Grinderman KILLED at Slim's
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Artist:
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Album:
Grinderman
(Slim's, San Francisco CA, 07/27/07)
"Holy shit!" That's what I find myself saying out loud at least half a dozen times throughout Grinderman's utterly primal performance. The long review I wrote follows in the comments. Its bottom line: A memorable showcase of raw musical synergy which had moments of perfection in the art of dissonant noise.
(Slim's, San Francisco CA, 07/27/07)
"Holy shit!" That's what I find myself saying out loud at least half a dozen times throughout Grinderman's utterly primal performance. The long review I wrote follows in the comments. Its bottom line: A memorable showcase of raw musical synergy which had moments of perfection in the art of dissonant noise.
Comments (13)
As Grinderman take the stage, they without further ado take the audience with the hypnotic opening chords and Nick Cave's hissing vocals on "Grinderman". I can't say how the intimate feeling that I experience about seven layers from the stage compares with the previous night's show at the Great American Music Hall. (Tickets for it sold out while I was touristeering in London.) But, although the sound at Slim's tends to be more murky and Grinderman had various technical difficulties with guitar amps and feedback, in certain respects the dingier Slim's feels like a better fit for Grinderman's hirsute look and virile, aggressive sound. The band's division of labor is clear. Sclavunos and the bassist Martyn Casey keep a burning groove going for the duration of the two-hour set. The hairy multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis looks deranged, alternately plucking and sawing on an electric violin while furiously kicking cymbals or producing piercing notes from small five-string electric instruments that are built to resemble such guitars as Gibson Thunderbird but (I'm pretty sure) are tuned like a banjo. And Nick Cave radiates manic energy in his Fu Manchu mustache, alternately bludgeoning the crowd with bashing keys or a squalling guitar (no virtuosity there!) or flailing his wiry frame at the edge of the stage while barking wildly into the microphone. Grittiness and intensity, not precision and refinement, are words of the day.
These sights alone would have made for an exhilarating night. But Grinderman do one better, re-interpreting many of their numbers to reveal hidden aspects in them. If "Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)" and "Depth Charge Ethel" have self-possessed fury on record, here they are outright cacophonic. If "Man In The Moon" is gentle on record, here it is a pinnacle of concentrated grace. If "(I Don't Need You To) Set Me Free" is propulsive but restrained on record, here it inundates the audience with a massive flow of vocal harmonies on the title line. Finally, if the set closer "No Pussy Blues" is a monolith of raunchy dirge on record, here it is intensely restrained and melancholic through the protagonist's repeated woes of "She didn't want to", given a whimpering, agonized expression by Cave, until the band simply explodes into a crazed, howling, moaning refrain of the song's title line.
Having run out of Grinderman songs, Cave announces at the outset of the first encore that "We can play some Bad Seeds songs" (I shout for "Figure of Fun" by The Birthday Party, but no love there). We get treated to a gentle rendition of "Lucy" and a straightforward version of "The Ship Song" on which Cave plays rhythm guitar instead of piano. "Red Right Hand" isn't much more aggressive than how The Bad Seeds often do it, since it's one of the songs where The Bad Seeds balls-out rock, but it's captivating all the same (and I'm not one of those who needs to hear that particular song).
By far the best moments of the lengthy encore, however, are the absolutely stunning versions of "Henry Lee" and "The Weeping Song" done in Grinderman style. Many holy shits indeed. (I can only drool thinking about what a Grinderman style "I Let Love In" would have sounded like.) "Henry Lee" opens the encore, nearly doubling the tempo and squaring the angularity from how The Bad Seeds do it. The raw and electrifying power of "The Weeping Song" is beyond my powers of description.
We certainly don't weep for long, as Cave then announces "How can we come to America and not play 'Tupelo'? In fact, we may have to leave America because we played 'Tupelo'." And so they play "Tupelo" with all the fury that you can imagine, and I think to myself, that's it for the night. Except it's not. Another five minutes and Grinderman climb back on the stage and introduce a couple of friends for backing vocals duty on "Oh Deanna". These friends happen to be Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra! The rendition itself is loose, but everyone's having a good time and it's a sated crowd that disperses into the night.
A memorable showcase of raw and unrelenting musical synergy which had moments of perfection in the art of dissonant noise.