4.10.2008 l Gnarls Barkley at The Highline Ballroom

Back at the Highline last night, this time for Gnarls Barkley and Santogold (official site/myspace here and here, respectively).

Since I've seen a few shows at the Highline Ballroom now, at both ends of the "show" spectrum (full band rock shows and quiet, intimate acoustic shows), I feel that I can make a qualified judgement on the quality of the venue. That said, while the Highline is awesome if you want to pay $7 for a can of Rolling Rock, it's still a pretty good place to see a concert. Better than a lot of other similar places. But I digress.

Santogold was good, and while it's tough for me to really comment on her performance (and cite song titles - can't find a set list), I can say without hesitation that the first, second, and last songs were terrific. Seriously, she was tough to categorize. She performed with two back-up singers/dancers and a DJ in what I guess I could describe, stylistically, as fusion R&B/Soul/Hip-Hop...ish. Her myspace calls it New Wave/Dub/Psychobilly. You say tomayto, I say tomahto. She was a good choice to open, and her performance was intriguing enough that I'd go out of my way to learn more. She had a great voice.

That brings me to the real draw - obviously, Gnarls Barkley. I should preface this by saying that Gnarls could pack a much larger place than this one without any problems, so the fact that I was able to snag one spot here is actually pretty amazing. Nevermind the fact that this was, in Cee-lo's own words, an "overpaid dress rehearsal" (the dress, in this case, being a white leisure suit and an impressive black pompadour-style wig) - it's their first concert following the release of The Odd Couple last week, and the first time a lot of the new songs have been played live. Here's the set list, courtesy of Brooklyn Vegan (a great site, incidentally. You can go there for another review of the show and a lot of great pictures too!):

Charity Case

Surprise

Gone Daddy Gone

Run (I'm A Natural Disaster)

Who's Gonna Save My Soul?

Just A Thought

Going On

Boogie Monster

Whatever

Storm Coming

Crazy

A Little Better

=========

Blind Mary

Smiley Faces

I think the reason I was as excited as I was for this show was for the same reason I was so keen to finally see Chris Cornell last spring - I had to be sure that the voice that I attribute on the records to Cee-lo Green actually issued from a human being. Really, it's that good. And what's better (and this can't be said of a lot of my favorite performers), he can deliver live. His vocals were spot-on, and considerably more incendiary than they are on the album (hard to believe). The set they played was strong, too - it affirmed my rarely-expressed but long-held belief that if an album is great, it's usually even better live. The highlights - by a healthy margin - were "Run," "Crazy," and "A Little Better." I was pleasantly surprised to find a newfound appreciation for the songs "Blind Mary" and "Whatever" (which were, as you might recall, my two least favorite songs on Odd Couple. They're actually still my two least favorite songs, but I like them more now that I've seen them live. I was pretty ecstatic to hear "Storm Coming" (still my favorite song) and "Smiley Faces" was a great way to close the show. The band (including Danger Mouse) was practiced and comfortable with the new material. They put out on a great performance.

In the coming months/years/whatever, I think it will be pretty rare that most people will get the opportunity to see Gnarls Barkley in as cozy a setting as The Highline. We were ten feet from the stage. However, regardless of the venue....see 'em. Do it. It's really good.

Minutia, and an Idea

So I wrote a Gnarls Barkley review. It's under this post. I added some links. I'm gonna write about how great they are, and why they are as great as they are, some other day. I removed some stupid, melodramatic posts from a couple of years ago, in case people actually start coming here. No one wants to read that. Since I deleted those two posts, I also want to point out that the title of this blog is from a Matt Good song, "Near Fantastica" on Avalanche. It's a good song. Pun possibly intended.

This morning, I was sitting on the subway, on my way to work, when I had a fantasy/daydream/vision/whatever which may just point me towards my true calling.

I want to start a Tom Petty cover band.

I think this pretty much encapsulates the degree of fame or notoriety that I crave. I want to play and sing in a Tom Petty cover band. We'd play at bars around Brooklyn. Maybe we'd peek our heads out into Manhattan occasionally. We'd be popular because Tom Petty writes great pop and rock songs (which is the hard part) and our perfomance would be solid.

In keeping with typical cover band form of deriving the name from some aspect of the original band - like a play on the name, or one of their songs or lyrics - we'd be called The Insiders, after the duet Petty did with Stevie Nicks. It's a good song, and it would be a staple of our repertoire, assuming I could find someone to sing with me.

And I would sing. In high school, at nearly every show we did, we played a little-known Tom Petty song called "Crawling Back To You." Little-known referring here to us, mainly. And Jon and Ryan were the only ones who really liked it. This song (and the one or two other Petty songs we attempted but never really played) was pretty much my domain - I would sing Tom Petty. Ryan and Keith sang everything else. I hope it was because I was good at singing Tom Petty. I still think I'm good at it. Obviously, we'll find out when I start the band. We'll play that song too.

I thought about what we'd play. He's got a lot of hits, and a lot of terrific songs that weren't huge hits. It would have to be a decent retrospective of Tom Petty's career, but we'd have to stay current, since he's still releasing albums. I might try to bookend the set chronologically (play a few early songs at the beginning, later songs towards the end) although the main portion of it would not organized as such. A typical set list might look a little something like this:

Anything that's Rock'n'Roll

Breakdown

Honey Bee

American Girl

Free Fallin' (We're playing at a bar. We'd get kicked off if we didn't play it)

You Don't Know How It Feels

Out In Cold

Walls (it was a hit from the movie "She's The One")

Jammin' Me

I Won't Back Down

Runnin' Down A Dream

Saving Grace (as of now, it's his most recent hit, so it would be fairly fresh on people's minds)

Encore! (Although there likely wouldn't be an encore, because we'd be background music at a bar until people see how great we really are)

Insider (BAM - assuming I can find someone to sing Stevie Nicks' part)

Mary Jane's Last Dance (off-topic - I once saw a video of a guy with no arms playing this song on the guitar with his feet)

But there's plenty more to choose, and we'd obviously take requests too. The good thing about his brand of simple, stripped down rock is that it's not particularly difficult to pull off. In fact, the only thing I think we'd have to pass on is "Don't Come Around Here No More" - simply because it requires a lot of work. I, along with a lot of other people, love that song, of course - but the synthy instrumentation, vocal pyrotechnics, and lady backup singers would be hard to do well.. The important thing is for a cover band is to do justice to the source material. We won't be able to take too many liberties, for the most part.

I really think this could work. I'm the only member so far though. Maybe Ian would be my drummer.

Gnarls Barkley l The Odd Couple

Disclaimer: Zomg, an honest attempt at a credible album review!

After two days of assimilation, I'm listening to the new Gnarls Barkley record for perhaps the tenth time through. I figured this would be a good time to set down my thoughts about it for two reasons:

1. No time like the present.

2. I just got a tingle from "Run (I'm A Natural Disaster)"

3. I'm at work. If I write these things in Outlook, I still seem busy.

So, three reasons.

I had pretty high expectations for this album going in - St. Elsewhere, their 2006 debut, was one of my three favorite albums of that year - strong, catchy, and consistent. I'm happy to say that, all in all, The Odd Couple is a worthy successor. Cee-lo and Danger Mouse have done it again.

Even after repeated listens, it's difficult to judge the better songs against the first album, which I've had two years to digest, because the novelty throws me off - I'm so familiar with the old songs that I derive an entirely different kind of enjoyment from hearing them. Additionally, the songs on the first record that struck me as "bad" initially (only a couple - like "Gone Daddy Gone") I've long since started to enjoy. So even then, things are subject to change - so "bad" songs on The Odd Couple might not strike me as bad a few months down the road. I only write this because there are about three times as many "bad" songs here - which is to say three. Art is subjective. The album is still really good.

In fact, it starts off strong - the first four songs are terrific, and include the aforementioned single "Run." They effectively recall the energy and groove of opening tracks of St. Elsewhere. Track three, "Going On" emerges (still!) as the hands-down winner, hitting the listener (well, this listener) the same way that "Smiley Faces" and "Storm Coming" did the first time around. "Open Book" manages the same slow, unsettling crawl that characterized one of my favorite songs, "Necromancer" (and does so more successfuly than what might be considered that songs successor, "Would-Be Killer"). Mixed in with the other highlights of the record - which include "Surprise" and "Neighbors" - are the other two (present) disappointments, "Whatever" and "Blind Mary, songs I can only describe as clowny and kind of dumb. It closes incredibly well, with "A Little Better," an excellent song that has no real analog on the first one - just a good, solid, catchy song.

The Odd Couple has a lot to live up to. Gnarls Barkley's first single two years ago, "Crazy," was huge, and deservedly so. All in all, St. Elsewhere did what many might consider to be impossible - it offered a fresh, eclectic, new take on pop music. This record upholds St. Elsewhere's legacy admirably, with great music and very few low points. It's definitely something that any fan of the band can get behind.

A-.

Gnew Gnarls Barkley Album out today!

I'll be back later with more.

Happy April 1st. Don't go to Adam's web site.