Paul Rudd (feat. Of Montreal) @ Studio B

Last night I trekked all the way out to Greenpoint to see psychedelic glam rockers Of Montreal blow the minds of a club of jaded hipsters with a set of their own material followed by an even more entertaining set as the world's greatest karaoke machine. As expected, they skipped over their earlier glee pop material (which wouldn't quite fit their MO at this point) in favor of their darker, more dancable recent material (I think I may have even seen a few members of the audience nodding their heads in a way that approaches actual dancing). Despite the coziness of the venue, the band still came with full theatrical force. I recognized most of the props from the "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" video and their performance on Conan the other night, and the show was worth the price of admission just to see what the mustached guy in the black body suit would come out with next. I also counted at least four costume changes from Kevin Barnes, including a 10-foot-tall robe that put him at about eye level with the stage lights (though he was kind enough to keep his pants on for the duration of the show).













Then, after a brief intermission, Michael Showalter came on as his character from Wet Hot American Summer to deliver a series of (intentionally) terrible jokes and MC for the karaoke portion of the show. The band blew through an eclectic mix of songs that varried anywhere from ABBA to the Pixies without breaking a sweat (of particular note was Kevin Barnes effortless shredding of the guitar solo on "Sweet Child O Mine"). At points I felt bad for the singers, like the awkward Asian kid that came up to sing the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night" in full Ray Davies getup only to have his vocals killed by microphone problems. At other points I felt sorry for the band, as when these two obnoxious girls came up to sing "Blister In the Sun" (not a difficult song by any means) and completely fucked it up. Though, for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of both the vocals and the performances. The guy who did "Moonage Daydream" dressed as Aquaman was truly inspired, and the "Rocks Off" guy was so spot-on in his Jagger impersonation that I wondered what the fuck the two of them were doing performing karaoke instead of, say, starting a band. Michael Showalter's performance of INXS's "Need You Tonight" (totally in character) was excellent, though by far the best performance of the night came when Paul Rudd came on stage with David Wain (of Stella/State/WHAS fame) to do a kick-ass rendition of "More Than a Feeling". Wain put up a good effort but was completely upstaged by Rudd, who confirmed my suspicions that he might, in fact, be the greatest comic actor of his generation.



(props to the folks at Stereogum for posting these videos.)

Found Sound

In case you were distracted at the record store by the flashy cover art on the new Arcade Fire album (and why wouldn't you be) there were actually some other new releases worth noting last week. Air released a new album last week featuring tracks with Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy, which would be worth noting if it weren't just a watered-down version of their previous albums (though, to be fair, I haven't really been on the Air bandwagon since Moon Safari). More impressive is the new album from Brazillian/British beatmeister Amon Tobin. The album is called The Foley Room and, as such, relies primarily on sound effects and ambient noise rather than synthesizers or music samples (like John Cage if he didn't hate his audience). Despite all the lofty conceits, he manages to keep it from sounding gimicky or forced. It actually feels surpsisingly similar to his previous albums, with sounds as distinctive as water dripping or an engine revving blending seamlessly into his usual mix of jazz-inspired jungle beats, which, like all of his music, maintains the sinister quality of a David Fincher movie. Definitely worth picking up.

In other recent musical acquisitions, I've been on an Of Montreal kick since I downloaded their new album, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, which thankfully is every bit as weird, but not near as pretentious as its title suggests. Pitchfork says it's their "darkest and most experimental record to date," which is to say that it's still got sugary pop vocals - they're just putting them over noisy synth lines and drum-machine beats instead of the usual psychadelic guitar and piano (this is still definitely the same band that recorded The Gay Parade). I would say it's more melancholy than their previous work, but now that I go back and listen to some of their older twee-pop material, it's pretty apparent that Kevin Barnes has always been writing songs about how lonely and depressed he is. On this album he's just stopped trying to compensate for it.