Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

The singer Morrissey has managed to maintain a significant career in popular music longer than many of his contemporaries. Thirty years on, he manages to fill concert halls with ease and has been a regular fixture in Southern California where he maintains an enthusiastic following long after his days leading the landmark 80s band, The Smiths. On Wednesday, after an originally scheduled appearance on The Jimmy Kimmel Show fell through, Morrissey and his current band were scheduled for an extra performance in Hollywood at The Music Box prior to an appearance this coming Saturday at The Shrine Auditorium. And while a Morrissey concert in Los Angeles is not unusual, and the material in the show was mostly from his most recent recordings, there was an unusual serendipity to the evening.

First off, the show at The Music Box took place directly across the street from The Pantages Theater where another 80s alternative music icon, Robert Smith and The Cure were wrapping up the third night of concerts featuring the band’s first three recordings reproduced live in their entirety. Morrissey and The Cure have a longstanding, though largely manufactured, rivalry and the singer on Wednesday couldn’t avoid taking a shot at the band on Wednesday ironically welcoming the audience to “the sunny side of the street”. But as unusual a coincidence the logistics of these two shows were, there was another, more poignant shadow cast across the performance, that of Shelagh Delaney. Delaney, the famous British playwright and author of 1958’s A Taste of Honey, has been a prominent figure as a muse or point of reference for Morrissey’s work throughout his entire career. Her neo-realist drama and frank treatment of British working class life and homosexuality fit perfectly into the cosmology of symbols that have preoccupied the intentionally ambiguous lyrics of Morrissey; and his muse even got her image placed on the cover of The Smiths’ Louder Than Bombs in 1987.


Delaney died at the age of 72 just 3 days before the performance, and although Morrissey did not mention this fact from the stage, her image haunted the entire evening. Before the vocalist and the young men who make up his current band arrived on stage, a filmed interview with a young Delaney played. Her picture remained on a screen behind the performers throughout most of the remainder of the 100-minute show. Which provided another sort of contrast. The Morrissey who appeared on Wednesday is not the effete waif many remember from the 80s but the boxer/tough man who graces the covers of his most recent recordings including Years of Refusal. The set list was taken largely from these last few recordings, and while there were some upbeat moments early on, the last third of the show was populated with a more somber, downbeat mood. After a graphic and Thanksgiving-tinged “Meat is Murder”, he moved through “Satellite”, “Scandinavia”, and “Speedway” before the encore “Still Ill”. There were no tears shed on stage. Morrissey appeared to toy with the audience at times, leering at those whose hands he’d just shaken.

In the end it was a well-played rock show. And Morrissey played every-bit the rock star even into his 50s. He tore off his shirt at the end of the evening tossing it into the audience and exposing his chest. Which might have been slightly more exciting than the life-size naked cut out (with a 45 covering his genitals) on sale at the merchandise counter in the lobby. But all the swagger and sexuality couldn’t replace the feeling of time passing for all of us. Our heroes pass on. We grow older. We hate it when our friends become successful. These themes, not unusual in Morrissey’s work, seemed more present than normal on Wednesday for a show that ended up being less about nostalgia and more about what we lose along the way.

Labels: LA Pop Music Review

That old time religion with the Scissor Sisters in Hollywood Photo: mine 2010

I wasn’t going to say anything about the Scissor Sisters performance at the Hollywood Palladium this weekend. It was a fun show from this American outfit, still greatly under-appreciated in their own country where fake TV homosexuality is more palatable to middle America than the real on stage kind. (A fact of course they happily wear on their collected sleeve.) The band is relentlessly tight and worked their way through a very rehearsed and lively set of familiar hits and songs including some from Night Work, their well received new recording. But the most interesting part, (aside from Jake Shears and Ana Matronic's increasingly hot gym bods which have definitely benefited from some attention sometime along the way) came in a mini-rant from co-lead singer Ana Matronic. Towards the end of the evening, she slammed out an undisclosed print critic for recently calling the band's current touring show “shallow.” She responded to this perceived attack by embracing the term and aligning it with an LGBT community that continues to suffer discrimination of all kinds in many places around the world. For Scissor Sisters, the feel-good party atmosphere is a refuge and validation for the like-minded in a still cruel world. So there.

Fair enough, I say. There is certainly plenty of truth to that and calling dance music “shallow” is hardly a very sophisticated or insightful critique in 2010. However, I would argue that the purported shallowness of the Scissor Sisters isn’t really the problem. The problem is that crafting dance music as a sort of "liberation theology" has been done before. Freeing your mind with your ass close behind and all this one-nation-under-a-groove business has been done far better by many others for at least 40 years. Scissor Sisters are fun and competent musicians. Their crime is not shallowness, but lack of originality. Saturday’s opening act, a solo Casey Spooner with nothing more than a gray suit and a microphone delivered more sly wit in his five or six number karaoke set with far fewer pyrotechnics. Granted, this may not be his natural state. Nonetheless, with this preview of material from his forthcoming recording Adult Contemporary, with features tracks co-written with Shears, Spooner delivered one dead pan word bomb after the next including paeans to cinnamon toast and not going out. “I don’t want to go/I just want to be invited.” And there, my friends, is a worldwide sentiment that you can relate to.

Labels: LA Pop Music Review

Tori Amos in Los Angeles
Photo: mine 2009

Tori Amos arrived in Los Angeles this week on tour for her recently released recording, Abnormally Attracted to Sin. The appearance at the Greek Theater was not sold out, and the crowd seemed more subdued than you might expect for a Friday in July. But the crowd may have presaged the show that was to follow, which featured a stripped down ensemble around Amos with only a drummer and another player for bass or guitar accompaniment. Not that Amos needs a big band to rock if she wants to, but in keeping with the times this was a simple affair focused on Amos and her prodigious talent.

And that talent, particularly for melodic hooks and songwriting, has gotten her quite far considering that her entire career has been built on the shoulders of Kate Bush more or less. Even after almost two decades and more than 10 releases, hearing Amos brings Bush to mind from her vocal approach, to her penchant for idiosyncratic imagery. There is one noticeable difference though, Amos has been prolific with her recorded output giving her more than a modest amount of superb material to choose from for a two-hour plus performance. But much like her lyrics, pronunciation, and imagery, her set list can also be unexpected. Never really interested in a greatest hits approach to anything, Tori plays what Tori wants even if its not entirely clear how it fits together. Friday did, of course, feature many tracks from Abnormally Attracted to Sin but omitted the first radio single “Welcome to England” as well as the radio friendly “Maybe California.” The material from older recordings may also have left some fans frustrated from the lack of their particular favorite track. But then again, maybe not, considering most Amos fans adore her specifically for her independent streaks.

For me, my love of Amos stems from another of her commonalities with Kate Bush – a love of the theatrical and dramatic. She knows how to make an entrance. On Friday, she appeared in a Japanese-inspired large, draped white dress with black cape hemmed high in the front above her knees, but dragging on the floor in the back. She arrived at the keyboard and struck a wide leg stance rock and roll pose with her hands in the air with her back to the audience before diving into the performance. She is meticulous and relentless, tearing through one number after another with care and attention. She spoke only once to the audience to tell a brief background story which accompanies “Mary Jane” for Sin, a song about a mother’s lack of savvy about the commonly used slang term for cannabis her son uses in a request to hold a party at home in her absence. It’s never about Amos reaching out to draw her fans in. Instead it’s about her allowing glimpses into a private world that is never made explicit to her audience, and many of her fans are those drawn to that particular chase.

As a live act, Amos is particularly interesting in her ability to present engaging versions of songs that are usually heavily produced on her recordings. Structuring her songs around her own keyboard performances, allows for easy transitions into more stripped down formats. It was a solid and very enjoyable show. There are few performers around mining the same territory these days, so an evening with Tori Amos will always tend to stand out somewhat.

Labels: LA Pop Music Review

Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke
Photo : Andreu Dalmau 2008

I’m not a big believer in the whole idea of “unfinished business,” particularly that of the psychological variety. But there is admittedly an air of this hanging around Yaz, the pop duo comprised of Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke who burned fast and bright for less than two years in the early 1980s only to leave a huge mark on electronic dance music. I should hope they still see significant residual checks from this activity considering how much these handful of songs continue to show up on the radio and elsewhere years later. Unlike more typical reunion or flashback tours, the current Yaz shows in the U.S., of which the third show wrapped up here in L.A. on Friday, are somewhat unique in that the band never allowed themselves the opportunity to tour here outside of New York before. So, now 25 or so years later, they are back, older and wiser no doubt, in support of a new box set of their recordings avec DVD.

At least on Friday, time seemed to have treated them well. The original block-rocking beats are still there but in more substantial forms than their sometimes thinner edged precursors. Of course, both of these artists are performing after significant post-Yaz careers, which also must be taken into account. Clarke’s years of papier-maché gay disco with Erasure thankfully recede into the mist with Moyet’s far more substantial vocals. There was a huge and rather impressive light and video element to the production that was a plus and suggested that the pair had decided that, if they were going to do this, they were going to put some real effort into it.

But most of all, it looked like they were having a blast. Moyet glowed throughout as if amazed that this were really happening. I think the audience shared some of that amazement as well. I can’t recall the last time I heard a crowd scream so long and loudly. I would think that it’s just my getting older, but looking around I seemed to fit the average age for the room. Apparently the very long wait for this show to happen here in this city was as exciting off as it was on stage. It was a great show. Sure, there were no surprises, and you can predict the set list in your head with no effort, but it was more than just nostalgia. Far from seeming like another tour milking old history for dollars on the road, these Yaz concerts, which will continue throughout America over the next two weeks, are something else. It was a great show. Whether or not it’s unfinished business I guess is up to you.

Labels: LA Pop Music Review