Monday, July 09, 2007

string + cheese, incident free

Date: 7/8/07
Location: The Abbey Pub
Bands: Jana Hunter and Rasputina
Cost: $15
Drinks: Too hot/fat/poor to drink today
Things I missed to be there: Child Pornography, Yvonne DQ, Bret Gand is Dead, and Happy Feet at the Boris Kar-Loft
Reason for going: Scammed my way onto the list





"So Adolph Hitler walks into a doctor's office and says 'Every time I give one of my impassioned adressed to the Fatherland, I find that I cannot get an erection afterwards,' to which the doctor replies, 'Adolph, if you were able to get an erection, you would probably not be able to deliver your speeches with as much power or feeling,' and it's right around the point where the joke falls apart."

I'm not sure if Melora Craeger's between-song non-sequitirs are part of the shtick, a defense mechanism against normal stage banter, or just something she found that works for her. They certainly fit with the persona she's developed for herself, which is some kind of Victorian mental patient.

It was weird being at a regular concert. The type of place where people yell out "Freebird!" and song requests whenever there's a half-second of pause for them to fill. It was weird to see how the internet can ruin a surprise, too, once a band has gotten big enough for people to seek them out on it. The crowd cheered when Melora announced that she was going to play "one of the classical compositions the band was so fond of as they learned to play their cellos," not out of some cello-dork fondness for Berlioz,Tchaikovsky or Paginini, but because the band was about to launch into the Heart song "Barracuda", and they knew it, because they'd seen it on youtube.

I drifted out of love with Rasputina after 1999's How We Quit the Forest, choosing to cling to their debut Thanks for the Ether and occasionally dust off their EP, and otherwise moved on. Die-hards swear by the Forest album, though, and I'm willing to give it another chance. The band has released six or seven albums since I left off, and in a set spanning all of them, didn't send out a single clunker.

Of course, this is totally my bag right now, scumbag Brecht, and Victoriana by way of Vaudeville. I've been dipping my beak a bit heavily lately in the guilty pleasure cabaret rawk of the Dresden Dolls, World/Inferno Friendship Society, and the Tiger Lillies. It's almost a shame that Rasputina peaked so early alongside Marilyn Manson ten years ago. They would have fit in perfectly with Josephine Foster and the section of the freak-folk movement that fancies her collection of 19th century German folk ballads. By that same token, they would have been a force to be reckoned with if they'd come up alongside the Dresdens, with their lyrics emblazoned across the backpacks and myspace pages of every alternateen from here to Timbuktu. Unfortunately, neither group is going to take them seriously as long as the only people carrying the torch are overage American Lolita Goths and black t-shirted kids in cutter bracelets.

So the band takes a cue from George Bush, who they call out on a couple of political tracks on their newest album, and play to their base, even if that base wants nothing to do with the complex songs of a flairless singer like opener Jana Hunter. It's not all their fault. Jana Hunter was boring as shit. Of course, you got the impression that Jana couldn't pull it together because the crowd couldn't give a shit, but you also kinda felt that her music would have sounded much more interesting on cd than it would have in person.

One good thing about the Abbey, with it's obnoxious doormen, shitty location, and totally wack prices, is that they have a competent sound guy. Nearly any other venue in town and the band would have sounded like horseshit, and it's not just because the majority of the city's soundguys have never miked a cello before, but because the band's songs are so concurrently soft and aggressive, and played in a way that's so distinctive it can only sound like Rasputina, and very few other bands have taken on that sound because, for all the reasons you've read above... who would want to?

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