Driving up from Los Angeles on last winter's tour, I'm pretty sure none of us had been to San Luis Obispo before. You get to follow 101, which is one of the nicer places to drive in the U$A. It's a pretty town, with a really amazing record store, Boo Boo and the show was at the Steynberg Gallery which had a coffee shop, a ton of folding chairs, and a stack of Artforum back issues from the mid 90s. It felt pretty and tame, it's always a little bit awkward when everyone is sitting, but everyone there was super polite and attentive. This band called the Black Shirts played, two acoustic guitars shared between three kids, a lot of little stuff, hand percussion, a pair or drumsticks. Before they started playing there was this uncomfortable moment where they all stood frozen, like they couldn't get comfortable in the space.
The two boys played guitar together really well, there was this really firm, rich, chord-y side to their sound but then they'd creep into a weird minimal space, and the way they cut back and forth between the two had this easy confidence that somehow didn't clash with their hair-in-face/downcast eyes shyness. They had heavy, worksong-ish voices; tired, a little bit pleading, but mostly resigned. When the girl sang it just cut right through the song, blunt and pretty at the same time. Like the way Chan Marshall sounds on the slowest Cat Power songs, or a sad Kim Deal. She clearly had a different burden than the boys, but her road wasn't any easier. Her voice is like yours when you first wake up, sandpapery, thirsty, but not un-eager.
The three of them all wore keys around their necks. I'm pretty sure they all came together and all left together. They stood super close to each other when they played, after they played, and seemed to navigate the gallery as one unit. I have no idea if they all live together, but I assume they do. I like the idea of bands-as-community for each other, and that legacy is pretty heavy: the Stooges, Throbbing Gristle, Animal Collective..... all of whom have this really innate, tightly bonded musical communication, like you can't really tell which individual is responsible for which sound, instead, the whole band moves as one. Black Shirts definitely ruled this aesthetic, and despite their bashfulness they always looked comfortable with the songs, and it felt less a product of rehearsal than a product of friendship.
A week after the show they wrote to let us know they had created a myspace page with a few of their songs. Of the four, "Funny Bones" is the one that reminds me most of their set. Dreary, falling notes that suddenly pound out with evil, heavily strummed chords; a weary male voice creeping out of a dark room before the three Black Shirts burst into a perfect, harmonized chorus (this is, after all, the band that posted a photo of Peter, Paul and Mary in their "view photos" section). But the real surprise is how dark the song is. The first refrain has the girl singing solo, "It's like getting shanghai'd baby, you just never know," which could fit in probably any song, the second refrain she switches to "It's like sleeping with witches baby, you just never know," which, in a post-CocoRosie way, isn't too far out. But the third time. "It's like sleeping with siblings, baby..." is just murder. Especially when sung with her sleepy, unassuming voice. And of course there's a shock value moment, but the last line of the song, "we're testing the waters honey, and they're oh so cold" twists the whole thing into a shamed but straight-faced confession. Just like the listener, they don't know what else to do but feel cold.
The 94-second "Pinwheel" is a gentle, fingerplucked surprise. You remember that Emitt Rhodes song "Lullaby" that was on the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack? It feels like that: a tiny, sweet thing, the kind of song you put at the end of a mixtape to fill out the last minute. The Black Shirts don't quite escape their darkness, the guitar part has this one vaguely off note that rings out for a moment or two with a perfect queasiness but the song is a charmer, and just a little bit too short.
If you're trying to get from L.A. to San Francisco the quickest way possible, you drive on I-5. About two hours after leaving L.A. there's this eye-watering smell, it feels like having the bridge of your nose cracked with a hammer. You don't see the source of the smell for seven or eight miles, but up ahead there's this massive cattle slaughterhouse. Since the cows are soon to die, there aren't really any amenities for them, no water, no grass, just mud and their own filth. I'm not trying to convince you to stop eating meat, but it's absolutely gruesome. Every time I realize I'm passing through that way I do all this mental/emotional preparation, trying to get ready for it, and every time the stench just floors me, every time the stretch of almost-dead cows seems miles longer.
A detour through San Luis Obispo meant missing the slaughterhouse. That was enough for me but I was so happy to see what else it meant. The town has a really exciting D.I.Y. scene, the kind of thing I wish I had grown up with. You can find out more here.
1 comment:
Yeeeeeeh, this is nice.
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