No Age (Lucky Dragon / John Milner You're So Boss / Henri Fabergé and his Naval Academy Marching Band)
The Great Hall. Thursday, November 18, 2010.
Even though it might have been at odds with the tone of some of the music being presented, there was an enthusiastically celebratory vibe at The Great Hall on this night. As I entered, an actual DJ was playing actual dance music, and though there weren't too many takers, it helped to provide a relaxed vibe as the room began to fill.
Taking things even further into the realm of spectacle was Henri Fabergé and his Naval Academy Marching Band, whose name was wholly self-descriptive. Not being of a temperament to let his musical ambitions be constrained by the normal method of being a guy in a band — his self-titled album with the Adorables came out back in '06 and there's been nothing since in the way of conventional releases — Henri Fabergé (the nom de guerre of Henry Fletcher) has instead channelled his energies into such avenues as wildly extravagant pageants celebrating his fictional life story1. This particular project is an offshoot of that, as far as I can tell, and before the show, I didn't know how literal this name was — but I learned quickly.
Hanging out near the front of the room, I heard the roll of drums in the distance. Then, a shout of "make way!" as the head of the column entered from the doors at the back of the room. Armed with a bullhorn, the leader of the march issued a steady stream of shouted instructions and authoritarian asides ("Do not trust your instincts! Do not believe in your impulses! Society's rules and regulations have been put in place for a reason.") through a cacophony of horns and drums as the band marched a few circles around the edge of the room before settling in in front of the stage.
Introduced as the naval academy's most promising student, Fletcher manifested himself and quickly whipped up the crowd. Contradicting the authoritarian edicts of the bandleader, an electric guitar kicked in and the parade band was suddenly a large-format rock'n'roll combo as he sang a song about the virtues of pleasing oneself, all the horns and marching drums amping it up. And when the song was complete, the band marched back out the room — the whole thing here and gone in under ten minutes in a burst of, "wha'happened?"
Listen to the "song" part of this performance here.
That would be followed by another spasm of similarly short duration by John Milner You're So Boss, playing on the floor in front of the stage. Vocalist Danielle LeBlanc was a bit more archly amusing than I recalled, joking at the outset, "after this show we're gonna break up, because what else are you gonna do after playing with fucking No Age?" Having been previously exposed to the band's brand of noiseburst chaos, I was perhaps less taken aback this time round, so either I was getting used to what they were doing or the band was actually stretching out a little, leading off with an "extended" (read: two-minute long) burst of swirling noise before the songs began. Or at least I think so, going by when the drumming and shouting started.
It was sometimes hard to tell when the songs started and ended but they were quick. There was one discrete burst of shouting that was less than twenty seconds — but why devote thirty seconds to saying "fuck you!" when you can do it in fifteen? Some stretched out into slightly longer bursts of noise diddling. Topics included "weak dicks" (it was alleged that you have one) and taquitos (sample lyrics: "Taquitos! Taquitos! Taquitos! Taquitos! Taquitos!"). All told, not the sort of thing you want to analyze too deeply — but somewhat entertaining when compressed into such a quick burst.
Listen to a song from this set here.
After JMYSB cleared their gear from their space on the floor, people were quickly pushing forward, jockeying for position near the stage. Such linear thinking actually put them further away from Lucky Dragons, who were setting up right in the middle of the floor. A lot of people didn't even seem to notice the preparations, or even when the music began with quiet glittering oscillations. Normally a duo, the band was performing as a singular dragon on this night, with Luke Fischbeck on his own.
My first encounter with the band was quite truly memorable for the innovative way that the musicians got the crowd involved in the most literal way, using audience members as circuit paths to create ever-shifting musical patterns triggered by physical contact. Bringing a different bag of tricks, the interactive element this time involved a projector at floor level pointed toward the back of the room, casting a shifting light pattern. Fischbeck handed out old CD's for audience members to hold in front of the projector, creating reflected beams of light dancing across the ceiling while he used his laptop and thumb piano to guide the music's slow build. After ten minutes, a beat slowly rose up, as well as more glitchy noises at the fringes of the sound.
This felt like less of a phenomenon than that last time. It's harder to be as surprised the second time around, I suppose, but more crucially here the crowd was less into it. Far from being a unifying experience that pulled everyone in, this was very much just background noise for most of the audience. I was right up close, in about the second rank of people watching, and by the end, there were conversations going on on both sides of me — not just of the "what's going on?" variety, but mostly general chitchat. So this was nice enough, but there was a failure to engage compared to what I had seen before.
I also had pretty fond memories of the first time I had seen No Age, at Lee's almost exactly two years previous. I left that show impressed with the duo's entertaining physicality and ability to suggest an intense presence while still having fun. To their credit, I should think, the band has evolved in the interim, transforming themselves into something more forward-thinking than bashing out punkish songbursts, instead becoming more interested in Everything in Between (as their new album is called) — most notably the spaces between the songs, filled with ambient loops and samples. Fittingly, ensuring that that more elaborate sonic sensibility wasn't left at the door of their live show, they'd enlisted a third touring member (William Kai Strangeland-Menchaca, from what I could find online) who worked in front of a table of samplers and other electronic gear off to one side of the stage. That meant that guitarist Randy Randall and drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt could focus on their instruments.
With abstract, melty visuals being projected behind the band, they took the stage with a hazy instrumental that segued into "Life Prowler", the first cut off the new one. That was followed by a shouty "Teen Creeps" (arguably as close as the band has gotten to a pop hit), "You're a Target" (from the Losing Feeling EP) and "Every Artist Needs a Tragedy" from 2007's Weirdo Rippers. That was all in one burst before the band paused to say hello to the crowd. The more extended gaps between songs (where Randall built up guitar loops) were filled in by segues of sample-based collage-y loops, and one got the notion that the band took those as seriously as the songs.
Mind you, tearing into "Fever Dreaming", the band showed they can still toss off something relatively catchy when they want to. And not beholden to the songs' recorded arrangements, there was a run through of "Common Heat" that was much more ripping and aggressive than the album presentation. "Valley Hump Crash" would also get a more snarling re-versioning later on.
This all worked out well enough, but for whatever reason, there wasn't the same lift as when I saw 'em before. Even beyond the success or not of particular songs — "Cappo" felt kind of flat, but it lurched into "Glitter" which was far more spirited — there were less fireworks here. Perhaps the band is just more invested in the newer, textured stuff — or even the very idea of textures. When Randall broke a guitar string and was out of action for a couple minutes, I thought the set might lose all momentum, but Spunt tossed off a couple "Night of the Living Rednecks" riffs while noodling on a little drum/loop improv to pass the time. And that pause actually led to a relatively energetic finale, including the still-fresh "Sleeper Hold", with Randall climbing up on the tall speakers at the edge of the stage to power things along.
"No encores," warned Spunt before "Miner", which the band closed with. Like most the of hour-long set, they thrashed away at it with vigour to but it didn't lift. Which I guess is an apt metaphor for the whole set. On the whole, not a bad night, but not pushed out of the realm of competent entertainment.
Listen to a song from this set here.
1The final monthly instalment of his Feint of Hart "serialization" will be running at Hart House on April 7. I've heard that these are quite the spectacle to behold.
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