visions of johanna

List 2011 - Poptones

1. Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings @La Maroquinerie, 9.11.11 - Paris. “The days were rough and it’s all quite dim. But my mind cuts through it all, Like a wrecking ball.”¹ The first Paris show in years for the duo from no where and everywhere. We arrived late, hot and bothered, despite my best intentions. After a spell of bad traffic, we got stone-cold lost during a cross-town Paris run that I normally cut like a taxi driver. Ditching the car near the Gare du Nord, we caught the metro to Gambeta, then walk through the rain soaked cobbled back streets to La Maroquinerie. Scarlet Town was playing as we walked down the narrow stairs to pierce the dark, crowded room. Finding a surprisingly comfortable place to watch the show at stage-left (it helps to know the room), I had been waiting for years to see these two artists. They cut a wide swath through their incredible songbook, it was an insane two set performance². Hollow body intensity taken to profound depths; two souls laid bare to resonate: sugar magnolia.

2. Wilco @The Roundhouse, 29.10.11 - London. “Looking for the secrets, searching for the sound.” ³ During a two night London run on the heals of The Whole Love, we made our way to Camden Town after countless Fajitas and Margaritas in Paddington. We found a comfortable perch on a private mezzanine (cheers, Adam) where we could drink beers, kick back and dance to the music while looking down onto the stage. We caught both shows, but they totally lit up the old Roundhouse on Saturday night.⁴ Through time and hard work, endless touring and brilliant song writing, Wilco has molded the diffuse forces of rock’n roll into a powerful, coherent sound, a singular convergent voice.

3. Death in Vegas @Rock-en-Seine, 26.08.11 - Paris. The Château de Saint-Cloud was burned to the ground in 1871 during a French counter attack against the Prussian forces that had been occupying it, a strategic ridge and vantage point for lobbing bombs on the exposed city below. Marie Antoinette previously occupied it right up until the eve of the French Revolution. An epochal void that now casts a long virtual shadow, despite its absence, over this implausible concert site. I was not necessarily familiar with the music of Death in Vegas, but knew it would be the first time they played together in a long time. Static electric noize jams that echoed off old stone walls, the ruins, and resonating over the Seine. We were stoned and swaying in the warm midnight rain.

4. Black Keys @l’Olympia, 15.03.11 - Paris. Weary from too many shots, beers and bud, we sat in the balcony for the entire set, only to discover that this renown Parisian music hall actually has fine acoustics and comfortable seats. The duo shook the roof beams, carpenter, with thick blue riffs of molten lead.

5. Thurston Moore @Gaité Lyrique, 11.12.11 - Paris 2è. A surprisingly young crowd turned out to see a middle age white guy indie rock star. But this is not any old M.A.W.G.I.R.S., but guiding light of the band that had a big hand inventing the genre. We met a girl waiting in line for a beer. She was alarmingly garrulous and spoke to us with an impeccable North American accented English while the alleged boyfriend ignored her nearby. The Gaité Lyrique was constructed during the mid-19th century Hausmanian renovation of the congested medieval city that passed for the French capitol. The bar is in the ornamented lobby that once welcomed the gilded bourgeois that came to see Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe. We next ran into her on the roped off smoking area outside, she was getting wasted, talking compulsively about, amongst other trivia, being the only black girl at the show (which she was). The alleged boyfriend was still ignored her, smoking nearby. I was slowly becoming aware of the extent of the bad vibes in the hall, perhaps due to the weird acid that was circulating in the crowd. During the show,⁵ a rowdy audience taunted the ex-Sonic Youth guitarist, who went about his business as if he was alone in the studio, oblivious to the mounting tension. Security forces came into the audience to remove screaming, pissing, smoking kids on at least the three occasions that I actually witnessed. At the show’s conclusion, I stood in line with the alleged boyfriend in the Men’s Room, though he didn’t seem interested in using the facilities, I don’t know what he was actually doing there, zombie-like. As we were leaving, a commotion near the exit was punctuated by a girls screaming voice; we turned around to see the boyfriend-less girl pinned down to the lobby floor by three burly security guards —she put up a good fight.

6. Avi Buffalo @Point Ephemere, 8.07.11 - Paris. We thought we were arriving just on time: pickup the tickets at the door, get a beer, enjoy the show, catch a late dinner on a warm summer evening… The show wasn’t to start for another two hours. Hungry, we found an Argentinian steak house, ordered a bottle of red and settled in. Already noisy, we added to the general commotion in the restaurant by enjoying a rowdy, effusive meal with good friends, finishing in time to get a beer and enjoy the show, Avi’s first in the French capitol.

7. Jessica Lea Mayfield @Le Nouveau Casino, 31.05.11 - Paris. A few of my favorite shows a year usually take place in this room, but somehow this was the only good one I saw here in 2011.⁶ I was talking to a girl distributing handbills in front of Café Charbon about Avi Buffalo when I heard a guitar tuning up through an over modulated amp, feedback being spit out like warm beer. It was a warm May evening and the sun shined at 8pm; she was starting on time. I finally sauntered into the dark bar after hearing the opening chords of the first song. The room was nearly empty, perhaps 30 people uncomfortably standing around watching each other from the corner of their eyes. I had never seen the Nouveau Casino anything but too crowded. Strange ambience for starting a show, but this Ohio girl played like she didn’t notice. I think they’re having trouble programming this room for rock acts. Maybe next time, Paris.

8. Kurt Vile @La Maroquinerie, 23.05.11 - Paris 20è. Smoke Rings for My Halo was a winter collection of songs and it seemed almost strange to be hearing them in the early spring. The album appeared with the snapping cold air of January: the songs defined the first months of 2011 as much as the snowy winter seemed to shape the songs. I saw him in 2010, the fall in Philadelphia, before the album dropped. Though still figuring out how to perform the new songs, the band still melted eyeballs with a blistering set. The crowded room was jumping, he made us forget the cold. Despite splitting the bill with Okkervil River, who I thought I would go on first, Kurt opened the show. I left after his set, satisfied with the music⁷ and happy to meet a good friend for dinner at the Café du Sport.

9. P.J. Harvey @l’Olympia, 25.02.11 - Paris. After hearing Let England Shake I was glad to have bought tickets far in advance as it sold out quickly, and curious to hear how she would work out these new songs in concert. The impeccable song writing and precise instrumentalization of the studio was reproduced, and not reinterpreted, live. The sound seemed thin, too fragile for such muscular songs. But the songs remained the same. Immaculate.⁸

10. Colin Stetson, New History Warfare Vol.2: Judges. Indie Bebop made through unidentified brass horns.⁹

11. Quilt. In search of Tonight’s the Night, they channel Pentangle and find their groove in two part harmonies with Grace Slick timbre.

12. Thee Oh Sees, Carrion Crawler / The Dream. Lux Interior’s baby innovated and magnified by John Dwyer, 2 drummers, a bass player who wears his axe up under his chin and a psychbilly keyboards.¹⁰

13. Gonjasufi, A Sufi and a Killer. Like Beefheart with a scratch pad combined with Dr. John if he took to rappin’. Gonjasufi is living proof that California’s Proposition 215¹¹ is the wave of the future.¹²

14. Fred McDowell, Alan Lomax Recordings. Hearing this corner of Old weird America as if it is being broadcast through space and time to planet earth.¹³ “Keep your lamp trimmed and burning (don’t you worry)”.

15. The First Rock and Roll Record. “Lawdy what you’ve been doin’ to me? You got me reelin’ and a-rockin’, Just like a willow tree.”

16. Death Grips, Ex Military “I am the god of hell-fire” A free download only makes this pot sweater.¹⁴ Dark, obscure. Git it.¹⁵

17. Woods, Sun and Shade. I’ve seen them once in the past year: first in a small bar in Philly were they were fucking brilliant, everything I expected; then, in Paris 5 months later, were they screwed the pooch. I don’t know what actually happened that night, but I was embarrassed in front of the friends that I dragged out on that cold March night. They sound like a burnt out Grateful Dead cover band that couldn’t bare turning out another Uncle John’s Band but what else can they actually do? I didn’t listen to them again until this album dropped and its good enough to not forget.¹⁶

18. John Cale @La Maroquinerie, 17.10.11 - Paris.

19. Gregg Allman, Devil Got My Women.When a show was announced for Paris’ Grand Rex, the best room in the city to see a show, I gave Allman’s new album a listen and decided not to go. Except for this song, I just didn’t think he still had the chops, despite showing glimmers of his former greatness in this Skip James classic blues vamp. But a couple months after this show and having long forgotten about it, I had dinner with a friend who went and said it was canonical.¹⁷ “You gotta be in it to win it”.