PJ Harvey at the Bowery Ballroom; Barbez Plays, Fire Breaks Out
On Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, PJ Harvey relates a night on a Brooklyn rooftop when somebody tells her something "that was really important." On first listen, it's shocking to hear such a vague sentiment coming from a performer who has, over the years, carved out an esthetic all her own. Even worse, this generalized viewpoint is all over the record, from "Take life as it comes" to "We'll find a place of hope." And as for the music, up against the to-the-edge guitar come-on of Rid of Me or the broken-down techno majesty of Is This Desire?, PJ sounds a little too comfortable in her own skin on Stories?and a little too much like other people who've said things that were really important. A big bite of Patti; crumbs of Chrissie.
At the Bowery Ballroom, PJ strode onstage without a moment of hesitation, guitar slung over her shoulder like a holster full of tequila shots, and tore into a solo rendition of "Rid of Me." Her very specific brand of edginess was back, and pushed to the limit. "Lick my legs. I'm on fire," she sang like a demented Catholic schoolgirl yanking the strings on the NSYNC puppets. In that instant she cut through any of the bull in the room. Rich dot-commers new to the city, jaded critics ready to get out, postcollegiate postdepressives who aren't sure what they want?suddenly everyone seemed to snap out of a daze and remember, right, this is what it's about, the music.
And then the band came out: four other musicians, including the glorious return of Rob Ellis on some Zep-worthy drumming. Their combined energy was frighteningly focused; they played as if the music were remnants of a hangover they had to wring out of their instruments. But most miraculous was PJ herself, moaning and writhing, then shimmying and playing maracas, the love child of Jim Morrison and Carmen Miranda. She played a good dose of the old stuff; never tossed it off, but found hidden chambers to illuminate. "Angelene" somehow opened up, and became more about the audience than the titular philosophical hooker. But it was the new songs that really struck me. The edge and ambiguity I hadn't heard on the record was suddenly pouring out of every inch of the stage. "Big Exit"'s talk of guns and immortality turned scary and sexy, because it was more of a pose and better for it. On the other hand, the call for intimacy in "One Line" hit deeper, its vulnerabilty turned into strength.
Sure, PJ's New York reminiscences are corny. Do you remember when you first saw the Manhattan skyline? It filled you with a ridiculous desire to find words to shape the experience and make it your own, but it was just way too big, too old, too far across the water, and so all you could think of was some stupid Frank Sinatra song, and not even the words. And yet that was enough, because although you did feel overwhelmed, without anything interesting to say, you also felt connected and strong and on a path and, well, pretty corny. By the end of the show I'd gained a new appreciation for Stories. The blank spots, the head-over-heels tourist's view of New York, are all we can really expect. Live, she could fill us in a bit more. But ultimately, they are experiences that she can't provide for us, or maybe even explain, but rather she insists we find for ourselves. This is love that she's feeling. That's all she's going to tell us. It wouldn't really be much fun, otherwise.
Justin Hartung
I was at the Knitting Factory to hear "the great Czech band" Uz Jsme Doma play. I'd written a piece some weeks earlier on a similar Czech band, Psi Vojaci, and their publicist had e-mailed me about Uz's upcoming U.S. tour. "Do not miss them," he wrote, "they are most powerful (I mean energy on stage) Czech band."
I like these groups, with their beleaguerment and their Slavic interpretation of Happenings (lots of hats), and I showed up early to listen to the Czechs talk to each other at the bar. Half an hour too early to be early, and bored, I crept into the main room to hear their opening band, Barbez. Barbez only got through three songs before an electrical fire broke out; we were flushed out of the room as the utilitarian UJD, now canceled, intercepted us with their CDs while we headed toward the door.
But Barbez; they're interesting. A guitarist, a bassist, a cellist, a drummer, a marimbist and an accordionist, and they're good, maybe great, but in that way KF bands tend to be?A/V nerds dressed in Columbine chic, playing the best PBS music you've ever heard?innocuous, but solid. I'm mostly into it, thinking, pretty good, pretty good, until their singer, the spectacular Ksenia Vidyaykina-Gest, comes onstage and transforms the band to greatness. At first she's wearing a baggy shirt and sweatpants with one of the legs pulled up (look of the moment at Rikers or on the A train) and the getup so obscures her gender initially I wonder: what is it? and what's it saying? She starts to sing in a low register and finds a middle range that's flat to the point of being atonal, then swoops back up until her voice is huge and blues-like. She sings something familiar but distorts the song's cadences so that it becomes impossible to place as the instrumentals find coherence behind her and everything begins to work.
Her persona's fascinating and bizarre, and only describable by association: at first she's rigid and focusing on an undetermined point at the end of the room, and she's like a Falun Gonger just before take-off. She leaves the stage and returns in 40s T-strap, white heels and white sequined hotpants (clearing up any doubts about gender), as she shakes only her left leg, looking like a background dancer in Cabaret who shouts Wilkommen! once in a while but doesn't do much else. She changes her position slightly and becomes a catatonic woman from stock mental institution footage, glassolaliac, singing like the crazy Diamanda Galas when she was at her craziest, looking like Nico (bone-blonde and Teutonic) with the profile of Thoreau or a Christian zealot: mouth so thin it might dissolve as she's singing, a geometric jaw.
Smoke starts filling the stage; we assume it to be a band gimmick; the band stops playing to ask if they're on fire; she continues as the group dismantles and the KF people evacuate us. She's still singing as I leave for the bar?but later, wearing a knit cap and looking like any Williamsburg guitarist's pretty girlfriend, she was quietly chatting up some guy in her band. I'd assumed she was doped-up or a Daniel Johnston-type you watch the way you watch an accident, but she was just performing.
Daria Vaisman