Voices of truth

September 26, 2008


To hear a radio voice in person is to peek behind the glass. It’s like focusing a blurred image, the subject coming into clearer focus but not really changing. It’s surreal, to say the least, a disembodied voice finding a home, moving in and looking completely at rest, natural and complete.

We saw it firsthand last night at the Sioux Falls taping of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.

People on the radio never look like you think they do. Radio masks the physical attributes that we all use as landmarks and renders them illegible. So to see Peter Sagal walk on stage was like seeing a complete stranger who had stolen your favorite shirt. There’s something familiar, but it takes a while to figure out what it is.

The night went as you’d think it would. You see the inner workings of a radio production – the gaffes, the banter, the re-recorded pick-ups at the end. (These pick-ups, by the way, are the most surreal thing you can see – Peter Sagal, re-voicing his script to, well, no one. He even re-voiced some questions to Sen. George McGovern, our “Not My Job” guest. Or, at least, to the empty chair Sen. McGovern was sitting in earlier.)

The event was fantastic. The talent was gracious, genuinely impressed with the reception they received and willing to meet and greet after taping ended. Mo Rocca was there, as was Tom Bodett and Kyrie O’Connor.

The start of the night, however, was Carl Kasell. More to the point, his voice.

Carl Kasell is a public radio legend. Part of an older generation of news radio voices that focused on nothing but news, Kasell reads engagingly, yet without biased. It’s Walter Cronkite filtered down without the visuals. Sports radio has Dan “Duke” Davis to fill this role. But it’s all the same - an old radio man standing to the side, ready for updates and specializing in playing the straight man to the typical personality-driven programs.

At the top of the hour and every twenty minutes after, you can be assured of what you’ll get. Unfiltered radio. Straight talk. Nothing but news, nothing but that voice, nothing but the most familiar thing you’ll ever encounter.

Hearing Carl Kasell is moving in the way that it’s like family. Comforting. You can’t imagine any other voice taking its place. It’s the voice of a man who has seen everything, who has written about event that have shaped the world, brought us to tears and led us to rage. They are both a gentle grandfather and a sage business partner, a college professor and a moving narrator. They are the voice of reason. The voice of history. The voice of change.

The voice of the news. Talking not in bold print or all caps, but in a solid stream of Times New Roman, 12 point font, occasional italics for emphasis. Nothing fancy, but completely solid; nothing forced, just smooth effortless news, life unfolding from pen to paper to mouth to airwaves.

With a voice like Carl Kasell, there’s no need for the fame. Just the real, unfiltered news, a small spot every hour, to keep you grounded.

A voice that’s not sensational or misleading. Simply the voice of truth.

Tags: Concerts, Journalism |

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Drifting away from the music

October 23, 2007


I might go to the Bright Eyes show this Thursday.

Then again, I might not.

This is how all of my concert decisions are made nowadays. I’m impartial to the act of going to a show - an act that I once respected and looked forward to unlike any other act in the history of acts. I’d go to every show - EVERY show - because that’s just what you did. You went to see Napalm Death even if you hated them. And you damned well enjoyed it.

In those days - for me, ages 16-25 - music was a deity. It was an ever-changing look into what life was supposed to be. My friends and I lived our lives for music - most of them playing music, me listening to it and critiquing it. Music was so integral to life that we filled every moment with sound, carefully choosing the right notes to play at the right times, as if coordinating the sound waves in a perfect organization could somehow make us into better people.

In college, the love affair continued to an almost obsessive level; an album would occupy my life for months, every song analyzed and every lyric memorized. Music drove the world; opinions were ripe for arguing, words sharpened for opposing tastes and praise heaped upon similar interests. My friends turned me on to new bands, and I did likewise to them. It was a time of discovery, for new sounds, for refining tastes and developing trends in listenership.

And then, eventually, I found myself a stranger - a hopeless piece of driftwood lost in a sea of rock music; aged and hollow, I floated along with the same currents I had always followed. When you excuse yourself from that culture of constant discovery, you end up falling farther and farther behind. It’s impossible to keep up without a sudden infusion of new music, and even then you spend so much time catching up you lose track of actually enjoying the music.

Every week, hundreds of albums are recorded, somewhere, and it’s impossible to keep up with them all. When I finally realized this, I found myself relieved. It’s as if I could relax and turn my back on my formerly obsessive nature. I was no longer in the discovery stage - I could now lie back and be blissfully ignorant of new music, catching it only on the radio or in a random new release sent to me by a friend.

Music has taken a different shape as I’ve grown older. It’s become more refined, more selective. Shoved into the background, music has become more of the clichéd “soundtrack to my life” - a backing track likened more to John Williams than Iggy Pop, quietly whispered throughout life, no longer taking center stage.

Music. I still love it - Kerrie will tell you that I still have moments of utter obnoxiousness when it comes to new music - but I no longer idolize it.

So it’s no surprise that, with a Thursday Bright Eyes show approaching in our dusty little villa, I’m still torn about whether or not I’m going. Simply put, I’m bored with rock shows. I go, I stand, I watch, and I leave wondering whether it was worth the time, the money, the halting of life to watch another life perform. Often times, it hasn’t been. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a really great show, and every mediocre show I see sends me further and further away from the scene.

There are bands I’d still like to see. Built to Spill. Radiohead. Bruce Springsteen. But I’m just not into that scene anymore. I’d find more fulfillment in an author’s reading, in a cleverly written television show, in a good book or even a brisk walk through the constantly changing fall foliage. Those things are more comforting. More my style. Dare I say, easier.

And that’s how I know I’ve changed. I used to plan all of my life around music. New releases. Shows at the Pomp Room. Trips to Minneapolis to drink and see great bands in their heyday, a weekend spend driving home in contemplative silence as we disengage from the extent of our overstimulation.

Now, while I still sing along and I still get excited about great bands and new albums and brilliantly worded lyrics, I don’t obsess. I realize it for what it is - music, a necessary element of life, so crucial I don’t know if any of us could live without it, but a function that’s as natural as breathing or walking - things not worth analyzing and obsessing about. I need music in my life. But I can’t focus on it anymore, not like I used to.

Music has become a true soundtrack, background driven instead of interactive. And if I miss a few shows because of it, I know life will continue.

So maybe we’ll see you Thursday, at the Bright Eyes show. Or, maybe not. Truthfully, I’ll just go where the music leads me.

Tags: Concerts, Music, On... |

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None more black

April 25, 2007


A Spinal Tap reunion.

This is big news.

From Yahoo News and the AP:

NEW YORK - Spinal Tap is back, and this time the band wants to help save the world from global warming.

The mock heavy metal group immortalized in the 1984 mockumentary, “This is Spinal Tap,” will reunite for a performance at Wembley Stadium in London as part of the Live Earth concerts scheduled worldwide for July 7.

The original members of Spinal Tap will be there: guitarist Nigel Tufnel (played by Christopher Guest), singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer). Rob Reiner, who both directed “This is Spinal Tap” and played the fake documentarian Marty DeBergi in the film, will also be in attendance.

I’m holding back tears of joy right now.

Anyone got any tickets to London I can use?

(Thanks to American Copywriter for the heads up.)

Tags: Concerts, Movies, Music |

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A bloody shame

March 21, 2007


Isaac Brock Sioux Falls (Pitchfork)Sunday’s Modest Mouse show was hampered by my oldness.

It didn’t seem so great for Isaac Brock, Modest Mouse frontman, either. It turns out that some small act of triviality I had written off was much more serious than I had first realized.

Somewhere about halfway through the show, I noticed that Brock had turned toward his amp, stopped playing (he may have taken off his guitar, I can’t remember) and started acting weird.

Suddenly, a sound tech hopped up, grabbed Brock and hugged him – talking close to his ear and seemingly comforting him. Brock turned around and there was a visible blood spot on his shirt.

I didn’t think anything of it. I mentioned something to Kerrie — “there’s blood on his shirt” — and wrote it off as a crazy artist doing crazy artist things. I likened it to a Jim Morrison freakout - swinging guitars, stumbling cord tangles, mumbling and general unawareness. I had read in an article that Brock didn’t drink before shows anymore, so I just figured he was being a weirdo - it wouldn’t be the first time, you know.

He had just hit himself in the head a few quick times in the vein of a tortured artist, so I scoffed. And then I wrote it off. I assumed the blood was from something related to that.

Well, not so much.

According to Pitchfork (and found on Scott Hudson’s Rant-A-Bit), it was a little bit more serious.

“Does anybody know a way that/A body could get away/Does anybody know a way?!”

Isaac Brock attempted to answer his own “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” query in drastic fashion at a recent Modest Mouse show in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, according to several eyewitness reports. While performing the Moon and Antarctica standout at Ramkota Exhibit Hall on March 18, Brock allegedly began hitting himself in the face with his microphone, then proceeded to draw a knife and cut his own chest.

According to reader Joshua Cole, after deliberately bonking his head, Brock “then walked back to his amp, grabbed a pocket knife, and cut a 12 inch cut across his chest. His assistant had to grab the knife and stop him. He was bleeding the rest of the concert, and later fell off the stage into the barrier before singing in the crowd.”

“The show carried on despite Isaac’s bleeding and various people’s concerns,” said Cole.

What was that all about? I have no idea. Have things really gotten so messed up in Brock’s head that he snapped, dragging knives across his chest and smashing his head. Had the stress of beginning a new tour hit him all at once?

Or was this a calculated effort to get publicity? I find it hard to believe that someone as reportedly angry and cynical as Isaac Brock would resort to self-mutilation, a cry for help – the type of attitude that it seems Brock would hate.

At times, Brock seemed almost zombie-like. His rambling diatribes during songs bordered on the insane. His crowd-speak was robotic and forced. But that’s Brock, right? That’s what he does. That’s part of his art.

Was Brock on drugs? Was he really drinking? It he mentally unstable? What the hell happened up there? Is this all just crazy speculation that drives record sales?

While I didn’t get a chance to truly see what happened, I do remember the dazed look on the rest of the band’s face. I remember noticing Johnny Marr’s attitude - a slow decent from rocking guitarist to sheepish bystander. Everyone seemed to be walking on eggshells, and Brock was slowly spiraling out of control. I chalked it up to a spirited front man with a low sense of self-preservation and a band that had seen it all a tiring number of times before. I never though it was an act of mutilation.

If there’s one thing I can’t handle, it’s the attention-seeking self-mutilation attitude. I don’t understand it. I sympathize, and I understand that help is needed, and that it’s a serious problem. I realize that everyone has personal demons, but I also recognize the selfishness of the act. It deserves help. But I often wonder how many times it’s truly a mental imbalance and how many times it’s for attention only.

Knowing what I know now, I feel as though I’ve just watched a snuff film - that the act of Brock cutting himself was the act of cutting off his fanbase, of elevating himself from indie rocker to tortured artist, from Ben Gibbard to Pete Doherty. He was acting out some crazy notion of self hate.

Hell, who knows why he did it, really? Who can ever understand the mind of someone else?

–

(Update: Yeah, according to the Link blog (which I’ve finally found) he was sauced, apparently. Oh well. It makes sense now — his performance, his cutting, etc. That’s too bad. And quite annoying.)

Tags: Concerts, Music, Sioux Falls |

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Feeling older faster

March 19, 2007


I’m 28 years old. I’m by no means an old fart – I still consider myself a strapping young man whose ability to frolic is the same as it was ten years ago. I’m not stodgy. I’m not ultra-conservative. I’ve changed a little over the past three years, but not so much that I can’t appreciate the reckless, youthful ways of all night parties and video game football.

So tell me why I felt so old last night.

This is not a “wah wah, Corey feels sorry for himself” post. Kerrie and I went to the Modest Mouse concert last night at the Ramkota Event Center, and I truly felt old. Not old in a “turn that damned music down you whippersnapper!” way, but old in a creaky-body, headache sort of way.

We got to the show a little late and had to stand in line. This made us annoyed, where as before it would have rolled off our backs.

We stood near the back, and not in the front.

We enjoyed the show, but realized how bad the sound was in the Event Center. We realized how off Isaac Brock sounded. We realized that Modest Mouse is better on CD than they are in concert.

Our legs ached from standing. Our heads hurt from the feedback. Our minds were exhausted from watching college-aged kids bounce around, drunkenly running into each other.

We stood away from the crowd, watched the show, and then left.

I wondered why I go to concerts. I ached. I felt old. And all I did was stand in the back.

Is this what happens when people graduate from college life to grown-up life? I can’t help but think that somewhere along the way, I lost my spirit – the hidden spark that caused me to get drunk, run to the front of the crowd and experience an uncomfortable yet strangely fulfilling surge. I left the show last night the same way I always had – a little sweaty, with ears pulsing from the elevated decibel levels and voice scratchy from a room full of smoke and noise. But I felt worn out, like I had been thrown around in the crowd without actually having the benefit of seeing the band close up.

Maybe we’re just old enough to understand what a good show sounds like. Maybe we’re old enough to remember the small Pomp Room shows, the intimacy of being just feet away from a band, from hearing everything in a more surrounding manner and never being in bad position.

Last night’s Modest Mouse show was good. They played a fair amount of the new album. They stayed away from most of their older songs, but the ones they played were the ones I wanted to hear. The new songs translate well to a live setting. And they closed the show with my favorite new song, “Spitting Venom,” which turned into a 15-minute-long jam session.

It was not great, though. The feedback and the sound left a lot to be desired. Brock’s anger at his feedback-laden mic and God-knows-what-else turned him into some sort of crazed Jim Morrison wanna-be, thrashing around, getting tangled up in his own cords, yelling at his sound guy, causing himself to bleed, etc.

There was a weird vibe. I felt as if I was watching my last Modest Mouse show. They have disconnected from the small, three-piece unit they used to be and graduated to a full-out spectacle. It’s the direction they needed to go. But it’s different from the band I grew to love.

Their albums are still my favorites. I will never lose the heart I had for their older stuff, and I will still continue to champion their new efforts. But as a live show, I think I might pass next time.

I’m just wondering if my feeling old was due to this show only. Or if it’s part of a more general shifting – away from the loud, brash exhibit hall-style concerts of my past and toward a more subdued, peaceful engagement.

Have I gotten older and less understanding? Or did the show, the culture and the moment pass me by. Is it the concert’s fault? Or mine?

Tags: Concerts, Music, On... |

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David Sedaris

April 20, 2006


I’d never been to a reading before – not until tonight.

David Sedaris broke that experience wide open. I really didn’t know what to expect, outside of a handful of assorted scenes in a movie or two. I was quite pleased. It was funny. And intimate. Sedaris acted as if he was just talking to a small group in a used bookstore outside of his Paris apartment. But he wasn’t – this was Sioux Falls. This was the Midwest.

For the most part, everything Sedaris read was new – to me at least. Two New Yorker pieces, one upcoming and one from the past, and a piece from Esquire served as the backbone of the performance. A classic from Me Talk Pretty One Day – my first exposure to Sedaris – was brought out because, as he said, everything was fair game. He’d never been to Sioux Falls. Or South Dakota for that matter.

There’s an air involved with a book/author reading that spreads the creative jelly around. I found myself imagining my own book tour, if I ever was given the chance. Or if I ever wrote a book, for that matter. I found myself thinking about what I could be doing instead of whatever it is that I do to waste time in my life.

Sedaris is so unassuming – so modest, yet so full of good literary taste that I could have just crawled inside of his head and found the part that dealt with words and picked it dry. I could have figured out what books he had read that inspired him, and which techniques he used to be creative. Authors like Lorrie Moore keep popping up whenever the influences of my favorite writers are mentioned. Maybe if I read more Lorrie Moore, I’ll catch that bug. I like her a lot. So do the writers I admire. A = B+C.

Let’s face it. I watched David Sedaris talk, and sign books, and do what he loves to do, and I realized one thing. I am jealous. Just as anyone who sees what they want to be in someone else gets jealous.

It’s horrible, isn’t it? I should be excited about seeing great writers. And I am. But it’s all laced with a certain trace of jealousy. It’s one of my flaws – something that I hate about myself to the utmost. But it’s there, and I’d be a fool to ignore it. But I also wouldn’t be human if I didn’t have it. And I content myself with that. Seeing someone I enjoy, someone who makes the art look so easy, so off the cuff, only drives me a little more.

Sedaris in person is just as meek, just as unassuming, as he was on stage. He’s a hilarious guy, and he answered questions after the show with such skill that you know he’s been through it a couple of times before. Still, this didn’t make anything seem insincere. He signed our books, and asked how long Kerrie and I had been married and said we looked too young to be married. He told me I had nice skin. And then I left. I knew that I had just met someone that I looked up to.

Sedaris writes like I want to write. Short. Funny. Clever. This creative ADD I feel like I have is perfectly suited for advertising and short story/essay writing. And after watching a quick witted and well written man like Sedaris for an hour and a half, it’s all I can do to stop writing and go to bed. I bought books he recommended. I read the short stories that he personally chose “for fucked up kids.” I like all that he does, from articles to books.

David Sedaris is my kind of author - the kind that instills a feeling of “I can do that.” Not because it’s basic or simple. But because he makes it look so easy.

If only I could wake up with this feeling – this drive. Until then, I can content myself with some cleverly written autographs and the feeling that I’ve seen a literary celebrity.

Tags: Concerts, Literature, Writers |

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Atmosphere

March 15, 2006


Last night my eyes were opened – a new kind of show was introduced to me, and I loved it. Hip-hop. Rap. More specifically, Atmosphere.

It was great.

I’ve never been much of a hip-hop/rap fan, primarily because I hadn’t been exposed to much of the genre. It took me quite a while, actually, to embrace the music. I cut my teeth on A Tribe Called Quest and the Beastie Boys in college, but started a few years before with the ultra-popular Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. Everyone listened to gangster rap, and I was no different.

I moved along to the mostly indie sound of Tribe and Beastie Boys in college because it was somewhat familiar; I had a friend that listened to Midnight Marauders and Ill Communication constantly in high school. Things never really wavered from those two groups, though. I was too involved in discovering indie rock and Brit-pop to give much thought to anything with any semblance of a beat.

As college rolled along I did pick up a few more groups – mainstream stuff: the solo projects from the Fugees crew, Jurassic Five, The Roots. Hip-hop artists with more beats than “broads” – more substance, less posing. Eventually I desired an entire hip-hop collection – one that I could use to give the genre a little more prominence in my life.

Which brings us to now. Kerrie requested some hip-hop from our friend Mary. Mary responded with a CD of hip-hop artists with an indie mentality: Atmosphere, Sage Francis, Aesop Rock. Since then, it’s become a habit. I’ve added some bigger names to my arsenal – Outkast, Common, Jay-Z – but I’ve become a true fan of the small label, no nonsense artists. The ones that make hip-hop more than just a vehicle for wealth accrual and sexual acts.

To me, Atmosphere is at the top of this group. Last night’s show revitalized any notion I had about seeing hip-hop live. Where I was unimpressed with other groups, Atmosphere took the place apart – an incredibly healthy mix of ego and self-effacement. “I’m the best” would be mixed with “Please step back so the people in front aren’t crushed.” When a group of young girls got on stage to grind, Slug told them to get down, saying later that he appreciated having women at his shows, but wants them to be more than eye-candy.

Simply put, Atmosphere is all I’ve ever wanted in a hip-hop outfit – indie values, progressive politics, a warm embrace for the central states, and incredible word play. Self-depricating, but incredibly bold. And a live show that, regardless of how well I knew the words, blew me away.

- - -

A few more words on the show last night. Soulcrate Music, for some reason, seems to be my favorite artist that I’ve never seen. Sure, I’m friends – well, good acquaintances – with one of the members, but they seem like they’d be good. One of these days I’ll actually show up in time to see them play. Until then, you should check them out. Tell me what I’m missing.

Second, no one puts more work into promoting shows (and arguing with security when they suddenly turn the lights on in the middle of a set) than Jayson Weihs. Just remember, Jayson – I was the one that added that “y” to your name!

I’m not just saying that because he let us in for half-price, either. It helps to know the promoter, even when you’re too old to still feel comfortable at shows.

Finally, I ran into a friend of mine that is starting to scan and color some of his comics. His name, at MySpace, is Samtron, and you should check out his site in anticipation of some great artwork. Again, this is not just because I’m going to be a character. This is just because he’s my friend, and in no way because I do what I can to self-promote whenever I can.

Tags: Concerts, Music |

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