RJD2 kicked off his tour last night at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. I’d been an RJD2 fan for quite a while; I remember snagging some tracks from my friend Gary before I started college (back in2004). Most of the tracks were from Deadringer with a few misplaced tracks here and there. I didn’t listen to it immediately – it was part of a giant music swap and ended up sitting on my computer for quite a while. One day I ended up checking it out and I was blown away. I was just starting to expand my musical horizons and it was my introduction into real hip hop (at least, conceptually). Had it been anything other than RJ, I would probably haven’t taken as well (theoretically) to hip hop as I did; I feel like his work was a great foil to all of the anti-rap sentiment that you get in the suburbs (there’s no talent, etc). This sentiment is what RJD2 most effectively foils for the academic music fan – in a hip hop world where substance leaves a trail of questionable pedigree (What is original in an art form based on samples and guest artists?) RJD2 pulls no gimmicks to prove his talent. RJD2 does what you expect a DJ to do, but he does it exceptionally well. He mixes samples that sound familiar (but you’ve certainly never heard them) and puts them to similarly familiar beats and creates a new sound and feeling out of old pieces. His music is always achieving more than the sum of its parts, but when mentally interpolated to the original songs, the parts still seem pretty damn good. Add on to these phenomenal backing tracks some great edgy underground (and Columbus based) hip-hop (Blueprint [not the Jay-Z album], and his more recent work straying away from the hip-hop sampled grove and into guitar / bass / drums rock-n-roll (a really proud move when rock n roll is hiply disowning the clumsy guitar) and you begin to see why RJD2’s brand of music feels right. Where we’re all searching for authenticity, he’s playing really good music (both technically and in terms of pop sensibility) and he’s doing it outside of the clear limits and logical progression of the genre.
This gig was in the Church’s basement café-torium, it was sold out, and the crowd was split between 19-year-old high-as-a-kite-thanks-for-letting-me-borrow-the-minivan-mom stoner and 20-something music aficionado with a reputable track-record of shows. I was clearly in the second category (or at least not the first which is a bit more clear cut).[1]
There were two opening “bands” before RJ. The first was Happy Chichester, a Columbusite I’d heard about from an old co-worker Bob. Bob was in his forties and insisted that kids today didn’t know anything about music. He was adamant that vinyl was the only reasonable method for audiophile music[2], and only listened to really low-brow 70’s progressive rock[3] and irrelevant Bill Evans jazz tracks. Looking back, he was a proto-hipster which was probably why I busted his balls about everything he said. It’s odd to me that Bob would like Happy upon having seen him. Happy looks and acts like Jay (without Silent Bob), sings (adequately), plays a high-strung acoustic on stage (also adequately), plays a harmonica-holder-held-harmonica (adequately), and loops beat-boxed beats (poorly). He sports what can only be described as a “shit eating” grin and doesn’t seem to really have any outstanding talent. After he plays, I ask a guy next to me who tells me that that was Happy Chichester and he’s in RJ’s band. Whoa.
The second band is a band from NYC called Break Science. It’s a drummer and DJ and they clearly look the part of the aspiring relevant underground hip-hop band. They talk slowly like stoners, they wear hip clothes, and the DJ is an asian dude with a big shirt who bobs around like a DJ is supposed to. Their music was a good pre-cursor to RJ’s in all the ways that make you appreciate RJ more. They had some tempo and timing issues, their beats were good and their samples were okay, but not great. They could get the crowd going at parts but it wasn’t a constant whirr like RJD2 was (going to be). There were definitely times when you appreciated the live drummer, but others where he seemed unnecessary if not counterproductive.
And then RJD2’s set.
Break Science stops, the roadies (or employees) come down to tear down. Two minutes later the drum mics have been shifted but there’s hardly progress made. A short, scrawny, normal looking guy walks on stage; RJ is helping to set up for his own gig. He’s plugging some things in, messing with samplers. I text my friend Chris “at RJD2 show. he’s tuning a guitar. I’m psyched.” RJ was supposed to play with a live band, I was pretty into that idea. I recognize the drumset – a clear set of Ludwig Vista-lites with an Ohio flag vertically hung from the top – it’s from when I saw the Sun back in 2005 at Little Brothers in Columbus, one of the hippest shows on my record (this fact was corroborated after the show; it was indeed Sam Brown, the drummer from the Sun). RJ leaves the stage holding up three fingers. The show would start in 3 minutes.
Three minutes later, a man comes back on stage in an oddly bedazzled jumpsuit with an MPC covering his crotch and a welding mask down. A vocoded voice welcomes us to Philadelphia and then proceeds to make a bunch of “play with my cock and balls” jokes as he pushes buttons and makes some beats and thrusts upon an imaginary ass accompanied by sampled orchestra hits. At the end of a beat, he spins the mpc ala ZZ Top and holds up his finger and everybody goes wild. He starts a song, runs to the back of the turntables, strips of the “Commissioner Cockbuttons” jumpsuit and begins to spin. He pushes a button on a video controller and on the sheet behind him, Charles and Ray Eames Powers of 10 begins to play along to one of RJD2’s recognizable beats. Heist-movie horn samples fill the air and everybody goes wild.
Now the inside scoop on RJD2. What you don’t realize until you see him perform is that he’s admirably uncool. From the absolute beginning this is apparent - what other headliner (and one with some serious ‘fame-cred’… the NBA on TNT and the Mad Men theme) would set up for himself on stage? It’s immediately evident that RJ is not a rockstar, he’s a guy from Oregon, Columbus, and Philadelphia playing music with a bunch of friends for a bunch of friends. During “Good Times Roll (Pt. 2)” he has an ear to ear grin when the audience fist pumps and yells “YEA” indicating that we’re ready and want to hear it. When he addresses the sold-out-and-then-some audience, he does so genuinely, thanking people for showing up and expressing his fondness for the venue. Everything seems real and right and you feel like you’ve known RJ for longer than the 5 minutes that he’s been unmasked and on stage. I shake his hand at the end of the set and tell him that I really like his work and it seems to legitimately brighten his mood. It’s a genuine smile and a thanks, it doesn’t feel routine and it doesn’t feel fake.
Musically, the show was really good. It wasn’t the best show I’ve ever been to but I have no trouble wholeheartedly recommending it to anybody that digs RJD2’s music. The first third or so was him at the turntables madly spinning recognizable tracks (and variations of them). Most of the music was song-oriented; nothing overly long and connected which wasn’t what I expected. After playing at the tables for a while the band comes out - Happy Chichester smiling away on guitar/keys, RJ on guitar/bass, another dude (whom I didn’t recognize) on bass / keys and Sam Brown on Drums. The live band makes for a great story and a good effect, but musically they were mediocre performers. RJ looks at his hands the entire time he’s holding a guitar and though there aren’t any backing tracks to keep up with timing is a big issue. The sounds that they’re making are effect-heavy and dirty, compiling the timing issue and cluttering the atmosphere when I really was craving some crisp grooves. Despite this, they sang wonderfully many of the vocals that I assumed are sampled on the recordings (notably the “yea-e-yea-e-yea-e-yea’s” on ‘Since We Last Spoke’). RJ finished up the set on tables and samplers, and played a quick encore (after waiting almost 30 seconds offstage…another adorable rookie move). All in all, I was very happy with the set; with the exception of “Through the Walls” which would have made my decade, they played almost any other song I would have wanted to hear – 1976, The Horror, Ghostwriter, Smoke and Mirrors. Usually I’m pretty ready to call it as a band draws close, but his hour-fifteen set could have been twice as long.
A great show. A great dude. A great time. Go to the show (I’m looking at you Grog Shop Cleveland…)
http://www.myspace.com/rjd2
[1] A side note – I’m beginning to feel like the old man at shows. More and more I want to sit and watch and listen (or stand and bob my head; non-confrontationally. I have to actively control my rage when 19 year old smelly, dread-locked girls are sweatily grinding into me. Now it’s clear why many venues have a pit. Also, at a time in my life when I seem to be going to shows alone there’s nothing more aggravating than the scenester who treats the performance like a party.
[2] I would always argue with him adamantly about the absolute way in which he stated this. Vinyl is nice, but it’s dominance is certainly questionable
[3] He was continually confused when I would refer to “prague rock”
No comments:
Post a Comment