Paul Thomas - Portraits of the New Subconscious @ Cine, Sat. May 24th

Paul Thomas, Athens’ very own Andy Warhol (or is it Andy Kaufman? Andy Griffith?) put on an art show at Cine that was half installation piece, half music. The portraits themselves, film loops of intense close-up faces which are then multi-exposed and slowed down, are the best thing the artist has ever done. Unsettling in their beauty, unsettling in their detail, unsettling in their lighting, unsettling in their horror, these are a long way past their most obvious historical antecedent, Warhol’s screen tests back in the sixties.

The musical accompaniment featured Thomas (maybe Andy Gibb?) and friend Christopher Ray constructing a droning atmosphere out of samples and synthesizers, which were then sped up or slowed down to match the action taking place in the center screen, which featured film trailers from the 60’s and 70’s for exploitation B-movies with titles like “Bad Girls Go To Hell” or “Deadly Weapons,” provided by Michael Oliveri. With the portraits projected on either side of the main screen, the faces seemed to change expressions in response to whatever was taking place in the movies.

So it turns out the ‘new subconscious’ is pretty similar to the old one. Sex & Violence, Tits & Death, Freud would be proud (or maybe Andy Dick?). The film trailers have more breasts than a farm of Purdue chickens, more knives than a troop of boy scouts, more violence against women than Super Bowl Sunday, more sex than a thirteen-year-old’s imagination, more rapes than Milledge Avenue during rush week, and more deaths than a Florida nursing home at Christmastime.

At the very least, it was funnier than Juno.

There were two ways to experience the show, in a 15-minute burst, or to sit through the whole 2 hours. For the people who chose the first option, they left a little more amused, a little more disturbed, and a little more entertained. For the people who stayed for the whole show, the experience gradually began to shift from entertaining to excruciating. Even Thomas (Andy Richter?) went outside halfway through the show and didn’t come back until it was over. The sheer absurdity of boob after boob, of mutilation after mutilation, eventually gave way to a kind of numbness, a blank nihilism that can’t be countered. By the end of the show, you felt like you needed a shower.


In spite of the void it portrays, or perhaps because of the void it portrays, one could argue that ‘Portraits of the New Subconscious’ does reflect what it means to be an American in early 2008--certainly more than the Don Chambers show taking place over at Tasty World the same night. After all, we are the first people to live through a war that is taking place, with the exception of the soldiers and their friends and families, primarily in our subconscious. After an hour of watching, I wanted to look away. And I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty thinking about the people who are surrounded by this every day, but who aren't able to get up and walk out of the theatre after fifteen minutes, let alone two hours.

Maybe it would sit a whole lot better if the show traded in its definite article and called itself ‘Portraits of a New Subconscious.’ Because while nobody can deny the show’s truth, it remains only a partial truth. There is a lot more to our subconscious, as well as our conscious, than blankness, boobs, and battering. Any art that suggests otherwise is only telling you half of the story.

Paul Thomas’ show Saturday night displayed his genius in full, but his most brilliant gesture of the night may have been when he got up and went outside.

The New Sound of Numbers @ Caledonia May 19th (w/Paper Tanks)

One of the most interesting bands in Athens just got a lot more interesting. The New Sound of Numbers (aka Sound Houses) unveiled their new line-up this past Monday night at the Caledonia and they were a revelation.

Past NSofN shows have been uneven, uncertain, and all too often uneventful. As someone outside the group, I have no business speculating on what’s been going on behind the scenes---and as a small, self-indulgent, non-journalistic blog, I have no business going up to anyone and asking questions--but lead NSofNumber Hannah Jones has evolved from a deer-in the-headlights performer into a more confident, self-assured front woman. She’s never going to be Bono and start swinging from the rafters, but there’s a sense of freedom and abandon in her performance that we haven’t seen before. Her vocals feel more relaxed. And to all the people who have described her singing as ‘bored,’ I know what you’re saying and why you’re saying it, but there’s a difference between sounding bored and sounding like an angel who has seen beyond the empty promises of heaven. There’s a texture in Hannah Jones’ voice now, or maybe it’s the inflection of her eyes, that says she knows exactly what she’s doing.

Previous comparisons to The Raincoats were unfair to the Raincoats. Now that comparison is unfair to The New Sound of Numbers.

The new songs reflect this growth as well. They’ve progressed from two chords in a song to three chords, and from one note melodies to two note melodies--the NSofN equivalent of adding a string section. Where previous songs seemed content to pace back and forth in a sparsely decorated room, the new ones occasionally go up and down the stairs, even if they never leave the building--let alone the neighborhood.

They played a cover of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ that made perfect sense. It sounded like a lost NSofN song, the kind of thing you can’t pull off unless you know who you are.

Reasons for growth? I blame the drummer. NSofN has turned downright groovy, becoming a dance band in the sense that Pylon is a dance band--adding Randy Bewley guitar with them means less than you think it does but more than you don‘t. The band were having so much fun playing their last song that they didn’t want to stop. This says there’s a ‘Sister Ray’ inside NSofN that is dying to get out.

But.

For a band that just overhauled their sound from an overcast afternoon into a rainbow, it’s understandable they would want to change their name. And having read the explanation--new personnel, different methods of making music, etc.--on their website I’m not going to argue on behalf of keeping their name. . .

But.

If you’re going to trade in a name that is bright, distinctive, and original you’d better come back with one better than the flat, anonymous-sounding, shittyband-reminding ‘Sound Houses’. The name comes from a phrase in a Francis Bacon essay, quoted in full on the band’s website. As a general rule, if you feel the need to explain why the name of your band is a good one, then it’s probably not as good as you think it is. It’s a shitty name because it isn’t fun to say. It’s a shitty name because it doesn’t jumpstart your imagination. It’s a shitty name because there isn’t any mystery, no sense of surprise. But ultimately, it’s a shitty name because this band deserves better.

Though it’s still better than naming your band Vic Chesnutt.

Paper Tanks went on afterwards. They want to rip open your heart and feed it to you without ever raising their voice, and they are totally fearless. If you find yourself at a show and they’re about to go on, you have a very important decision to make--not about them, but about yourself.

Going Overground with Gavin DeGraw

Gavin DeGraw's new song, "In Love With A Girl," (note the heterosexual emphasis, the posters on the walls at Abercrombie must be starting to make Gavin a little nervous) may taste like a bowl of white rice followed by a warm glass of water, but the video is the most subversive thing you're likely to see on tv this week.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ftZ0jpYdn70&feature=related

The video is divided into two overlapping sections. The part where Gavin plays the song with his band is about as worthless as you'd imagine. However, the second part tells a story about Gavin and the girl he's in love with, the girl mentioned in the title whose greatest feature, according to Gavin, is her ability to understand him--which means she's definitely smarter than I am.

The story opens with Gavin's lovegirl locking the doors to the southern California department store where she works. Throwing off her blue workapron, no longer an employee, no longer a wage-slave to whatever company she works for, she text-messages Gavin to come meet her, where they proceed to turn the after-hours store into their own personal playground.



They don’t call their friend with a van to load off thousands of dollars worth of stuff. Freed from their jobs, left in the store to do anything they want, they instantly revert to a childlike state of play. All they want from the store is the chance to goof around with the video cameras, to jump up and down on the beds and throw lots of pillows. They want to ride in shopping carts and try on sunglasses without anybody hassling or telling them to behave. We see them hugging every thirty seconds and their liberation is contagious. Even the scene in the lingerie department seems innocent. You can watch Mtv for 24 hours and not see any two people happier than this.

There’s a security guard who spends the first-half of the video sleeping. When he finally wakes up and goes looking for the kids, they evade him effortlessly. He’s part of the old order, someone who prays to the twin altars of rules & decorum. He cares a great deal about this job, about this store, about the things in this store, and his caring becomes a weight that he wears in his face, that settles in his shoes and makes him slow. Too slow to catch the kids he is chasing, who are young, free, and care about nothing except pleasure. They are beyond their parents’ world, where the value of something is defined by how much it costs. To Gavin and his girl, the only value something has is how much pleasure they can take from it. And to deny themselves the opportunity to make some money out of their situation, or to acquire some more possessions, is the greatest freedom of all.

Their parents would probably consider it insane to pass up such an opportunity. The kids probably consider it insane that their parents voluntarily dedicated their lives to working and spending, acquiring and dying, without ever learning how to enjoy themselves. Intentionally or not, Gavin DeGraw’s new video is tracing the outlines of a revolution we are still in the process of articulating--a revolution that will lead us out of the same boring circular work-spend-work-spend patterns and into a deeper and more rewarding spirit of play.



Now if his bloated corpse of a record company would just let us upload the goddamned video.

Ken Will Morton @ Craftravaganza 5/10

Best early Bob Dylan impersonation in town, right down to the capo and the metal harmonica neckbrace. The between-song jokes were funny enough to make you wonder whether he'd taken the time to write them the night before. But the jokes resonated more than the actual songs--which were sub-Dylan in their poetry, sub-Springsteen in their portrait of working-class life (apparently it involves lots of drinking), and sub-Petty in their slavish devotion to both Dylan and Springsteen. Cool converse sneakers, though. But seriously, has this guy ever been seen in a McDonald's? Does he even own a television? For a guy in his late 20's he sounds a lot like my dad.

If you love Ken Will Morton, find out when his birthday is and buy him a decent book of contemporary poetry (may I recommend The Man Suit, by Zachary Schomburg?) and any record made after 1974. For someone who so obviously loves words and music, he has a lot of catching up to do.

Tunabunny at Go Bar - 5/9

When exactly did the church behind the GoBar start charging for parking? Had to park three blocks away just to make it to the Tunabunny show last night, and only three cars even bothered using the goddamned (or it it 'godblessed'?) lot. Hope the Christians enjoy their extra fifteen dollars of income.

The whole sad waste made me feel like grabbing the nearest rock and shattering one of their tax-free stained-glass windows, but seeing Tunabunny made me glad I left those windows alone.

The bass player couldn’t decide whether he wanted to stand up or sit down. The drummer couldn’t decide if it was appropriate to use her cymbals. And the two singers couldn’t decide if they wanted to win the audience over with kindness or bash them into submission with feedback. Within thirty seconds of their first song, Tunabunny is already beyond several thousand conventions in local Athens band music. Two females (girls? Women? Babes? Chicks?) playing electric guitars? Using a synthesizer for percussion? One singer using her guitar as a hammer against her microphone stand, against the drumset, against the other singer’s guitar? And the other singer using her voice to try and shatter the windows of the bar, if not the vacant looks on the faces all around her?

With most bands, figuring out their sound is as simple as figuring out which store they came out of at the mall. Oh, that band must have gone to the alt-country store. Hey, that band must have gone to the smooth indie-rock store. But Tunabunny is a completely different animal. They seem to have gone to the mall just to pinch the mall cops and try to escape, or to beat up little kids in the arcade and take away their quarters. The kind of band who went to the mall and just decided to drift.

Tunabunny is a confusing mix of accessibility and incomprehension. A band that giggles when things aren’t going well, but inadvertently bumps into each other when they are. A band that one minute seems about to invent a new language for music, but in the next seems content to stroll through the same parks and gardens that invented them. Even at their weirdest, they still want to be loved. But even at their most conventional, they manage to sound otherworldly. In retrospect, it all seems so simple—two guitars, bass, drums, an occasional keyboard—but I can’t for the life of me tell you what they sound like or what exactly they are trying to accomplish. In the sense that it could have fallen apart at any moment—that any one person in the group may have decided to say fuck it and just walk off the stage forever—it was one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. But considering that I couldn’t look away, that my bladder was full and cramping by the third song and I never once considered heading to the bathroom until they had finished, in that sense it was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time.

And I can’t wait to see what they try to do next.