Live report: ExMS Swedish Showcase @ The Troubadour, LA 03/16/2005
So the Swedish Showcase was the night before last. It was the greatest thing ever. Ever.
My story begins ten hours and four hundred miles before the show started in the city of Albany in front of Avi's house. Avi got into my car for the trip to LA and, same thing as last year, he was carrying a box full of music for the drive including all recordings of all three bands set to play at the show. He put in the first CD, The Deportees. This was the first and only thing that went wrong during the adventure. The Deportees suck.
It is this simple. Their music is not only embarrassingly bad, but boring as well. To be enraged at how much something can blow and at the same time be too bored to care is no small feat. It is also not much of an accomplishment. They sound like they are trying to be someone Lisa Bonet would want to date, but really really bad. Like really bad. Wannabe Soul that really is just a terrible Easy Listening disaster. We listened to the whole thing all the way through as a game and exercise in mind over matter. It became hilarious once they began singing about their landscapes (as in their soul? personal space?) and borderlines (guarding their souls? marking their souls?). We brainstormed aloud what our hopes and fears were in terms of how the band would actually look and what their set would be like. The rest of the drive was pure happiness with The Ark and Moneybrother coming through the speakers and bugs smashing into my windshield on the 5.
We got to the show and Avi sort of nervously looked around for the people he was supposed to interview, Anders of Moneybrother and Peter of Burning Heart Records. We sat in a corner with Anders and Avi turned into the interviewer, asking over and over about musicians Anders likes or dislikes, trying to get him to step into the political suicide of naming names. Anders had unrealistic dreams of who he would like to play with. Mostly he would have to travel backwards in time to play with his dream team, which is not only silly, but also not possible [ed: wait until I get my interview transcribed, you'll see]. I liked that about him. He also had a leather pouch on a leather string that he wore around his neck. He took it off and fiddled with it a lot during the interview. I liked that too. I wondered what was inside. Maybe picks? Something personal? A condom? (He is after all a pop star, but it was not the right shape for such a thing.)
I found out through some of my own questions the following information: 1.) There are high school reunions in Sweden. Anders did not go to his last year but was pleased to be invited. He occasionally gets emails from people from his schoolboy years but these people do not in general remind him of past embarrassments he committed. (I would if I was emailing a pop star whom I had gone to primary school with but that's just me.) 2.) Punk kids in Sweden do not really crack a lot of jokes about having sex with young teens or children. 3.) Jenna Jameson has made it in Sweden, as in she's a porn star there too, but Pamela Anderson is a bigger porn star. Apparently Sweden is more honest in their classification of America celebrities and call it like it is. I asked as a tool of clarification if she is considered such due to her trashy image or because of the Tommy Lee video. It is because of the Tommy Lee video. Anders said he only saw a snippet of the tape and it was not the part where Tommy honks the horn of his boat with his boner.
Then Avi interviewed Peter and then we ate snacks and then we went in and got free drinks and talked some shit about the industry people (mostly in my head though - I can't help it in LA, I turn even more shallow...)
Then the lights dimmed and the show began. First up: The Deportees. They were so bad! They sounded just as bad live, didn't have any sort of stage show to save it and seemed to have no fucking clue that they suck, which is indeed their worst offense. John Mayer came to my mind as in "Oh god....this is everything I hate about John Mayer but there is a whole band and they are supposed to be good and I drove so far..." Even busting out a banjo had no redemption and who doesn't love a banjo??? Avi encouraged me to just look at the drummer because he has been in other bands that were good but I tried and he too was doing the horrible head groove neck movement thing. I was happy when they were over.
And then Moneybrother came out to play. Holy Shit! He was great. The band was great. All was flawless. Anders came out wearing black pants, white short-sleeved shirt, sleeves rolled up, and a skinny black tie to boot. That outift is a classic and when done well cannot be beat. He did it well. The band was so tight and busted out these super fast and awesome breaks and improvs during the songs and I smiled big and they were smiling big and it was rad. Moneybrother is one of the few bands that is likable, fuck, lovable really, instantly. You can love it love it love it the first time you hear it and if you are lucky enough to see it - forget it. You'll have a new favorite band. The sax player was kinda rockabilly kinda Buddy Holly kinda perfect 1950s back-up singer ever. He had the look down pat even down to his posture and facial expression. How rad is he?
So I was excited and happy and the world was great and then I looked up to the rafters, toward the backstage area and saw curtains had gone up so the crowd could not see in. I knew this could only mean one thing.... The Ark was putting on costumes.
The lights dimmed and the band descended, matching flight shirts and tight white pants. Hot. They began playing and casting a shadow onto the wall was the outline of Ola, the singer, getting ready. All of a sudden he busted forth and The Ark was the best band I have ever seen. The best performance of any sort I have ever seen. I cannot believe something as amazing as The Ark live even exists. Ola was wearing a tight tight flight suit, accented with red boots and wide red belt slung low around his hips. He gyrated and jiggled and sexed it up and my god, everyone loved it. He was a ham. He was on fire. Fuck, he even flamed and nothing, seriously nothing, could have been better. He never was over the top, never was too much. He nailed the perfect performance. The perfect amount of package show-off in his tight suit, the perfect Molly Ringwald dancing, the perfect facial expressions, the perfect small smiles, the perfect seduction, the perfect vocals, the perfect perfect man to own a stage. And it was HIS stage. The Ark sounded as good as on any of their albums and there were times Ola let the crowd sing for him and it was as loud if not louder than when he sang it himself. The crowd was INTO IT. It was The Ark's first U.S. show and they rocked it so fucking hard. You could tell they were sort of surprised at how familiar the crowd was with them, singing along and shouting out requests for favorite songs. The band would glance at each other with looks of pure excitement. There was even a demand for an unplanned encore and The Ark gave it all they had.
On the drive down I had an epiphany: Ola on the first record is all Freddy Mercury-esque. Drama and theater and passion and epic vocals. Ola has progressed to pure Frankfurter, straight outta "Rocky Horror". Spoken vocal lines, pure sex appeal, and understated smugness, all in the ultimate sexual glory. How rad is Ola? I mean, seriously?? He is so so rad.
In conclusion: If The Ark does not get a U.S. contract a massive injustice to Amercian culture will have been committed. Seriously. And Moneybrother too. American pop NEEDS Moneybrother. Real soul, real talent, sorrow and rejection with an underlying contentment that comes through the music. Something about Moneybrother is happiness in spite of lyrical heartbreak.
- Kelly Hoover
.:About the author:
Not many people would be willing to drive six hours for a show featuring a bunch of bands they've never heard before, but Kelly is a good sport and provides excellent comic relief. This was her second year accompanying her long-time friend Avi down to LA for the ExMS showcase.