AUDREY GRAYSON

Unrequited love

AUDREY GRAYSON — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 20:47:54 GMT

Mates of State at the Middle East, September 13, 2006
Mates of State perform live in much the same way they write their music: by themselves, for themselves.

Married duo Mates of State are just as famous for being in love as they are for writing music, and it’s difficult for me to draw a line between an appreciation of Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel’s music and the love that drives it. Meandering through the crowd at the Middle East on Wednesday night, I heard six people describe their live show as “soooo cute.” Indeed, a certain amount of voyeurism is required of any true Mates Of State fan, making the relationship between the fan and the music — and even between the fan and the musicians — untouchably personal.

Enough happened this year to make me question the glory of love: Prince got divorced, Hoopz ended up not really loving Flav, K. Fed blatantly used Brit for her celebrity status, etc. But the Mates Of State had a daughter. And stayed in love. And they still give each other those huge-eyed looks during performances, the ones that make the music sweeter simply for being between them. The set flowed from song to song, and somewhere between watching a group of frat guys overcome their homophobia and start dancing shamelessly to “Ha Ha” and a group of girls with black eyeliner overcome their self-loathing and start singing along to the cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” I realized that though each audience member’s relationship with the Mates of State seems intensely personal, it also appears to be one-sided. Maybe even unrequited.

Because the Mates of State perform live in much the same way they write their music: by themselves, for themselves. And if their love story attracts as many fans and sells as many CDs as the actual music itself, then Kori and Jason don’t seem to realize it. They’re not selling themselves or their love story to an audience. In fact, other than a few brief “thank you’s,” they hardly seem to notice that we’re there. (One of the few things Kori says to the crowd regards how highly she thinks of openers the Starlight Mints, who worked out well as tour-mates because “they have kids, and we have kids.”)

Not all of the lyrics make sense to us because it’s more a private conversation between them; we’re the voyeurs, listening in, and they don’t seem to know it. Or maybe it’s that they don’t care. You can see it in the way Kori plays her keyboard, leaning away and then towards it, ass out and head forward, stealing looks at Jason. And there’s Jason slumping over the top his drum kit, leaning forward towards Kori, watching. Every now and then he mouths words to her in between songs. I can never tell what he’s saying but it makes Kori smile, or nod, or stare at him in a way that says “yes.”

Delusions of grandeur

AUDREY GRAYSON — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:45:20 GMT

Cheyenne at Axis, August 21, 2006
Take into account that Cheyenne is preaching to a choir of adoring middle-school-aged fans whose musical tastes might not be fully developed, and her constant reminders that she herself wrote some of her songs seem at first pathetic, and then, shortly after, hysterical.

Cheyenne

Cheyenne’s platinum blonde hair takes on a fluorescent green hue in the stage lights, and after a boom-chicka-boom strut upstage, she immediately breaks into the first song from her latest album, I Want To. Her vocals are strong and loud, and as she strums her barely-audible guitar she puts on an over-dramatic expression of exertion that looks as rehearsed as her dance moves. You can almost picture her practicing both the pained expression — eyes closed, mouth pursed, head tilted back — and the pole-dance moves in front of her bedroom mirror before she goes to sleep at night. She’s put together, that’s for sure, but it’s going to take more than her own constant reassurances that she’s more than a flash-in-the-pan pop star to make the medicine go down.

“My goal is to sound as close to the record as possible,” Cheyenne says three songs into her set at Axis, with the same pained look on her face and a voice that sounds half like a defendant taking the stand and half like a 16-year-old girl whining to her parents for more money to spend at the mall.

Special attention must be paid to the irony of such a statement from this adorable, blonde, MTV-groomed 16-year-old pop star — one who’s consistently voicing her aversion to “miscategorization” as yet another, well, MTV-groomed pop star. Here’s Cheyenne denying her position as another pop-princess and defending her music as “the real deal” based on the over-rehearsed coherence of her live performance.

Indeed, her banter in between songs was less friendly audience-interaction, and more defensive reminders to the crowd that she wrote at least some her own songs and never, ever lip synchs during her performances. But take into account that Cheyenne is preaching to a choir of adoring middle-school-aged fans whose musical tastes might not be developed enough to fault her for being a studio-manufactured pop-princess, and her constant reminders that she herself wrote songs such as “Full Circle” in response to traumatic real-life experiences which actually occurred at some point during the course of her young life seem at first pathetic, and then, shortly after, hysterical.

An honest mistake

AUDREY GRAYSON — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:39:53 GMT

Yellowcard and Matchbook Romance at Axis
Yellowcard's enthusiasm is what the mundanity of their strongs struggles against. Slideshow: Yellowcard play Avalon, June 28, 2006

Politically impassioned?

AUDREY GRAYSON — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:09:46 GMT

Keane at First Act Guitar Studio
The band performed with the over-rehearsed passion and intensity of a presidential State of the Union address. Slideshow: Keane's in-store performance at First Act Guitar Studio, June 24, 2006

KEANE: No reservates, no improvisation, no mistakes, no passion.

Keane immediately brings to mind the “I like her/she likes him/I’m so lonely/oh, you’re hot/why don’t you like me?!” pop music genre from whence they came. But with the release of their latest album Under the Iron Sea, they’ve assured audiences -- and specifically those attending their in-store performance at First Act Guitar Studio on Saturday -- that they have ideas on warfare and wealth distribution. They just seem a bit confused as to what those ideas are.

Keane struts onto the small stage like pros, and after a brief “hu-llo” from front man Tom Chaplin, promptly pound out an acoustic version of their latest single, “Is It Any Wonder.” What blank space the absence of guitar and drums create was immediately filled by Chaplin’s wholesome, Freddy Mercury-esque vocals. Yet the band performed with the over-rehearsed passion and intensity of a presidential state of the union address; it felt as though something larger went missing, that what was actually at stake had gotten lost, if it was ever even there to begin with.

Chaplin’s awkward grace works well in the context of wailing self-conscious lines like “Sometimes/It's hard to know where I stand/It's hard to know where I am/Well maybe it's a puzzle I don't understand.” If not sincere, the lyrics at least sound cute in tandem with Chaplin’s endearingly clumsy hand gestures as he searches passionately -- albeit in vain -- to figure out what to do with his hands in the absence of instrument. Meanwhile, the song struts forth with confidence -- no reservations, no improvisation, no mistakes -- even if the cost of such brazen confidence is the passion of the songs themselves.

Following the performance of their latest single, a brief onstage interview with Chaplin revealed, much to my shock, that the song is actually infused with deep political concerns, namely those which most affect British and American youths in the wake of the war in Iraq. But if the general feeling among the “confused youths” of the West is “After all the misery made/Is it any wonder that I feel afraid/Is it any wonder that I feel betrayed,” one has to wonder if Chaplin is giving our young, confused generation a little too much credit. Since when did confusion of self become confused with high-minded political, social, or global concerns?