A look back at a few more performances- Black Kids, Kristeen Young, Fires of Rome, Flobots

Black Kids

Nice live re-arrangements, espesh on lead vocals. Amidst the chaos I forgot to plug my audio recorder into the mixer upstairs in the VIP area, so the bass is raw. I think it’s former Liquid Sky crewmember slash Harmonie Korine muse slash designer Chloe Sevigny, who does a lovely ballerina’s standing split from the balcony.

Kristeen Young

Kristeen Young hits the stage looking like a vintage Hollywood-musical femme fatale, just escaped from a Palm Springs hospital after a New Year’s Eve suicide attempt, doing an impromptu show for a few surprised fans in a dark roadside bar, still sporting hospital bracelets, which temporarily distract one from her kick-ass eye make-up and a glam, slinky black number in which she would contort and cavort, albeit with an unnerving, dysfunctional rage. Despite the appearance of such a dramatic persona, Ms. Young was quite calmly chatting with fans in a soft voice immediately before taking over the stage at Pianos; those hospital-esque bracelet-slash-wrist-antennae she rocks are in fact anti-carpal tunnel devices of sorts; CTS being a Dionysian occupational hazard for a passionate keybs-pounder like Young. If you watch carefully, you can learn some of the notes…
In the liner notes to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s stone-cold classic double-album “Welcome To The Pleasure Dome”, the band speak about getting a buzz from the fact that Andy Warhol has heard of them, because Warhol gets a buzz out of the fact that Picasso — or Dali? — had heard of him. Suffice to say, my initial interest in Kristeen Young was admittedly, similar- the only time I ever saw Kristeen Young was during the last 45 seconds of her support set for Morrissey at the Borgata in Atlantic City last summer, and I thought to myself (paraphrasing here)- At least I caught that crazy climax!, not realizing that a Kristeen Young performance is that way not just for the final 45 seconds but for the entire 45 minutes of the set, as you’ll see here (at least for seven minutes in hell — that’s meant as a compliment) during these Tetris-falling-violently-into-place modular percussive piano + drum + vocal arrangements, championed by that great Mother of Invention, Kate Bush, which is also a compliment.
Onstage, Young owns her moments big time, practicing what she preaches, as it were…As her muse suffers and indicts, she falls down as if at a Baptist revival, or Maybe like Medea, and when she screams the chorus “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!”, then hypnotically wails the half-complete Cartesian meditation- “I am! I am! I am! she delivers what might be heard as either self-assertion or self-destruction, or both, depending on a listener’s mood. In any case its gotta be damn hard to manage effects pedals in patent leather platform pumps, whether youre David Johanssen or Kristeen Young, as you’ll see here.
Left-field note- When she sang the line “The revolution is fertility!”, she briefly reminded me of the poster for the movie of “The Handmaid’s Tale”, and also, when she started to collapse on the floor, 80’s Richard Kern muse, Lung Leg. The dedicated fans who came to Pianos as the temperature dipped to one of its lowest points this year were reminded yet again of why they bother to step out into, and take on, the bitter cold.

Fires of Rome

I didn’t think that arriving at 9:30 meant being late for anything other than the open bar, but when I got to Hiro Ballroom, Fires of Rome were already onstage, which turned out to be kind of a good thing — it sucks to miss a big chunk of any set, but sometimes you walk in on the right tune, in this case “Set In Stone”, which has been remixed by M83, DJ Angola, Dada Life, Mo DJ and Don Rimini. Played live, its a nice and minimal affair, which isn’t to say without power. Lead Singer Andrew Wyatt kinda reminded me (from the view I had) of the guy in the film “Dazed and Confused” who takes on the bully but ends up getting clobbered, in a scene which could kinda signify the birth of a yuppie. And while Wyatt was wearing a suit-vest he was far more about the ever-popular tortured-artist effect (that’s a compliment) as he held his head in his hands, brows furrowed, face screwed up like a broke-ass half-mad Russian poet, or some other tormented, flighty cat. His vocal style kinda reminded me of Billy Squire’s or even Ozzys clipped delivery, say, on “Paranoid”, and the arrangement for “Set In Stone” kinda felt like the mainstream, Top-40 rock of the late 70’s that took to the emerging bouncy New Wave bass lines and minor keyboard flares (again a compliment) that gave songs cleaner lines, as it were. My favorite moment comes when the lead singer points to the crowd with an indicting finger, delivering a line that ends “…mechanism that makes you a survivor”, rhyming “survivor” with the preceding words “vagina” and “saliva”, capping off a meditation begun with the self-observation- “I was disgustingly average as a child” and for a moment, in the haze of loud music, bright lights and the beers I’d drank on the way over, I was wondering how each person in the room would act if we were on a sinking ship, or on a chaotic line to get into a club, or backstage trying to be cool. Good when a band makes you think for a moment..

Flobots

Flobots felt like the perfect band to hear on Election Eve, and it was heartening to see so many in the audience sporting stars-and-stripes bandana scarves. And while the lead MC was, like everyone else, thrilled by the prospect — just 24 nerve-wrecking hours away — of an Obama victory, he offered wise words in case McCain won, adding further “No matter who wins this election, we still have to fight for what we believe in”, which is the basic stance that gets the right people elected in the first place. It was also heartening to hear him talking with the audience about the continuing problems faced by a segment of a generation returning from a war, citing a letter the band had received from a veteran, just before launching into a Papoose-type read-through of individual letters, tho in this case he just limited things to a four-letter word- “Iraq” the multiple, grim meanings of which he contemplated, one letter at a time…In a way, Flobots feel like the perfect Craigs List-blended crew (that’s a compliment) to which each person brings something unique, even though they downplay their individuality by self-assigning numbers which replace their names…the lead MC, AKA #5, leads them and the crowd with an activist’s humility; MC and vocalist, AKA #0, breaks into a pop-and-lock routine (in part 2 of this show, up soon); their electric violinist, AKA #33, gets funky in a kinda countrified, more fast-winding style than say, the solemn strokes of a the numberless Miri Ben-Ari; she also hits a few abstract notes that keep things arty and off-kilter enough to counter-balance the hypnotic, grinding metal section of their bassist, AKA #101, and guitarist, AKA #17, who switch from Rage-type aggro to curly-strummed and plucked funk rhythms on a dime, and their drummer, AKA #69, looks like he could be playing a lot harder than he already is. While the show wasn’t sold out, the venue was smart to book these guys, as judging by the loyalty of their audience which has been growing steadily, this band now looks to reach a major, next plateau. http://www.fightwithtools.org/