live review - justice yeldham - majestic dwelling of doom 8/27/10
“Merde!” In 1896 this opening line to Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu Roi echoed through a Paris Theater. In case you do not speak french or have never seen a Godard film, the word means "shit," which is exactly what quickly hit the fan that evening. Upon hearing the utterance, the crowd ignited into a flame of critical brutality-- to do a thing as bold as cursing in a public performance was simply unheard of in civilized society at that time, and the patrons revolted, storming the stage and burning the place down. In the past century or so we have obviously moved into a different level of acceptance when dealing with artistic expression, but there are still hidden corners of the planet where art is being produced with the same intentions as Jarry's, namely to shock and assault the audience for the betterment of all involved. Friday night’s show at The Majestic Dwelling of Doom by Australia's Justice Yeldham was a night that I won’t soon forgot and has left me with many unanswered questions about what to expect from a musical performance, especially when a performance becomes hi-jacked as this one did.
I arrived fairly late to show, around midnight, and I stepped up to find the usual cast of characters socializing outside along with some unseen faces. Some of those faces were very fresh faced, yet any innocence that these young-uns carried in would be dismantled within the next 45 minutes. After making the rounds, a sound of indecipherable electronic screeches began to pulsate from the revolving doors of the Doom manner. Time to party.
As with most acts like Justice that I have minuscule to no knowledge of, I did as little research as possible before stepping in, purposely avoiding the Weekender post, which was very hard to do. I like to be surprised. I entered into an already crowded room with the fanatical noise heads and curiosity seekers perched as safely close to Justice as possible. Laid before him was a multitude of effects and distortion pedals which he knelt before like a priest before the altar. Pressed firmly against his face was a piece of glass which he played by the way of screams, moans and a contact mic.
The music was not discernible from most extreme noise that I experience. In my post a few days ago over the Dharma/Pocket Change I spoke of the control that an artist can exude in the face of seeming chaos. There is a sense of safety one experiences as an audience member when in the hands of a confident, focused performer, and this is what kept Yeldham's performance, essentially a man chewing on glass, from being a freakish oddity and instead rendered it a piece of art to absorbed. The music was intense and hypnotic. Watching him play this instrument, seeing and not understanding the way he created the caustic sound that filled the basement, was an experience unlike any other. The looks of delight and energy the audience was giving off kept the affair a communal one, the synergy at noise shows is unrivaled.
You could tell by the degeneration of the glass that the spirited but exhausting final stabs were meant to bring a close to the powerful performance. Then a challenger entered the ring. The man who in hazy retrospect must have been 7 feet tall looked like a rejected Street Fighter character from an Alabama meth-farm with his tattered sweat pants and natty dreaded (or just unwashed) locks. By this time most of the curiosity seekers had exited, leaving a group of about 30 or so to finish out the set. It was quickly apparent to the audience that this guy was either part of the performance or here to upstage it. After much reflection and Internet research, I’m still not totally sure one way or another.
His initial enthusiasm was not out of the ordinary for a wasted noise dedicate, but I think he knew that he had missed most of the performance and therefore needed to make up for some lost time. From his pants he pulled out something sharp that from my vantage point 3 feet away seemed to be a razor blade. As if in a trance he began to slide the edge across his forehead, each slice about a inch in length. There was a moment of clarity at witnessing this almost ritualistic exercise, and I watched in awe as the blood began to flow from the wounds and drip into small puddles upon the floor. The noise blocked out any sort of rational thoughts I could have in the immediacy of that moment. I stood there enraptured by the combination of wonderment and fear that rushed through my veins as the events unfolded in real time.
“I hate you!!!” screams Yeldham as he raised his instrument above his head and brought it down with brute force upon the devoted fan’s skull, sending glass in all directions (luckily by this time most people had made their way far from him). He smelled really bad too. The impact of glass on skull obviously didn’t help the fresh wounds which continued to ooze all over himself and the basement, making the place looking like a crime scene. As everyone made a beeline for the exit I saw Yeldamn take the man and give him a very cautious hug. This sight gave me relief from the tension balled up in me that I was unable to identify at the time, but now attribute to the joy of knowing I had just witnessed a finely orchestrated performance by, if not rehearsed, a dedicated visual artist committed to pushing the boundaries of violence, music, performance and the role of audience members. I would later find I was wrong.
“I challenged the Train, and the train won!” Our mystery man belted out before exiting the performance . I scanned the damaged that had taken place, not taking any pictures out of fear they might be confiscated later by police as evidence. There was a certain transcendental awe that swept up over my body, facilitated by alcohol consumption, that I had to snap myself out of in order to head out side and get away from the smell of sulfur.
As I exited the space I could already hear the rumblings of what had happened amongst the patrons that spend their entire time out side. I was jumping from conversation to conversation trying to put together the pieces from fragmented re-tellings. I heard talk of him being a schizophrenic who was suffering from a break down, that he had to be pulled off the train tracks earlier when going head to head with it and that he may have also shoved glass up ass earlier in the evening. All of which I found out later to be true. Then my investigation was suddenly interrupted and the story quickly became all too clear.
“I HAVE SEX WITH CHILDREN EVERY NIGHT!” Without having to give a second thought to who it might be, I turned around to see the man taking the pew to deliver his sermon of delirium. “I will destroy you Zionist” he began to scream at the young men trying to reason with him. “..but I am an Atheist man!” You really think that is going to help, buddy? This quickly escalated to the guy grabbing these guys by the collar and in case you forgot, all the while still dripping blood. This change of scene plus the impending police sirens coming down the road let me know it was time to gather my posse and get the fuck out of there.
After finally finding my queasy compadres, we headed across the street to the car. By this time the police had already arrived, and this mythical beast that was thundering around minutes earlier was now subdued by the fuzz to a mere mortal like the rest of us. Turning away from that sad scene I saw Justice crossing the street at the same time as me. “great set, I really enjoyed it” I told him with a smile and a non cynical thumbs up. He looked at me and for a brief second the worry and concern that was all over his face dropped and he acknowledged the compliment and quickly went back on his way.
What a night. I know that this review spent more time speaking of a crazy dude instead of the music which was the centerpiece of the show, but to me it is all one in the same. Jarry would be proud.
post script - Big shout outs go to Natalie V Davila, the Doom crew and Rob Buttrum who put their necks on the lines and clean up blood to bring us great shows like this. Thanks to Bradley Santulli for the video.
I hate to self importantly inundate you with our various press profiles of late, but we are surprised at the amount of interest ever since we announced our imminent finale. You may be surprised to see that we did an interview with The Dallas Observer's Pete Freedman for their DC 9 At Night blog. Freedman starts off by stating:
For the past five years, We Shot JR, for better or worse, has been a fairly prominent player in the local music scene...
What do you all think? Has it been for the better? Or for worse?
Also, bummed to hear about the once-ample parking available at the Phoenix Project, having to be done away with. Click here to read why.
FRIDAY
Black Friday With Anthony Stanford | Keith P | Ben White (Fallout Lounge)
Justice Yeldham | Solypsis | Drums Like Machine Guns | Heavy Medical | Depths/Filth | Ascites (Doom): You may have heard of Justice Yeldham. He's mostly known for his technique of shouting into, and on, and...through a sheet of amplified glass, which often cuts him, and leaves him bloody at the end of a performance. He represents everything that annoys, bothers, or scares people about this type of music and performance, and then goes beyond all of that even. I would actually love to see this show. I have always enjoyed the videos and recordings, but I pass out if I nick myself shaving. I may just have to stomach it, because this seems lie the best lineup all weekend.
This show also marks the birthday of House Of Tinnitus-organizer and Lychgate noisemaker, Rob Buttrum, who helped put this show on at The Majestic Dwelling of Doom, so wish him a Happy Birthday. His shows have been a joy to see over the years and I have always found his aesthetic filter to be one of the most discriminating, as well as one of the most intelligent in the area. He's always been one of those people so rare in any music community; someone that knows how to say that all-too powerful and seldom uttered word: "No." Happy Birthday, Rob. You completely fucking rule.
ADD: Rodrigo Diaz/Oleg B (The Cavern-upstairs-) SATURDAY Drug Mountain | Dust Congress | Daniel Francis Doyle | Drink to Victory (Rubber Gloves) This is Drug Mountain's last show, and that's a shame, but at least this lineup is completely solid. Unfortunately, I believe they are almost completely sold-out of their twelve inch, if not just a handful of copies shy.
El Cento | Orange Peel Sunshine | Les Americains | Diamond Age (Kessler) The description on the invite mentions something about Diamond Age being a "self-contained" project, implying a solo project, and if that's the case I really want to see how this is pulled off. I keep missing this guy.
Good news, losers-- our good friends over at Fun Fun Fun Fest, who we've been working with ever since the first edition of the festival a few years ago, have been nice enough to give us two passes to the festival to pass along to you. So, all you have to do to win is to re-tweet our post about Fun Fun Fun Fest, or, if you don't have a Twitter account, simply email us at weshotjrtix@yahoo.com with your full name in the email body and "Fun Fun Fun Fest" as the subject. You have until Tuesday at 5pm to enter, so get to it!
A lot of people have expressed concern that they won't know "where to find shows" now that We Shot JR is going away, however, I have an answer, though a slightly complicated one, and everyone that has ever said "Let me Google that for you" should go ahead and just jump off of Reunion Tower and do us all a favor.
I recently did an interview* with Pegasus News about the site ending, and I mentioned after the interview that I had missed their old calendar listings for some time now, since I thought they did away with their old calendar format. Well, apparently, I have just been overlooking the placement of the calendar after they did a site redesign a while back. So, stupid me, and of course, many of you will agree with that sentiment. Sure, it's not perfect, and it's best for listing big touring shows, but it's one of the easiest and most concise show listings available for DFW events, and it has quite often surprised me with the things I have overlooked. Special thanks to Pegasus News managing editor Sarah Blaskovich. Click here.
Also, you should always check both Dallas Hardcore and Dallas Dance Music for shows that you won't find in a lot of the traditional media outlets, and especially for events that take place at spots where they may only have a show once every six months, or even never again.
*Do I sound like a total pacifist in the interview? I didn't mean to. I don't know how I feel about that. The shows:
Teenage Cool Kids | Mind Spiders | St. Dad | Best Fwends (Rubber Gloves): I'm guessing this might be one of your last chances to see Teenage Cool Kids for quite some time, so I would go ahead and make it out if possible. I have seen different things listed as to who is actually playing tonight in different places for this show, but hey, all that usually means is that everyone is so excited to go that they start making up dream lineups in their heads and posting them. St. Dad's vocals have the taunted little brat sound that I wish the Strange Boys had stuck with, but I understand. Many bands start with a good gimmick, and you're second act is often to grow out of it. I was pretty struck by this band actually. Best Fwends are a group that once made a recording engineer I know remark that they "are everything wrong with music today." That actually made me like them more. That was during their ipod/rap/a capella phase, but last time I saw them they had a full rock lineup and played a pretty spot-on version of "March Of The Pigs" that everyone liked ironically except that Gutterth guy. Mind Spiders is a local band that released a record through Dirt Nap but nobody has really covered them yet. Weird. I assume that will change soon.
TCK's Andrew Savage was working on a an actual physical zine called "Wild Style" and I hope that I get to see a copy of that before he's off to New York.
80/s Night: La Discoteca D'Italia with Anthony Stanford | Yeah Def (Hailey's): I don't know if this is every week, but I would love to have a place to hear Italo on a regular basis, and unfortunately there has been somewhat of a void with deep-cut, non-John Hughes 80's stuff since DJ G left. Looks like Yeah Def is still on-board, and I hope the theme is permanent.
I hate it when shows this good happen in Dallas and not Denton. The best dream-pop show of the summer. At least I got the opportunity to post the Outer Limits cover which was something I hoped to accomplish before the end came. Very recommended if you like the same stuff I do but are afraid to admit it out of fear being made fun of.
Through out John Cale's long and lustrous career the rock god has released live albums that are not just live performance of old recordings but fully realized albums of their own. This particular recording just barely beats out Sabotage/Live for the coveted spot of favorite live album, with Fragments from a Rainy Season coming in a close second. These recordings stem from 1978 and 79 - depending on who you ask - but was not "officially" released until the very limited CD run in 1987.
Cale is of course know for his avant garde leaning when approaching pop music, but the album is much heavier on the Avant side. The songs here had all been unreleased up to this point, except of course for Helen of Troy which features a BRUTAL performance on the guitar by Ritchie Fliegler as he out Fripps Chris Spedding's original performance. The over the top theatrics of opener Dance of the Seven Veils features Judy Nylon on vocals who he had collaborated previously with on one of my favorite fun Cale tracks The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy. The ballad Don't Know Why She Came stands beside I Keep a Close Watch and I'm Not the Loving Kind as one of his finest.
While this live recording is not as beautifully poetic as the minimalistic Fragments From a Rainy Season or as full on punk rock as Sabotage/Live or as lounge room sleazy as John Cale Comes Alive (boy that's a weird one!) but I think this one one works best as a synchronization of all the aspects of Cale that make him the performer I adore so.
This is the CD version of the album, unfortunately the record is one of the few missing spots in my 23 LP Cale collection. The LP features a couple more tracks one of which is Jack the Ripper. I went ahead and included the studio version featured on the Island Years collection because it is a damn fine song and should be heard.*
Since the blog is coming to end I'm going to try and keep these coming every Tuesday until we officially call it quits and I might even throw in some fun extras like the big block of text you see below. This is a review I wrote after seeing the man, one of heroes, live for the first time. Just thought you would like to see that my annoying writing style was framed well before becoming part of the staff here.
Frank Phosphate circa 2005
For most of my adult life I have been a near obsessive fan of a musician by the name of John Cale. He is, in my opinion, one of the most important artists, constructors and trend setters in modern pop and rock and roll. Yet like most truly great artist his work goes unrecognized. When I found out that not only would he performing in Texas, but in Dallas and in Austin with an in store at Waterloo records. I cleared my schedule and have been dreaming for the past two months about these two days of musical ecstasy.
I just returned home from the Dallas show and tomorrow I will be staying at home and cleaning instead of visiting Austin. We will discuss why this is later.
So why is John Cale my favorite musician? Here is a crash course. John Cale is from a foreign country named Wales. It is here that he studied classical performance and at a young age won a scholarship to study in New York. It is here where Cale worked and composed alongside such notable figures in avant garde music as LaMont Young, John Cage and Terry Riley.
Then John Cale changed rock music forever when he met up with Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison and Mo Tucker to form the Velvet Underground. Leaving the band after two monumental albums he went on to create a catalogue of some of the most diverse and forward thinking rock and roll ever recorded. Along with his studio albums Cale produced some great debut records by The Modern Lovers, Squeeze, The Stooges and most notably Patti Smith's Horses.
Now with his latest release BlackAcetate (astralwerks) Cale continues to wow fans and critics with his unique brand of rock and roll. What other 60+ musicians claims his current influences to be The Strokes and Dr Dre? I highly recommend that you go out and purchase any and everything you can by him, or give me a call and I’ll give you a mix CD.
I sat alone toward the front of the stage amongst a crowd of what looked to be community college professors and civil lawyers. The people of my age bracket preferred to hang out toward the back bar area comparing the tightness of one another’s pants and attempting to pick up the bar maid in the mini skirt. I could not stop shaking in anticipation. Just imagine if you had the chance to see Radiohead or Pink Floyd with an audience of maybe one hundred people and you can imagine where my nerves were. As I looked around no one else really seemed to be as excited as I was. Maybe in their later ages they have learned to control their giddy child like glee.
The curtain comes up there he is with his trademark violin and tears right into the Velvet Underground favorite “Venus in Furs”. The sound was amazing and the setting was more intimate than I could have ever hoped for. He didn’t spend much time talking it up or making witty banter. He stuck to the music and that was just fine by me.
The set was very tight, maybe a little too tight. He did a wonderful job of not neglecting his older catalogue playing Guts, Helen of Troy and a few other seventies masterpieces. The supporting band looked and sounded like they could have just as easily been backing up Ashlie Simpson. While they were competent you could see their faces become bewildered as Cale veered off into any territory they hadn’t practiced earlier. This was one of the problems I had with the show. Cale works better as a solo performer. I have heard numerous live albums (official and bootleg) where it is just him, a guitar and a piano. It is in this capacity that he is able to explore the dark recess of his music and emote a near cathartic wale that is uniquely his.
By the end of the show my hands were red and raw from clapping he thanked the audience and left. We demanded more. After a few short moments he came back on to perform “Concrete” from the new album. A very musically haunting and stark piece but lyrically surprisingly suburban with lines such as “a voice calls out from the den ‘What time does Survivor come’” It is songs like this that make Cale so great. He is able to create songs that push you’re your ears and brain to work overtime but never forgets the one element that almost all great artist do, to have a pedestrian sense of humor.
I was now at that critical juncture. Do I bask in the glow that radiated through my soul and ear drums and call it a night or do I try to stalk the musician. Like a recovering heroin addict who just ran out of methadone I took the route that I would later end up regretting. I needed another fix, and was going to go for it.
As the crowd cleared out I made a beeline to the back of the theatre where I saw that the tour bus was. Here was my chance to meet the man who I have been listening to and idolizing for years. Here was my chance to shake hands with one of the most important figures in avant-garde, pop and experimental music of the twentieth century. There were seven people with the same idea as me standing there. They of course were all at least 25 years older than myself. I stood around for over an hour as roadies loaded equipment into the back of a trailer. I cupped my ears to try and hear any talk about Cale and more importantly a hint that he might be exiting the bus anytime soon. After I had flipped through my horrendous digital pictures for the billionth time one of the Granada workers tipped me off.
“Hey man, looks like Cale is off the bus, here is your chance”
I glanced up and indeed, he was off the bus joking around with the drummer. I stood up and with great caution made my way towards him. I cycled through all the ways that I could possibly ask him for a photograph without sounding like just another twenty something male fan or a complete idiot. There I was, about fifteen feet away from him. His conversation with his pal had ended and the man had left toward the club. Here is my chance. I begin to raise my hand to wave and for a split second our eyes met. Before I had time to blink or fully extend my arm he turned around and walked on to his bus. As I stared blankly at the bus I could hear the thunderous clank of the lock being fastened on the door.
It was on the lonely ride home that a lot of things became clear to me. John Cale is an artist and in that respect he is a master. Every time I put on one of his records I get a feeling that no other artist can, and that has not and will not change. I don’t know what I thought seeing him live would have done for me. Maybe I thought I would have a greater insight into him as a man or gain a better understanding of his music. Maybe I just wanted to let him know how much he meant to me beyond just being the guy that left The Velvet Underground. Even though that moment I had never felt such great disappointment, I am glad that he turned his back on me, whether he did it consciously or not.
So I am not going to Austin. I will not be driving for 6 hours, spending 20 more dollars on a concert ticket, waiting in line to get my early 1970’s ads from Melody Maker signed or trying to get my picture taken with a 63 year old musician.
Am I glad that I went to The Granada tonight? Yes. It was a great show and I am glad that I got to experience the music live. And it did something that I didn’t plan on, it turned my views on the relationship between art, artist and consumer upside down. But what else is great art meant to do but to make you feel elated and confused at the same time?
This is all too much to think about. I am going to go lye in bed and listen to Trapped in the Closet.
* EDIT: Ah fuck it I am going to go ahead and include this self made album of unreleased/rare material as well because I just got back from a really nice date involving spinach quesadillas and Terminator 2 so I am feeling extra generous. These are all tracks that I have collected from various bootleg/collections/live sources and arranged in a some what coherent fashion and titled Save us From the House of God. Aren't I clever? Of particular interest is the song Velvet Couch that is a collaboration with David Bowie in Bowie's apartment at cocaine o' clock sometime in the early 70's. The recording quality is horrendous but it is a rare piece of Cale history.
