The Olivia Tremor Control - The Opera House (7-30-05)
Bear with me...
Someone recorded this song at a concert I went to over the summer. It was one of the greatest musical moments of my life, the realization of a dream I'd had for a few years at least: seeing OTC live. And it was a dream I'd given up on entirely, figuring that (as with Pulp) I'd just never get the chance.
But I did, and as high as my expectations were, I was amazed. It was a near-transcendant musical experience, and this song sorta encapsulates why (though the recording's a little soft).
For this song, OTC brought a little girl, maybe five years old, up on stage to play tambourine with them. That's her Bill Doss is referring to at the end, when he says, "She wants us to do that again!" The girl was there for most of the concert, sitting on her dad's shoulders near the front. He was pretty drunk, and pretty loud. Annoying - not the sort of person you'd want to stand next to, not the sort of person you'd want at your concert. Many lead singers would yell at the guy, and that can be funny - I've got audio of Jeff Tweedy ripping on hecklers that's fairly amusing. Not OTC. Other bands respond with agression, but they're beyond that. And that was fairly awesome.
But even more awesome is the music. Some good bands and some bad bands have come out of the Elephant 6 collective, but the Olivia Tremor Control are a truly great band. They combine a love for sunny, catchy pop with a love for tape-experiment radicalism into something truly unique, something that draws from numerous sources to become far more than the sum of its parts.
They're one of few (I can't think of any others now) bands to take the cut-and-paste recording style Brian Wilson used so effectively and take that technique to levels Wilson never imagined. Their masterpiece, Black Foliage: Animation Music Vol. 1, is a collage of repeating themes, images, and sounds. It's magnificent, a strong step forward in a type of music that not many have the skill to explore.
And yet they have fun with it. There's no pretension to their experimentation; I listen and get the distinct impression that they thought, "here's a cool sound, let's put it on tape for the record!" Interviews with the band members confirm this - things that were accidents in the mastering that sounded interesting stayed on tape. Laughter at the end of a fading theramin to close out their first album. OTC may have their proggier aspects, that's true. But the sense of enjoyment and lack of affectation saves them from being anything other than boring.
Because, finally, they can really rock when they want to. And they do here, in their encore from the Chicago show. Little girl on the tambourine, five or six or seven other people on the stage, and they tear into this song. The lyrics are excellent, pulling in the ideas of reality and fantasy that OTC so often deal with: "And a religious figure/who's not really a religious figure/'cuz he is an ACTOR!" This is the music to a film that'll never be made, and it opens with a song about going to a movie. Make of that what you will. The Olivia Tremor Control make it into a rocking, poppy, fun and perfect end to a dream-fulfilling night.
Bear with me...
Someone recorded this song at a concert I went to over the summer. It was one of the greatest musical moments of my life, the realization of a dream I'd had for a few years at least: seeing OTC live. And it was a dream I'd given up on entirely, figuring that (as with Pulp) I'd just never get the chance.
But I did, and as high as my expectations were, I was amazed. It was a near-transcendant musical experience, and this song sorta encapsulates why (though the recording's a little soft).
For this song, OTC brought a little girl, maybe five years old, up on stage to play tambourine with them. That's her Bill Doss is referring to at the end, when he says, "She wants us to do that again!" The girl was there for most of the concert, sitting on her dad's shoulders near the front. He was pretty drunk, and pretty loud. Annoying - not the sort of person you'd want to stand next to, not the sort of person you'd want at your concert. Many lead singers would yell at the guy, and that can be funny - I've got audio of Jeff Tweedy ripping on hecklers that's fairly amusing. Not OTC. Other bands respond with agression, but they're beyond that. And that was fairly awesome.
But even more awesome is the music. Some good bands and some bad bands have come out of the Elephant 6 collective, but the Olivia Tremor Control are a truly great band. They combine a love for sunny, catchy pop with a love for tape-experiment radicalism into something truly unique, something that draws from numerous sources to become far more than the sum of its parts.
They're one of few (I can't think of any others now) bands to take the cut-and-paste recording style Brian Wilson used so effectively and take that technique to levels Wilson never imagined. Their masterpiece, Black Foliage: Animation Music Vol. 1, is a collage of repeating themes, images, and sounds. It's magnificent, a strong step forward in a type of music that not many have the skill to explore.
And yet they have fun with it. There's no pretension to their experimentation; I listen and get the distinct impression that they thought, "here's a cool sound, let's put it on tape for the record!" Interviews with the band members confirm this - things that were accidents in the mastering that sounded interesting stayed on tape. Laughter at the end of a fading theramin to close out their first album. OTC may have their proggier aspects, that's true. But the sense of enjoyment and lack of affectation saves them from being anything other than boring.
Because, finally, they can really rock when they want to. And they do here, in their encore from the Chicago show. Little girl on the tambourine, five or six or seven other people on the stage, and they tear into this song. The lyrics are excellent, pulling in the ideas of reality and fantasy that OTC so often deal with: "And a religious figure/who's not really a religious figure/'cuz he is an ACTOR!" This is the music to a film that'll never be made, and it opens with a song about going to a movie. Make of that what you will. The Olivia Tremor Control make it into a rocking, poppy, fun and perfect end to a dream-fulfilling night.
posted by Odorless Boatman at 7:11 PM
1 Comments:
i still have to see tom waits, but most of my must see concerts have been ticked off. reunion tours help. which is basically what this was. it was pretty good for a reunion tour. i'm really tired and losing my grasp on what i'm saying. further on this song later.
Post a Comment
<< Home