LA avant-gardist's crazy performance at Club Tapper
Eccentric pop musician and avant-gardist from LA, Ariel Pink, was warmed up by Galaktlan and his live group, who are rarely seen performing. One different aspect about their gig was the presence of a guest vocalist, Kadi Uibo, for one of the songs. Galaktlan's quartet played a short set, for approximately 40 minutes.
Shortly before 10pm Ariel Pink made it on the stage with his backup band Haunted Graffiti. The protagonist was dressed in drag (with red skirt and all), his stage movement was chaotic and coggling and his between song stage banter was mostly stream-of-consciousness type nonsense. Just by his stage presence, marked by special feel of drunkenness, it was clear that Ariel Pink is a truly eccentric musician type.
Pure garage rock
In case of musicians with distinctive (home) studio sound one always wonders, how will they sound live? In the five member performance of Haunted Graffiti, Ariel Pink's lo-fi pop-psychedelia gained a heavy garage punk exterior. The band could sound like an authentic obscure garage rock band from the 60s, while having little to nothing in common with today's neo garage rock imitators.
Some of the tunes in the live setting, such as "Trepanated Earth" acquiered at places a level of intensity compared to heavy metal, or at least Boredoms type noise-rock. It also seemed that Haunted Graffiti can easily out-punk most punkrockers, if they want to. In terms of dissonance, synthesizer sounds and improvisational implications there was also some affinity to krautrock. A rare rendition of the rarely performed "Life In LA", where the clarinets of the album version were replaced by kazoos, suggested Zappa style weirdness.
All of these stylistic nuance variations refer to the music critic consensus that in Ariel Pink's music one can recognize quite a bit of which has been intriguing and inventive for the last five decades in underground rock. It was particularly evident on this concert. Which was really long, over two hours, including many songs that Haunted Graffiti usually does not perform. And arguably this was even crazier than Ariel Pink's average gig.
How eccentric
This gig was a rare case in Estonia not only because of seeing an act at his peak live. But also because the public got the taste of how eccentric the best sort of underground-rock can get. A lot of contemporary acts seems so restrained, compared to the exuberant charisma imbuing from Ariel Pink's stage presence. Then again, imitating him would also prove itself as a pointless perspective. Because natural authenticity (which Pink had plenty) is impossible to copy successfully.
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2 comments:
I've seen them live in Barcelona at Primavera Sound festival couple weeks ago. This was the worst act on ATP stage there. Totally pure bullshit. Boring one also. Really made me sick. Ariel Pink looks like cheap gay-whore, and this is not eccentric at all nowadays i think.
Of course comparing to anything happening here in Estonia - they are quite ok. :)
Hey, nice to hear from you Anton!
Of course, given the connection with Animal Collective I would've expected you to be more impressed. But hey, to each his own. :)
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