Archive for the 'Events' Category

MJR & Bwank! Volume 2 - MGMT at McCarren Pool 07/27/08

Published
by
Matt
on July 28, 2008
in Events, Photos and Summer Music Series
. 3 Comments

Last Sunday afternoon marked the culmination of an emblematic Brooklyn-based band’s career. Whether or not you’ve witnessed one of their performances in a dingy club, like behind the Domino Sugar Factory in South Williamsburg just four months prior, any Brooklynite could supply a lengthy dissertation on MGMT’s short road to success. For it is generally regarded as the product of happenstance and epoch-making psychedelic pop music.

Yet on stage Vanwyngarden and Goldwasser, the true visionaries at the helm of the project, make it perfectly clear that they hadn’t simply succeeded with the aid of some providential wind. Initially, the aim may have been playful, seemingly tongue in cheek. But with McCarren Pool filled to capacity—literally brimming with five thousand some-odd vibrantly clad fans—they were expected to own up to it all.

Notwithstanding a slight line-up change, which finds their previous drummer manning guitar duties, MGMT rocked out steadily and patiently. Now, unlike before, the band seems to will their set into motion with pitch-perfect wailing solos and tight percussive direction. Surefire hits from 2007’s Oracular Spectacular, like “Of Moons, Birds & Monsters,” “The Youth,” “Weekend Wars,” “Time To Pretend” and even the fifteen-minute-long b-side “Metanoia,” are meticulously reconstructed with a contemplative spirit. They are brought to a degree of perfection which fans, both old and new, scarcely see.

Moreover, the band’s unprecedented precision is as rousing as it is surreal. They are now the demigods that they had once, albeit half-jokingly, regarded themselves to be. So perhaps what fans witnessed this past weekend was the Second Coming of MGMT. The very moment in which Vanwyngarden and Goldwasser reinvent themselves.

However, to assert that this magnificent sonic evolution, which extends far beyond their conceptual range, was likely to have happened would be downright fallacious. It was entirely unforeseen. And the lack of any obvious principle is still integral to their allure. But the collective ardor of their disciples will be tempered by conscious volition forevermore. Sunday’s performance revealed a distinctively different MGMT, distinguished by far more mastery and maturity than ever before.

Photography by Matthew Craig of MJR

Joshua Pressman is a Brooklyn based writer and the publisher of www.bwank.com

Many thanks to JELLYNYC and MGMT.

MJR & Bwank! Vol. 1 - The Rabbit Factory Soul Revue

Published
by
MJR
on July 8, 2008
in Events, Photos and Summer Music Series
. 5 Comments

What results when a Chicago-based label invests in a six-piece house band and four of the most undervalued soul singers the South has never seen? The Rabbit Factory Soul Revue.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon at McCarren Pool, four tremendously talented Southern soul singers exuded an over zealous nature through neglected masterpieces of the golden age. These stars lost their luster long ago yet, collectively, they embody the very spirit of the genre. And for that reason they are the unsung heroes of their era.

Clad in rather rakish, debonair looks, Herbert Wiley, Herman Hitson, Roscoe Robinson and Ralph “Soul” Jackson took turns preaching the good word like a rector. Each one was as authoritative and thoroughly convincing as the next, belting out notes as if they were still in their heyday. Everything, from Wiley’s striking cheshire cat-like grin to Roscoe Robinson’s dalmatian print suit to Ralph “Soul” Jackson’s gratuitous weave, seemed genuine in its way.

But the caliber of these heavily overlooked gospel-infused soul tunes merely magnified the absurdities at hand. These men had shared time with legendary acts, like Jimi Hendrix, the Isley Brothers, Spooner Oldham and the Blind Boys of Alabama. Each man had as much talent, if not more, than their hallowed predecessors and yet they had struggled to make it here even.

And, perhaps even more disconcerting, the majority, if not all, of the attendees had very little conception of who these skillful singers were. Channeling the soulful spirit of James Brown and Ronald Isley is one thing, but actually having been a part of that movement in its glory days is an entirely different story. Still, Wiley, Hitson, Robinson and Jackson took to the stage as if they had never been lost in the shuffle to begin with.

While most musicians’ prowess atrophies from lack of use, these fine Southern gentlemen seemed to be suspended in time and virtually unaffected by time passing them up. The fervency with which they sang forced onlookers to believe that they were classics unto themselves. And nothing could be closer to the truth.

Joshua Pressman for MJR, Photography by Matthew Craig

 

This is the first of many crossovers with bloggers we love.

Josh is a Brooklyn based music writer. www.bwank.com

Many thanks to JELLYNYC for the access, and Dewars for the free booze.