Saturday 9th, April 2005
In Concert: New Model Army, Robyn Hitchcock, Dogs Die in Hot Cars and Baka Beyond02:38:48 PMFour really good shows in the last month (or so) to write a little about.
So I get these little email notices from the various music venues in D.C., and one of them listed Robyn Hitchcock in the subject line.
When I read the whole message, I also saw that New Model Army would be playing at a venue called the Black Cat and that Robyn would be playing there a few weeks later.
When I was at WXYC, we got the record "Ghost of Cain" from New Model Army, and I liked this record quite a bit. This would have been 1984 or 1985 I guess. When I started radio hidebound I picked up that record and a couple of others from them to put on the station. They're all quite good.
I was really surprised to see that they'd be playing in D.C. and really happy about that too. Their gig was the first time I'd been to the Black Cat, and although I'd heard less than rave reviews of the place, I thought it was a pretty good venue. I was a both excited and a little anxious to see New Model Army. My girlfiend Aissa, who didn't know anything about them, came with me, and there's really nothing worse than taking a friend to a gig which sucks, but I shouldn't have worried. New Model Army was just great. They sounded BIG. If you go to shows much, you'll know what I mean here. Some bands just sound a bit wimpy when they do a show, but New Model Army filled the entire Black Cat with their stuff.
A couple of weeks later, Aissa and I go to see Robyn Hitchcock at the Black Cat. I cannot describe my love for Robyn Hitchcock. He's so true and weird - and belive me, when I use that word it is almost always a great compliment. But Robyn is one of the weirdest. What's sad is that he's only 'weird' because pretty much everybody else is just so freaking boring and frankly, not saying very much. I haven't kept up with many of Robyn's most recent recordings, so I figured I wasn't going to recognize many of the songs he played, but to my surprise I did recognize more than I didn't, and of course he played one of my all-time faves of his, "My Wife and My Dead Wife" and and another oldie but a goodie with "Listening to the Higsons" (I still don't know what the fuck 'gotta let this hen out' means . . . ) and fortunately he eventually satiated one the most insistent (and annoying) of those people in the audience who shout out requests by playing "Serpent at the Gates of Wisdom".
And then there was his storytelling/banter. I'm guessing some of his chatter is somewhat rehearsed, but sometimes when he gets into the middle of one of his oddball, yet frightenly pertinent, observations it's almost like watching someone having some kind of out of body experience. He just goes to some place where he is the only inhabitant and then comes back to join everyone else. There was one about Karl Rove and emperor penguins that was just priceless. As was his description of the two types of songs. One kind says, "Fuck Me" and the other says, "Fuck Off" and the best combine the two. Hilarious.
Last week Aissa called me at work all excited about this new band playing at the 9:30 club that night, Dogs Die in Hot Cars, who she had heard on some [other] Internet radio station (hmmmmphhh). Some of the folks on an XTC message board I visit from time to time had been discussing Dogs Die for awhile, so the name was familiar to me and I kinda wanted to go see what all the hubbub was about. These guys are really, really good. Hearing the singer I could understand why there might be the XTC references, but both of us felt like there was another more pronounced influence.
Talking Heads. Talking Heads '77 to be precise. Not that the lads and lass in Dogs Die were trying to sound like Talking Heads, but it was not possible to not think about TH listening to, and more so watching, them. Great, great stuff. I bought their CD at the show and will be adding much of it to radio hidebound in the coming weeks (there's only one song on the CD I don't really like).
That brings us to last night. Baka Beyond played at my workplace, the National Geographic Society. Way back in the early 80's I started hearing some African music make it's way into what some call Western Music. It probably started with XTC's "English Settlement", but took on more substance with Peter Gabriel's fourth record and with Peter's music festival WOMAD (World of Music and Dance). Not long after, a couple of Afican bands, Juluka and Toure Kunda, showed up the in the WXYC rotation boxes. I fell in love with this stuff and from time to time I'll pick up something which I think might be of a similar thing, like Geoffrey Oreyma. One of the CDs I bought a few years ago because of this was "Journey Between" from Baka Beyond. I really like this disc, proudly play some of it on radio hidebound, and kept meaning to get some more of their discs.
It was great to see that they were going to play at the place where I work. The story of Baka Beyond is that an English couple saw a television programme (they were English, after all) about the Baka forest people of Southeast Cameroon and decided to go live with them for several weeks. Baka Beyond comprises musicians from England, France, Cameroon, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Ghana (among other African nations). They fuse the music of the Baka people with some "old-school" Celtic stuff for this amazing sound. Their show last night was fabulous. I have a soft spot for percussionists, and Nii Tagoe from Ghana was absolutely amazing. He put this little talking drum under his armpit, started playing it and prancing around the stage. Oh, I wish you could have been there! Great, great stuff.
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Comments :
1. George in DeeCee11/23/2005 02:36:32 PM
Listening to The Higsons
One night in November
And I thought I heard them singing
Sing "I gotta let this hen out"
http://www.jh3.com/robyn/base/song.asp?squid=377#LYRICS
He seems to be razzing the band a bit. "They eat a lot of porridge" indeed.
Now here's a question. In "Sometimes I Wish", is he really singing "so I could recce myself in the shower"? ("Wreck" makes no sense atall, not even in a Robyn kind of way.) And does that mean what I think it does in English English?
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