idea from this chick* (*major dancer babe, with armpit hair) who was traveling with Ariel Pink. We were rocking out together. It was nice to have someone to do that with, I think she probably felt the same way, but in any case she had one of these little books like the type I'd bring to substitute teach with her, and it made me think "fuck I wish I had one of those books to trade her". So I brought a book, but I think they had already scooted on down the road, cause I didn't see her that next day. I think I would recognize her if she was with the band next time they come thru, but I am worried it wont be for a bit...maybe not until next album. I would travel to see that band tho, if the circumstance was right. Anyways, I have an intention of stockpiling similar books and starting a rock and roll book club called the "say hi" book club. Saying Hi is optional, but encouraged.


Saw DEERHUNTER:
I had a friend tell me that Black Lips and Deerhunter just got big because there was one booker in ATL who those bands were in with and they just kept booking them until finally someone was like "holy shit, these guys played with Stereolab, etc etc etc" and the list went on and then it was time to stick them on the world tour circuit. But at the end of the day (leaving the Black Lips out of the conversation) Deerhunter is a fucking great band. Real heavyweights. They have cultivated their tone until it is the best possible, and they play it loud. Somehow, the real power of rock and roll is best expressed thru $x000 amps cranked to 11, run thru pedal boards, and they go there. Their best moment was the extended jam during "Desire Lines" off their new LP. It got to this repeated riff section that just eventually folded over on itself in a way where the beat got lost. Totally psychadelic. Like "if we just play this long enough". I feel like its the type of moment the band has always been building towards. It doesn't show up on the record, which is really a shame but go see them live. But that track just really shows a maturity that is not on Microcastle, and "Nothing Ever Happened", the single off that record which they played, really paled in comparison to it. I have to say, as much as I like Cryptograms, and as much as that record has some standout tracks, "Desire Lines" is probably their best track thusfar.

After Deerhunter it was back to the black stage, where instead of moving more gear, I found myself running security during Suicidal Tendencies and Mastadon. It was a shame to miss High On Fire...again really I think Deerhunter vs High On Fire would have been avoided if it had been a scenerio where the festival wasn't trying to appeal to 2 distinct groups just to get the attendance/financials working out, cause fuck I wanted to see both bands.

But yeah, Suicidal Tendencies, I was like "hey these guys are pretty fun" to a guy working backstage, and he was like "yeah, I guess they are....but theyre not really my thing" and I was like "what....you don't like rap rock?" And we sort of had a laugh because they are fucking proto-Limp Bizkit rap-rock. It was a fun show, but the crowd ate it up the same way they ate up Mastadon, who are actually a real band and totally fucking mind-blowingly awesome. Working security was really fun....there are 2 people who work for the security company that are the first line of defense, and people legitly or non-legitly trying to talk their way past them, and then you have to sort of be the guy that knows the difference. And then as your reward, you get the best view in the house for MASTADON.

MASTADON looks like they _________ (insert metal cliches here involving snowy mountains and swords and shit). They are fucking incredible. I read up on their backstory on wikipedia after the fact, and you will not be wasting your time if you do the same. They are probably the best metal band alive right now, I would be surprised if someone is better. They will go down in the historical retelling of metal. They look like evil cavemen, and they play like evil cavemen. I can't imagine a scenario where I would want to listen to their records because I would be too exhausted at the end, but these guys are fucking redonk.

And then that was it. A couple days in rock and roll land. I met some nice rockers, it was cool.

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