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Still Haven't Met Brooklyn Vegan, WTF

Les Savy Fav [ft. Brice Marden]
MoMA
November 7

It really does suck not to have your cell phone though I wonder to what extent Poprally has more to say about this besides "remember when there were no cell phones?" And the answer for me is no not really. Even when that shit cost like $2 a minute, my mom had a phone in a bag that she carried with her pretty much everywhere. Also this is as apt a time as ever to remind everyone that Daddy Warbucks had a carphone in the movie version of Annie. Makes you think.

Last night there was no articulation of why cell phones are bad, anti-social, etc.. I feel like the people in the 90s who hated on CD players at least had a point, which was that music is often more interesting than the people you are with on class busrides. So I'm just going to put it out there and say that cellphones are 100% awesome. Let me just walk you through the situation of last night even, without a cellphone: J was working the door, I stood in line for 30min waiting for a drink, apparently Beta was there and I had no idea, and by the time LSF started playing it was pretty much worthless to try and find either at MoMA, which had two floors of people who were mostly there for the free booze. Let's just say it would have been nice not to have five different people say that I quote ditched them last night.

Plus like I don't understand how one night--with lines to stand in for booze, a band to watch, a Brice Marden retrospective to pretend is interesting, TV on the Radio members to notice, David Cross look-a-likes to point out and actual David Crosses to whatever, fuck that guy, i.e. all these DISTRACTIONS from the fact that there are no cell phones--I don't understand how a distraction-filled night with a clear itinerary is at all some artistic or even artisto-nostalgic conceit. It's empty fascism, weed-inspired wouldn't-it-be-funny fascism at best.

At this point, and prove me wrong, it's a communicative issue, cell phones, beyond convenience. I think we're well beyond the new factor of cell phones, when we were all playing SNAKE or whatever else instead of talking to our friends like we're apparently supposed to. I certainly didn't talk to anybody I didn't already know, if that was supposed to be one of the goals, and while I certainly missed having my cellphone and, I dunno, "respected" the technology and how much I depend on it, I'm now infinitely more skeptical of people who are skeptical of it. Cell phones are dirt cheap, so it's not that. And christ, if you're pissed that your friends are always taking phone calls when you're with them, you should either get new friends who don't do that or figure out what the fuck's wrong with you, because you're obviously not saying anything worth their time.

Here are a few things to be MUCH more skeptical of:

-LaCie Firewire drives (the ones with the blue lights that always peter out)
-Centrum daily vitamins (pretty sure it's psychosomatic at this point)
-Brice Marden (not to go balls low but the whole "Brice" thing is a huge clue)

Les Savy Fav played in the no man's atrium between where the coatcheck is and the steps to go upstairs to the art/booze--really wide open, totally inappropriate for music, but this is LSF. These guys could be playing in a jet plane that happens to be flying over my apartment building and it would still probably be in my top 15 concerts of all-time. Not really a rock&roll crowd, which might explain the oohs and aahs when Tim fourthwalled them, dived under a guy's shirt and put it on himself, etc.. He did the cellphone call gag again but this time it cough, rang true, this weird philosopher-king type situation where obviously the head of the crowd is able to break the rules he's set for the crowd, etc. The band was dressed in cat burglar outfits, not sure whether that tied into poprally's "we stole your phones" motif so much as his own band's restless war-on-cliche showmanship, as discussed previously.

I didn't want to go this route but since I'm practically already there, maybe it's not "modern art makes me want to rock out" so much as "rocking out makes me modern art." I know mostly shit about visual art, I'm getting better with it, but eventually I'll be tempted to argue that LSF rock performance is both more "modern" and "artsy" than everything inside MoMA, rock performance meaning this theatrical/visual/musical art hybrid without necessarily borrowing from the first two's traditions, i.e. covalent bonds, not ionic, an artform that can't be sweat down to its original constituent parts.

Especially since one could talk at length about LSF's "art" of convuluted, conflicting signifiers, not an ironic presence but one that uses irony for sure and for smartly: Tim trying to grab a woman's vulva but being blocked by the glass along the steps, the endless impromptu costume changes and "motifs" that run through songs, the pretty brilliant "I've seen this before" chorus in "Who Rocks the Party," the song that ended the show, a pretty powerful articulation of the modernist plight and the band's decision to keep on rocking the body instead, etc. Out my ass I know, but you seriously have to see this Brice Marden exhibit. All's to say, LSF is a rock band first and fore, definitely with a considerable "goal" with each show, a product to deliver on, with more in common with Audioslave than Cy Twombly, no offense to any party there. But who's to say we can't decide this cigar's more than a cigar ex postfacto.

73 RIFFS