Guided By Voices Relives Its 1990s Heyday

My second favorite rock band of all time rolled in to the Black Cat on Saturday night and proved that, even after all these years, they've still very much got it.

I was a little surprised to see so many young fans up front singing the words to all the new songs GBV played early in its two-plus-hour, 43-song set. As leader Robert Pollard said in his onslaught of comedic comments, "We have 72 albums." So it's not easy to know lyrics (and that doesn't include the dozens upon dozens of side projects for Pollard).

From the minute Rachel and I walked in the door (we later connected with Francis Chung, who took this iconic photo along with many others for DCist), there was a special buzz in the air. We saw old friends before moving up front to witness Obama Press Secretary and GBV mega-fan Jay Carney hanging around backstage. After a solid set from the majestic former GBV lead guitarist Doug Gillard's new band, Carney announced GBV, "one of the three best things ever to come out of Dayton, Ohio."

Pollard was in excellent spirits all night, even if he didn't seem to drink the fish tank of alcohol he has during the several dozen other times I've seen GBV in concert. Some of the feel of the show and his banter were captured nicely by Valerie Paschall of DCist:

A significant chunk of the set was comprised of their most recent release, Cool Planet, and Pollard delighted in pointing out that they were now touring off three albums: Cool Planet, Motivational Jumpsuit and classic album Bee Thousand which turns twenty this year. 

"We're not like the Rolling Stones," said Pollard. "We don't release one song every 15 years." 

Mick & Keith weren't the only target of Pollard's slurring vitriol and he also took stabs at Bruce Springsteen, ("If he's the Boss, I quit"), the record industry in general ("I don't want to make 6 percent!") and Radiohead. Also, unlike the stint in 2010, he let the audience finish off his handle of tequila, so his barbs were more discernible. 

Although the first hour of their set showed more audience enthusiasm during the Bee Thousand tracks—"Gold Star For Robot Boy" was an early spark plug — the show really took a turn when opening act and latter-era GBV guitarist Doug Gillard joined the band for "Teenage FBI." Even the rest of the band seemed to enjoy Gillard's presence onstage—guitarists Mitch Mitchell and Tobin Sprout played the song within two feet of each other and Mitchell gleefully mouthed along with the words despite the cigarette that did not leave his mouth.

The beer flew around over the crowd just like those amazing shows 20 years ago. The audience, including me, pogoed and moshed just like 20 years ago. Pollard and "the classic lineup" kicked around like the showmen they were 20 years ago. What was not to love?

***** out of ***** stars

Jeff Mangum Soars Into U Street's Lincoln Theater

My brother claims Jeff Mangum's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (by his band Neutral Milk Hotel) is the greatest album of the 1990s, I would only agree to so much as it being in the top 10. Regardless, it meant my brother was dead-set on paying big bucks to get front-row center seats at the Lincoln Theater on U Street in DC on Saturday night. It also meant he needed to drag me with him. It was worth every penny. This show was a *****-star treat.

And my friend Fran Chung wrote such a great DCist review for the Friday show that I'm reprinting it here. The only difference between the Friday and Saturday shows seems to have been that the show I saw Saturday featured more singing along by the audience, which was as into it as I can imagine a critical mass of well-mannered hipsters ever could be.

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Having bypassed D.C. in favor of Baltimore last September, Jeff Mangum finally made his long-awaited return to a local stage on Friday night, playing his first show in the District since 1998, the year his former bandNeutral Milk Hotel released its incomparable magnum opus, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Kicking off a sold-out two-night stand at the Lincoln Theatre, the reclusive singer-songwriter delivered a memorable, mostly solo-acoustic performance, regaling an adoring (though surprisingly reserved) crowd with some of the most beloved songs in the indie-rock canon.

After erstwhile Neutral Milk Hotel member Julian Koster’s The Music Tapes warmed up the crowd with a whimsically entertaining set of art-pop/prop-comedy, Mangum took the stage and threw his distinctively resonant voice headlong into “Two-Headed Boy, Part Two,” Aeroplane’s wistful final track. As the seated audience applauded warmly, Mangum announced that “it’s okay to sing along,” though only a smattering of fans took up his offer during the ensuing acoustic rendition of “Holland, 1945,” an evocative ode to Anne Frank which sounded a bit subdued without the overdriven guitars and propulsive drumming that helped give the studio recording its ecstatic kick.

Though much of the set list was rightly devoted to songs from the richly allusive Aeroplane, Mangum also played a few selections from Neutral Milk Hotel’s 1996 album, On Avery Island, including the choppy “Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone,” adding a couple of deeper cuts such as “Engine,” to which Koster contributed touches of ethereal singing saw. The post-Aeroplane track “Little Birds” was a stunning mid-set highpoint, Mangum’s vocals sonorously enveloping the theatre as he chanted haunting, dirge-like melodies, his words conjuring a harrowing, surrealistic tale of child abuse.

From there, the performance began to pick up momentum as Mangum worked through a sequence of his most indelible compositions. The infectious “The King of Carrot Flowers, Part One” segued directly into the effusive opening incantation -- “I love you, Jesus Christ! / Jesus Christ, I love you!” -- of “The King of Carrot Flowers, Parts Two and Three.” Mangum gamely hummed the song’s rousing trumpet line, and while his staccato acoustic strumming couldn’t generate the careening, fuzzed-out exhilaration of the album track, it did enough to get a few intrepid fans dancing in the aisles. Much of the crowd clapped along to “Ghost” and added their (still timid) voices to “Two-Headed Boy” but listened in rapt silence during the plaintively magisterial “Oh, Comely,” Mangum giving his most poignant vocal performance of the evening.

Capping the main set (and showing where Beirut’s Zach Condon probably learned a few of his tricks), Koster and the rest of The Music Tapes paraded out to add trumpet, marching drum, and accordion to Aeroplane’s Balkan-flavored “The Fool,” drawing a standing ovation from the suddenly invigorated crowd. Koster stayed on during the encore, coaxing some theremin-like atmospherics from his saw during “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” Mangum strumming jangly chords as he declaimed joyfully existentialist lyrics about “how strange it is to be anything at all.” The majority of the audience refused to leave after that stirring anthem, cheering ardently for a second encore which came in the form of On Avery Island’s spirited “Song Against Sex.”

It was probably the most cathartic and synergistic moment of a performance that, while not quite sublime, ultimately held its own in the face of years of fervent expectation. 

Yuck Rocks. Black Cat Sound Guys Don't Rock.

Good friend Fran Chung wrote up the following review for the entertaining Yuck show the other night at the Black Cat in D.C. I'm just republishing his excellent take (which I completely agree with, and which appeared with this photo and others in DCist) rather than wallow through my own mixed emotions of seeing the show on the same night I got in my first car accident in decades (I'm fine, it wasn't my fault, and our Honda Fit didn't fare too badly). Despite that unfortunate distraction, I still give the show **** out of ***** stars. It was not as good as their recorded work, but I'm chalking that up mostly to the fact that the Black Cat sound engineers seem to be getting worse and worse every show I see there.

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The label "1990s revivalists" follows Yuck around inexorably, sometimes an epithet, often a term of endearment, always an apt descriptor for their retro-leaning indie-rock sound. At the Black Cat on Wednesday night, the London-based four-piece wore it as a badge of honor, putting their own youthful spin on familiar tropes from the 20th-century's musically fecund final decade.

On the set-opening "The Base of a Dream is Empty", the guitars of Daniel Blumberg and Max Bloom trailed feedback before the band built up a creamy wall of sound that instantly called My Bloody Valentine to mind. A few songs later, Blumberg affected a J Mascis-like drawl during "The Wall", while "Suicide Policeman" came off as a strummy, mid-tempo ballad reminiscent of early Belle & Sebastian, complete with tender boy-girl harmonies. Bassist Mariko Doi took a lead-vocal turn on the appropriately-titled "Georgia", which sounded like it could have been a lost outtake from one of Yo La Tengo's classic early-'90s albums.

At the heart of the set came "Get Away", Yuck's finest song, and the one that best crystallizes their highly referential, yet distinctly appealing musical aesthetic. Bloom's bright lead guitar melodies sliced through the fuzzed-out mix on top of a throbbing, Pixies-esque bassline that propelled the song forward until Blumberg launched it into the stratosphere with his soaringly anthemic Sparklehorse-meets-Weezer hook. "Summer sun says get out more," Blumberg sang, "I need you, I want you, but I can't get this feeling off my mind." These were trite, jejune sentiments that have been expressed in a thousand tunes, but rarely with as much infectious verve.

By the end of their brisk, hour-long performance, Yuck had run through much of their self-titled debut LP, adding the bonus cut "Soothe Me" and the B-side "Milkshake". As the band capped their set with another Kevin Shields homage, "Rubber", it seemed fair to wonder what the quartet could do for a second act. As fertile a trove of musical resources as the '90s are, surely they are not inexhaustible, and one hopes the band's next record will explore some different territories. For now, though, it's probably best to just go along and enjoy the nostalgic ride.