Grand Buffet - "Nate Kukla's History Of Lemonade" (mp3)
Last night, I went to the Ottobar to see one of my favorite live bands, Grand Buffet, with Jim, who's reviewing the show for the City Paper. It was at least the 8th time I've seen them in the past 4 years, maybe more like 10 times, I'm not sure. I think the best job I've done of explaining what I like about them was in my Five Years Of Fireworks review last year, but they're still kind of hard for me to defend, because usually I abhor the kind of tongue-in-cheek, pop culture referencing white boy indie rap that they do. But they're an incredibly entertaining live outfit, and they clearly put a lot of work into their lyrics and production, and I don't know, they just rule. Last night was kind of a weird show, though, maybe the first I've seen that wasn't all that fun.
One thing about Grand Buffet is that though they're from Pittsburgh, they're friends with many Baltimore artists and play here constantly and refer to it as their second home. So a good sized crowd always comes out for them, but venues always seem to be grasping at straws when putting together a bill for them to play on. They've played shows with indie bands like Deerhoof and Of Montreal, and old school hip hop like Black Sheep, and local white indie rappers and guys like Sage Francis. But sometimes they get thrown on a bill that's entirely novelty acts. Which is fair, since what Grand Buffet do is kind of novelty, although I'd to think that their skill at it kind of elevates them to something else.
When we came in, the first act, Shodekeh, a human beatbox was onstage. I'm not really gonna diss him as a novelty act, though, because beatboxing is just awesome. He did some duets with a saxophonist and then another beatboxer, and he later joined Grand Buffet for a song. He wasn't the best beatboxer I've ever seen, but he was still cool, I think he's local, I'd like to see him pop up at some of the Bmore rap shows I talk about on Gov't Names.
The second act was this guy, Dan Deacon, who is local and I've heard his name a bunch of times, but had never seen him before. He had this little table full of audio gear that he planted on the floor in front of the stage, and performed behind it. He had the stage lights turned off and operated strobe lights and stuff from his table. And he played pre-recorded synth parts and sang through an array of weird vocal effects. Definitely a novelty act. I actually really liked some of the sounds he was making, neat chaotic digital effects, but seriously, it was just a slightly more left field version of Atom And His Package. Plus he looked like The Riddler. And did fake New Year's Eve countdowns between every other song. He did a lot of awkward jokey banter about dicks and poop, and kind of reminded me of Cex's early live shows, except it was all form, no content. I think he goes way back with that whole crowd, Cex and Height, unsurprisingly, but I'm more ok with those guys.
The next band was Peelander-Z, who are one of these cheesy Japanese novelty/noize bands that makes serious bread on the American indie circuit. They dressed like the Power Rangers and were all schtick and barely any music, props and a lot of audience interaction. And when they did play, it was just really weak sludgy punk rock. If they were at least really heavy and rocked hard or made some wild noise, I might've gotten into it, but I just couldn't stand that shit, they drove me into the back room by the bar. The main guy had that shaved-in-male-pattern-baldness hairstyle that's big with American noize dudes these days, and when he said "can you understand my Engrish?", I couldn't tell if he was commenting on stereotypes or unwittingly reinforcing them. The crowd ate it up. Fuck that shit.
After an incredibly long set of Peelander-Z's bullshit, I was thankful for Grand Buffet to take the stage, and them on a bad night is still better than many bands' best, but their set was weird. They frequently pull some antagonistic Kaufman-esque shit on audiences, and that's what it felt like when they clowned on the Ravens and bragged about Pittsburgh winning the Super Bowl, but at other points it felt like something else. They have some songs called "Let's Go Find The Cat" and "Treehouse" that they've been playing live for years from a children's album that has yet to be released, that they don't rap on and are even more of a novelty than their other material. And there were some people in the audience that were very adamantly requesting those songs, and Grand Buffet, Lord Grunge in particular, was clearly annoyed and kind of pissed about it. He also made a lot of comments throughout the night, kind of kidding but kind of like he meant it too, that you (the audience) doesn't like them as much as you used to, or that you won't care about them in 6 months. And I mean, I give them credit for being realistic about what their appeal is and what people like them for, but it was depressing to hear that shit, especially considering that I've been seeing them for years and am not particularly sick of them. In fact, I was pretty excited to hear that they have a new album, King Visions, coming out this year, since their last new release was in 2003 and since then have only put out a best-of and a rarities comp. The new songs they played sounded good, too, and at some points they performed as well as they ever have, aside from the weird vibe. I hope it was just an off night, for them, but I kind of understand. They've been touring constantly and doing this for years and years. And I was kind of amazed that they kept their cool even towards the end, when some asshole in the front kept splashing beer on the stage right up at them, in a very deliberate way.
Last night, I went to the Ottobar to see one of my favorite live bands, Grand Buffet, with Jim, who's reviewing the show for the City Paper. It was at least the 8th time I've seen them in the past 4 years, maybe more like 10 times, I'm not sure. I think the best job I've done of explaining what I like about them was in my Five Years Of Fireworks review last year, but they're still kind of hard for me to defend, because usually I abhor the kind of tongue-in-cheek, pop culture referencing white boy indie rap that they do. But they're an incredibly entertaining live outfit, and they clearly put a lot of work into their lyrics and production, and I don't know, they just rule. Last night was kind of a weird show, though, maybe the first I've seen that wasn't all that fun.
One thing about Grand Buffet is that though they're from Pittsburgh, they're friends with many Baltimore artists and play here constantly and refer to it as their second home. So a good sized crowd always comes out for them, but venues always seem to be grasping at straws when putting together a bill for them to play on. They've played shows with indie bands like Deerhoof and Of Montreal, and old school hip hop like Black Sheep, and local white indie rappers and guys like Sage Francis. But sometimes they get thrown on a bill that's entirely novelty acts. Which is fair, since what Grand Buffet do is kind of novelty, although I'd to think that their skill at it kind of elevates them to something else.
When we came in, the first act, Shodekeh, a human beatbox was onstage. I'm not really gonna diss him as a novelty act, though, because beatboxing is just awesome. He did some duets with a saxophonist and then another beatboxer, and he later joined Grand Buffet for a song. He wasn't the best beatboxer I've ever seen, but he was still cool, I think he's local, I'd like to see him pop up at some of the Bmore rap shows I talk about on Gov't Names.
The second act was this guy, Dan Deacon, who is local and I've heard his name a bunch of times, but had never seen him before. He had this little table full of audio gear that he planted on the floor in front of the stage, and performed behind it. He had the stage lights turned off and operated strobe lights and stuff from his table. And he played pre-recorded synth parts and sang through an array of weird vocal effects. Definitely a novelty act. I actually really liked some of the sounds he was making, neat chaotic digital effects, but seriously, it was just a slightly more left field version of Atom And His Package. Plus he looked like The Riddler. And did fake New Year's Eve countdowns between every other song. He did a lot of awkward jokey banter about dicks and poop, and kind of reminded me of Cex's early live shows, except it was all form, no content. I think he goes way back with that whole crowd, Cex and Height, unsurprisingly, but I'm more ok with those guys.
The next band was Peelander-Z, who are one of these cheesy Japanese novelty/noize bands that makes serious bread on the American indie circuit. They dressed like the Power Rangers and were all schtick and barely any music, props and a lot of audience interaction. And when they did play, it was just really weak sludgy punk rock. If they were at least really heavy and rocked hard or made some wild noise, I might've gotten into it, but I just couldn't stand that shit, they drove me into the back room by the bar. The main guy had that shaved-in-male-pattern-baldness hairstyle that's big with American noize dudes these days, and when he said "can you understand my Engrish?", I couldn't tell if he was commenting on stereotypes or unwittingly reinforcing them. The crowd ate it up. Fuck that shit.
After an incredibly long set of Peelander-Z's bullshit, I was thankful for Grand Buffet to take the stage, and them on a bad night is still better than many bands' best, but their set was weird. They frequently pull some antagonistic Kaufman-esque shit on audiences, and that's what it felt like when they clowned on the Ravens and bragged about Pittsburgh winning the Super Bowl, but at other points it felt like something else. They have some songs called "Let's Go Find The Cat" and "Treehouse" that they've been playing live for years from a children's album that has yet to be released, that they don't rap on and are even more of a novelty than their other material. And there were some people in the audience that were very adamantly requesting those songs, and Grand Buffet, Lord Grunge in particular, was clearly annoyed and kind of pissed about it. He also made a lot of comments throughout the night, kind of kidding but kind of like he meant it too, that you (the audience) doesn't like them as much as you used to, or that you won't care about them in 6 months. And I mean, I give them credit for being realistic about what their appeal is and what people like them for, but it was depressing to hear that shit, especially considering that I've been seeing them for years and am not particularly sick of them. In fact, I was pretty excited to hear that they have a new album, King Visions, coming out this year, since their last new release was in 2003 and since then have only put out a best-of and a rarities comp. The new songs they played sounded good, too, and at some points they performed as well as they ever have, aside from the weird vibe. I hope it was just an off night, for them, but I kind of understand. They've been touring constantly and doing this for years and years. And I was kind of amazed that they kept their cool even towards the end, when some asshole in the front kept splashing beer on the stage right up at them, in a very deliberate way.
Labels: Baltimore music, concerts, Grand Buffet, mp3
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on Sunday, February 26, 2006 at 12:12 PM.
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