Fake Criterion covers I designed a few months ago with photoshop.
It's alright! It's alright! It's all been approved! I'm an American!
Work Rejects: Phosphorescent at the Middle East
When I woke up the morning of February 27th, the bitter cold that had stalked the streets of Boston for weeks had disappeared. Outside the snow had melted, the sun was up and a cool, welcome breeze passed by my hands as I walked toward the subway. Was it some kind of grace period, had an angel gotten it’s wings? I learned about an hour later what it must have been. Phosphorescent was in town and they’d brought sunny weather to go with their gorgeous summertime music. I had to see them, there was no way around it.
The band, a group of funny and welcoming southerners who’d relocated to Brooklyn around the same time, gave me a lift to the venue, The Middle East in Cambridge from their in-studio at Emerson College’s radio station. The staff informed them as they unloaded that their set had been pushed to midnight. The bill was full. Paper Birds, a shoegazer band from the area with a crush on David Bowie, went first. Sounding like Low meets Band of Horses, their half hour set passed neatly. Cambridge based crooner Ryan Lee Crosby filled the small room with his uncomfortably specific songs of lovemaking through his Lou Reed-esque nasal voice. When Carter Tanton from the band Tulsa took the stage, I was elated, if sleepy. It was roughly 11:00 when Tanton took the stage and Jeff Bailey, the bass player looked ready for a nap; he wasn’t alone there. Not having expected Tanton, another Cambridge based singer-songwriter who cut his teeth busking in the New York Subway, I was pleased to see him perform again. Tanton’s voice seems flush with natural reverb no matter the setting. Switching between the silky softness of Tulsa songs and his solo material, Tanton captivated everyone in the room, including most of Phosphorescent. When he picked up a banjo, he really shined; his voice seemed to come from some place in a Cormac McCarthy novel, complimented by the haunting timbre of his banjo strings. Tanton is not a voice to be missed. Of course, when Matthew Houck began singing 10 minutes later, it was a whole different ballgame.
Originally from Atlanta, GA Houck has garnered a pretty astonishing critical reputation in the last three years. Since the release of Phosphorescent’s third record Pride, journalists have been lavishing him with praise and superlatives waiting for his next move. When he announced that his band would be releasing a Willie Nelson cover record, the buzz wasn’t exactly overwhelming. Perhaps that’s because the music press hadn’t heard the band play the material from To Willie live. When Houck recorded To Willie he brought on some of his friends and then kept them for the tour. Guitarists Jesse Anderson Ainslie and Dan Weber, bassist Bailey, pianist Scott Stapleton, and drummer Chris Marine turned the songs from Houck’s early records into real rock songs, the kind your dad listens to and that you always wished you knew how to. With it’s roots in the south and current home in Brooklyn, Phosphorescent sound like Grizzly Bear playing Emmylou Harris on a regular day, and with the chugging energy of the Willie Nelson tunes to propel them, they’ve become a beautiful maelstrom.
Their first song, “A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise” started their full-band reimangining of Houck’s best solo material. Stellar run-throughs of “Praise”, “Wolves”, “At Death, A Proclamation”, all from 2007’s Pride made up the first part of their set, and though Houck’s songs sounded huge and intense thanks to his band, they seemed almost small when the band started up the Willie Nelson songs. It’s no secret that Houck’s voice is one of the most compelling in modern rock, but you really don’t get it until you’ve heard him in person. Backed by the harmony of Ainslee, Bailey, and Stapleton, Houck’s voice roars out, never cracking, never wavering, stunning the audience. Phosphorescent ran through a handful of Willie Nelson songs, “Reasons to Quit,” “I Gotta Get Drunk,” and “Can I Sleep In Your Arms” and there was much dancing, drinking and merriment. Marine’s drums and Bailey’s bass tuck the songs into an unshakable groove; Weber and Ainslee take turns leading, and Scott Stapleton’s piano is never at rest. With the combined harmony of his three band mates and a full sound people typically take for granted, Houck went from introverted songsmith to convulsing rockstar, carried away as he let out one soulful howl after another; he never seemed to run out of breath, spurred on by some unseen force. Having seen Willie Nelson live, I can say that Houck is both a worthy adversary to the old rebel though he’d never admit it and a sonic descendent rife to step up and take over where our country giants left off.
After a few perfect songs from To Willie they returned to their own songs, giving heartfelt iterations of early Phos tracks “I Am A Full Grown Man,” “Joe Tex Blues,” “(South Of) America,” and “Cocaine Lights”. By now it was 1 in the morning, and the fatigue that seemed ready to take hold of both band and audience was long gone. The encore came and Matthew Houck had a rowdy glint in his eye. “We’re open to all forms of flattery. We could just keep doing this.” And so as the audience let them have it, they went right back to the Willie covers. “Pick Up The Tempo,” “Permanently Lonely,” and “Too Sick To Pray,” got everyone feeling sentimental, but it was the last song that made this a show no one would forget. Houck’s full-throated whisper started “The Party’s Over” and his three harmonizers were quick to follow. Nelson’s words through Houck’s throat rang out like the hopeful, drunken promise of a better tomorrow, “Turn out the lights, the party's over,”
Houck’s band goes wild, taking the rhythm all over the place; Ainslee and Weber trade licks like a couple of Storyville bluesmen; Stapleton pounds the keys like his life depends on it; Marine and Bailey anchor the song while still going hogwild. “They say that all good things must end.” Houck lets the band play on while he leaps off the stage, finds his girlfriend in the audience and he takes her dancing on the crowded beer stained floor of the middle east; his boots and her blonde hair whipping about like the limbs of a black alder tree caught in a hurricane. “Put out the light, the party’s over,” The band seems unwilling to let the groove come to an end even though everyone knows it can’t last forever. Finally things slow, Marine puts a few extra snare drops in, Houck and his lady stop their dance. “And tomorrow we’ll start the same old thing again."
Experiencing Recession
For a little while now I've been keeping a running tab of the best films of the new millennium in the hopes that I might be able to publish a book. I came across a film recently that is the subject of a little bit of controversy, at least among film crowds. it started a few months ago, for me anyway, when I read in Rolling Stone about a pornstar who'd been cast in the next Steven Soderbergh film (the Boston premiere of Che was a few weeks away, so I wasn't worried about Soderbergh losing his mind and casting Jenna Jameson as Aleida Guevara). The weeks went by and no word about the film reached my ears until January when the film premiered at Sundance. Suddenly everyone (relative term) was abuzz about The Girlfriend Experience. I heard a number of takes on the film, most of them negative, and thought the best way to cut through the hype was to track the damn thing down and see for myself. I found it, of all places, in a hotel room (I guess it's sort of fitting to have found it On Demand along with Interracial Orgies and Who's Nailin' Paylin?) in Washington DC. The perfect setting for an indiscretion...
The Girlfriend Experience
by Steven Soderbergh
Christine is a high-priced escort. Her boyfriend Chris is a personal trainer. They both work in glamorous, glossy environments making rich people sweat for criminal sums of money. Christine is into Astrology and one gets the notion that she puts a lot of faith into fad spirituality; her beliefs lead her to think about leaving Chris for a client who shares her birthday and zodiac sign. She and Chris have a real relationship despite her flakiness and they do seem to genuinely care for each other, even though they live and work in an almost entirely superficial world. Most of the time they spend at work revolves around the economic crisis; everyone needs money and can't really afford the luxury of a personal trainer or an escort anymore. Christine gives a free evening to a reviewer in the hopes that it will bring her clout and expand her business; this backfires spectacularly, causing her incredible distress. The ending is ambiguous, but there seems to be hope for the two protagonists.
Steven Soderbergh is much more rebellious than people give him credit for. Granted he, like Christine, works in a world of superficiality and dollar signs, but name one other major studio director who's paid tribute to Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Siodmak, Franz Kafka, Che Guevara, and Carol Reed. Name someone else who can make multi-million dollar art films and get them accepted for international distribution and then break to make relentlessly audacious micro-budget films with no recognizable protagonist. And don't say Quentin Tarentino cause I'll put a pencil through your hand. Soderbergh has basically done whatever the hell he wants to without becoming completely polarizing. He's cleaned up at the Oscars, Cannes, Sundance, Film Critics Awards, and the Directors Guild Awards. So just what is The Girlfriend Experience?
Soderbergh, in the wake of Traffic's unprecedented critical and financial success, seems to be out to challenge himself and everyone else. Hence his remake of Solaris (which I loved), his tribute to The Third Man and post-war noir, The Good German (which I didn't), his essentially objective biopic Che (half and half) and The Girlfriend Experience. The film is non-linear and refuses to side with or fully abandon its protagonist. There is no non-diegetic music, just snatches of street performers playing in their element. Soderbergh's camera is an uninvolved observer; taking in the cold eye of Christine as she pretends to be someone she is not. She changes her character constantly in keeping with her profession and lets so little of herself show; many have chalked this up to Sasha Grey's inability to act properly, but really all it does is add to the impenetrability of that world. I personally had no problem with her acting, she's certainly no worse than Marilyn Chambers in Rabid (which I also liked), one of this film's very few precedents. At one point Chris goes to Las Vegas with a client and his friends in a private jet; Soderbergh edits snatches of their trip into the action in New York. Their conversation is idle and irreverent. Though their dialogue is lengthy, they speak essentially of nothing; they shout their opinions of women, drinking and dating over the rushing sound of the jet's engine. It's docu-style realism of nothingness and non-events which seems to be important enough to the thematic throughline (the non-actors are all pretty amazing, actually with a few exceptions), but Soderbergh's camera is weirdly flat and unconcerned and the fact that each clip is basically identical means that the sort of talking they do is counter-productive. It isn't quite as sad in tone as when Chris asks for more hours from his gym or when Christine spies the new call girl on the block. There's emotion to be found beneath the flatness of Soderbergh's characters; like David Cronenberg's Crash, another claustrophobic study of urban sexuality, The Girlfriend Experience just happens to catch its characters doing one specific thing. Here they work and they mask their emotions.
Christine has to conceal her actual emotional involvement from everyone in her lives. There's one exception, the aforementioned girl sighting (the girl is moving in on her territory) and when she has to confront Chris about her moving in with a client. She tries to hide her emotions so that she can make an impulsive decision seem like a smart, rational one and one gets the sense that her life is made of moments like this. It's defined by decisions that most people couldn't rationalize in a hundred years, leastways not in ordinary circumstances. She lives a life of privilege, but it comes from professionally removing her emotions; hiding all the real things about her including her name (one of a few parallels to Grey's real life). Said gloss is shown expertly by our auteur who acts as cinematographer, too. Soderbergh doesn't brag about it, but he's a hell of a photographer. Solaris was one of the best looking sci-fi films I've ever seen, and that's saying something, as the genre is built on interesting visuals. He shot Girlfriend on a RedOne (look it up) and utilizes lowlight and found-light to its utmost potential; the film is gorgeous, even if it is grainy. The silky, dim interiors and lavish boutiques and restaurants that she inhabits are almost always on display, almost to act as a distraction from all the lying.
The fact that the film is one of Soderbergh's least expensive may have been purposive rather than out of necessity. He may be the only living filmmaker who intentionally limits himself, and he's a better filmmaker for it. Made for under 2 million dollars, the film is what I'd call meta-cinematical in that it pays attention to people whose money has been dripping away and it features a pornstar playing a prostitute who takes her clothes off exactly once in near-darkness. The publicity the film's been getting (not to mention the garish poster art) will probably give you the wrong idea about what its like (I know it did for me). It is one of the only presentational American fiction films I can remember seeing that wasn't made in the 60s and is incredibly interesting to dissect. The negative space forces us to load them with our own conceptions, made easier by the offscreen meaning burst of casting a pornstar. Soderbergh has basically given critics a blank canvas and they're totally squandering the oppurtunity. I've yet to read a positive review. I get that this isn't exactly Amelie or Pretty Fucking Woman but come on, it's a beautifully shot objective character study. How many of those do we have right now? Anyone been to a movie theatre recently who doesn't live in Chelsea? Would you guys prefer X-Men Origins or Transformers 2? I had to drive an hour and some to see Tulpan the other day, I'm not exactly swimming in options. So while I see that the film has only so much to offer, I liked what I got. Ignore the poster (but damn it' good...), ignore the trailer, just see it.
The Girlfriend Experience
by Steven Soderbergh
Christine is a high-priced escort. Her boyfriend Chris is a personal trainer. They both work in glamorous, glossy environments making rich people sweat for criminal sums of money. Christine is into Astrology and one gets the notion that she puts a lot of faith into fad spirituality; her beliefs lead her to think about leaving Chris for a client who shares her birthday and zodiac sign. She and Chris have a real relationship despite her flakiness and they do seem to genuinely care for each other, even though they live and work in an almost entirely superficial world. Most of the time they spend at work revolves around the economic crisis; everyone needs money and can't really afford the luxury of a personal trainer or an escort anymore. Christine gives a free evening to a reviewer in the hopes that it will bring her clout and expand her business; this backfires spectacularly, causing her incredible distress. The ending is ambiguous, but there seems to be hope for the two protagonists.Steven Soderbergh is much more rebellious than people give him credit for. Granted he, like Christine, works in a world of superficiality and dollar signs, but name one other major studio director who's paid tribute to Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Siodmak, Franz Kafka, Che Guevara, and Carol Reed. Name someone else who can make multi-million dollar art films and get them accepted for international distribution and then break to make relentlessly audacious micro-budget films with no recognizable protagonist. And don't say Quentin Tarentino cause I'll put a pencil through your hand. Soderbergh has basically done whatever the hell he wants to without becoming completely polarizing. He's cleaned up at the Oscars, Cannes, Sundance, Film Critics Awards, and the Directors Guild Awards. So just what is The Girlfriend Experience?
Soderbergh, in the wake of Traffic's unprecedented critical and financial success, seems to be out to challenge himself and everyone else. Hence his remake of Solaris (which I loved), his tribute to The Third Man and post-war noir, The Good German (which I didn't), his essentially objective biopic Che (half and half) and The Girlfriend Experience. The film is non-linear and refuses to side with or fully abandon its protagonist. There is no non-diegetic music, just snatches of street performers playing in their element. Soderbergh's camera is an uninvolved observer; taking in the cold eye of Christine as she pretends to be someone she is not. She changes her character constantly in keeping with her profession and lets so little of herself show; many have chalked this up to Sasha Grey's inability to act properly, but really all it does is add to the impenetrability of that world. I personally had no problem with her acting, she's certainly no worse than Marilyn Chambers in Rabid (which I also liked), one of this film's very few precedents. At one point Chris goes to Las Vegas with a client and his friends in a private jet; Soderbergh edits snatches of their trip into the action in New York. Their conversation is idle and irreverent. Though their dialogue is lengthy, they speak essentially of nothing; they shout their opinions of women, drinking and dating over the rushing sound of the jet's engine. It's docu-style realism of nothingness and non-events which seems to be important enough to the thematic throughline (the non-actors are all pretty amazing, actually with a few exceptions), but Soderbergh's camera is weirdly flat and unconcerned and the fact that each clip is basically identical means that the sort of talking they do is counter-productive. It isn't quite as sad in tone as when Chris asks for more hours from his gym or when Christine spies the new call girl on the block. There's emotion to be found beneath the flatness of Soderbergh's characters; like David Cronenberg's Crash, another claustrophobic study of urban sexuality, The Girlfriend Experience just happens to catch its characters doing one specific thing. Here they work and they mask their emotions.
Christine has to conceal her actual emotional involvement from everyone in her lives. There's one exception, the aforementioned girl sighting (the girl is moving in on her territory) and when she has to confront Chris about her moving in with a client. She tries to hide her emotions so that she can make an impulsive decision seem like a smart, rational one and one gets the sense that her life is made of moments like this. It's defined by decisions that most people couldn't rationalize in a hundred years, leastways not in ordinary circumstances. She lives a life of privilege, but it comes from professionally removing her emotions; hiding all the real things about her including her name (one of a few parallels to Grey's real life). Said gloss is shown expertly by our auteur who acts as cinematographer, too. Soderbergh doesn't brag about it, but he's a hell of a photographer. Solaris was one of the best looking sci-fi films I've ever seen, and that's saying something, as the genre is built on interesting visuals. He shot Girlfriend on a RedOne (look it up) and utilizes lowlight and found-light to its utmost potential; the film is gorgeous, even if it is grainy. The silky, dim interiors and lavish boutiques and restaurants that she inhabits are almost always on display, almost to act as a distraction from all the lying.
The fact that the film is one of Soderbergh's least expensive may have been purposive rather than out of necessity. He may be the only living filmmaker who intentionally limits himself, and he's a better filmmaker for it. Made for under 2 million dollars, the film is what I'd call meta-cinematical in that it pays attention to people whose money has been dripping away and it features a pornstar playing a prostitute who takes her clothes off exactly once in near-darkness. The publicity the film's been getting (not to mention the garish poster art) will probably give you the wrong idea about what its like (I know it did for me). It is one of the only presentational American fiction films I can remember seeing that wasn't made in the 60s and is incredibly interesting to dissect. The negative space forces us to load them with our own conceptions, made easier by the offscreen meaning burst of casting a pornstar. Soderbergh has basically given critics a blank canvas and they're totally squandering the oppurtunity. I've yet to read a positive review. I get that this isn't exactly Amelie or Pretty Fucking Woman but come on, it's a beautifully shot objective character study. How many of those do we have right now? Anyone been to a movie theatre recently who doesn't live in Chelsea? Would you guys prefer X-Men Origins or Transformers 2? I had to drive an hour and some to see Tulpan the other day, I'm not exactly swimming in options. So while I see that the film has only so much to offer, I liked what I got. Ignore the poster (but damn it' good...), ignore the trailer, just see it.
New Tulsa Record on the Way
If you haven’t heard of the Cambridge, Massachusetts based Tulsa, you’re not alone but you’re missing out. Blending slow-burning country sounds with confident songwriting and beautiful, wispy production, Tulsa is one of the best bands without a full-length album. Singer Carter Tanton has a hell of a voice and his songs are effortlessly cool; he works just as well in a solo setting as with his band. Tanton, who looks vaguely like a young Nick Cave, got his start busking in New York subways and since then he’s opened for Low, Phosphorescent and he’s currently playing lead guitar for songwriter Marissa Nadler on her first tour with a backing band. He may be leaving his smoky, ethereal rock sound behind for something fuller, however. His new album is nearing completion and it sounds wild. I spoke to Tanton halfway between gigs with Nadler in San Francisco and Seattle.
“It’s all done except for the vocals and some of the vocals are done,” though he says a release date has not been set.
“One thing I agreed with that people said about the last one (I Was Submerged, 2007, Park The Van) is that it sounded mostly the same throughout…I tried to make the instrumentations [on the new record] kind of colorful; there wasn’t much color to the last CD. It was kind of grayish and foggy and this one sounds more awake.”
In looking for color and life, he could have done a lot worse than Brian Deck to produce. Deck produced both of Iron & Wine’s best albums, the quiet Our Endless Numbered Days and the rich, genre-hopping The Shepherd’s Dog. Deck has produced for Modest Mouse, Califone, Holopaw, and the Fruitbats; an eclectic mix that attracted Tanton.
“Brian Deck worked with Iron & Wine, he’s done the Califone records, which I love. He’s done all their records; he’s kind of a member of Califone. I like his, what other people have called, a kind of Junkshop sound. He’s always excited to use non-musical things in a musical way.”
Tanton has only the vocals left to record, which he says he’s going to hop off tour in Chicago and finish up sometime very soon. He and Nadler will head to Europe where he plans to spend most of the summer after recording. After a bit of rest, he and Tulsa will pick up where they left off, wowing everyone who sees them play.
“he's one of the best singer-songwriters in the country today.”
-John Richards NPR
“we…walked out of the club convinced that we had just seen the best rock band in Boston.”
-Boston Phoenix
His Myspace
His awesome Daytrotter Session
Song: Rafter from I Was Submerged. Didn't I tell you this guy rocks?
“It’s all done except for the vocals and some of the vocals are done,” though he says a release date has not been set.
“One thing I agreed with that people said about the last one (I Was Submerged, 2007, Park The Van) is that it sounded mostly the same throughout…I tried to make the instrumentations [on the new record] kind of colorful; there wasn’t much color to the last CD. It was kind of grayish and foggy and this one sounds more awake.”
In looking for color and life, he could have done a lot worse than Brian Deck to produce. Deck produced both of Iron & Wine’s best albums, the quiet Our Endless Numbered Days and the rich, genre-hopping The Shepherd’s Dog. Deck has produced for Modest Mouse, Califone, Holopaw, and the Fruitbats; an eclectic mix that attracted Tanton.
“Brian Deck worked with Iron & Wine, he’s done the Califone records, which I love. He’s done all their records; he’s kind of a member of Califone. I like his, what other people have called, a kind of Junkshop sound. He’s always excited to use non-musical things in a musical way.”
Tanton has only the vocals left to record, which he says he’s going to hop off tour in Chicago and finish up sometime very soon. He and Nadler will head to Europe where he plans to spend most of the summer after recording. After a bit of rest, he and Tulsa will pick up where they left off, wowing everyone who sees them play.
“he's one of the best singer-songwriters in the country today.”
-John Richards NPR
“we…walked out of the club convinced that we had just seen the best rock band in Boston.”
-Boston Phoenix
His Myspace
His awesome Daytrotter Session
Song: Rafter from I Was Submerged. Didn't I tell you this guy rocks?
Nat Baldwin Kills It At Hampshire College
Well Hampshire may not be for everyone (about half of the people who go there figure out that what they actually want is a lot of guidelines because when they were kids their parents weren't strict enough with them, but there was always an emphasis on getting good grades, and then they just acted disappointed more than anything when you came home with a C in the sixth grade, and so you'd be happier at UC Berkeley), they do have a penchant for bringing in really sweet musicians for unconventional sets.
This video from 420Fest showcases Nat Baldwin's ability to hold a room in the palm of his hand, even while supporting an enormous upright bass. Baldwin is one of my favorite singer songwriters, and it's possibly because he writes and plays them all on that gorgeous upright bass without using a loop pedal. He's remarkably talented and his songs are all a little out of the ordinary but are just the right blend of sharp, strange and melodic enough to satisfy fans of The Arcade Fire, TV On The Radio, Andrew Bird, or Lou Reed. Baldwin did a stint as a member of Dave Longstreth's excellent, frantic band Dirty Projectors and he'll be joining them again for their summer tour and possibly beyond. Both bands are on the myspace and beyond. Dirty Projectors start a North American tour supporting TVOTR on the 22nd of May in Oakland, then they arch north and come back down to New York on the 5th of June, and then keep going south to Charlotte, NC on the 11th of June. Their new record Bitte Orca comes out on June 9th. Baldwin's solo records can be found here.
The Songs are: Lifted, Real Fakes, Extended Weed Jam Solo, and Weights.
His Myspace
This video from 420Fest showcases Nat Baldwin's ability to hold a room in the palm of his hand, even while supporting an enormous upright bass. Baldwin is one of my favorite singer songwriters, and it's possibly because he writes and plays them all on that gorgeous upright bass without using a loop pedal. He's remarkably talented and his songs are all a little out of the ordinary but are just the right blend of sharp, strange and melodic enough to satisfy fans of The Arcade Fire, TV On The Radio, Andrew Bird, or Lou Reed. Baldwin did a stint as a member of Dave Longstreth's excellent, frantic band Dirty Projectors and he'll be joining them again for their summer tour and possibly beyond. Both bands are on the myspace and beyond. Dirty Projectors start a North American tour supporting TVOTR on the 22nd of May in Oakland, then they arch north and come back down to New York on the 5th of June, and then keep going south to Charlotte, NC on the 11th of June. Their new record Bitte Orca comes out on June 9th. Baldwin's solo records can be found here.
The Songs are: Lifted, Real Fakes, Extended Weed Jam Solo, and Weights.
His Myspace
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