Pointless. Needless. Trivial.
Les Savy Fav @ The Free Butt, Brighton Thursday June 15th 2000

Rock music. It's pointless. Needless. Trivial . Sometimes, a rudimentary diversion....

'This song's a hex on Rome.'

Why would you go see a band? They run through the same motions, the same songs, the same damn chords... night in, night out. If you're lucky perhaps they'll have bothered to change a couple of notes, extend the drum break or distort the vocal line borrowed heavily from the band who borrowed it heavily from the band before. Know a fast way to turn any right-thinking person away from US rock? Say the artists in question sound like any of the following. Pavement. Six Finger Satellite. Anything on Thrill Jockey. Brainiac. Anything from NYC. Fugazi. Know a clear way to tell that US rock is in a sorry, sorry state of affairs? People are still attending shows by these bands in the hope of re-enacting shows they missed (or caught) the first time round.

'We thought this place would be a training school for prostitutes - you guys need to learn how to spell right.'

Why see a band? Stay home with a video of Kurt Cobain's belches, if that's your speed. You like the band who remind you of the time that you once had when the world didn't matter. Personally, I like a band who can play to 30 people and make it seem like 31. A band who realise that rock shows are mundane, pointless. A passing diversion. Capes don't do it for me. Neither do hair-slides. You think a band's going to win me over through the sheer brilliance of their invention or musicianship? Get real. The last time I saw someone original, I was being belted on the back by a midwife.

'Thank you. If you cheer loud enough, we will not return.'

Music is the great comforter, the pacifier. Here's the reason I like angular NYC quintet Les Savy Fav. They don't remind me of any of the above bands. No. They remind me of explosive, obstreperous Dutch insurrectionists The Ex. (Hah!) Also, songs like 'Wake Up!' , ŒThis Incentive' and 'Titan' (from new album 'The Cat And The Cobra') know when to start and when to stop. Frankly, though, neither of those are reasons at all - however frantically Mr Harrison Haynes bangs on his drums, or Mr Seth Jabour labours to invent slightly different sounds on his battered guitar. No. Les Savy Fav charm all 30 of us tonight in the UK's Smallest Venue Offical - and believe me, it really does feel like there are 31 present - because they try. An event isn't an event unless the people there treat it as such. So the deceptively normal-looking singer Mr Tim Harrington goes on walkabout. He examines an array of different objects - lights, fans, beer glasses, an audience member's hand, turntables, the front door, every audience member's back, the ceiling - while sing/shouting. He jumps up. He jumps down. He's polite, yet intense. He makes us feel privileged to be in Brighton, England tonight.

It takes a very rare band indeed to manage that, nowadays. Believe me.

Oh... and the first person to ask, 'Didn't David Baker from Mercury Rev used to do precisely the same back in the early 90s?' receives a boot in the face from me. You cynical bastard.

©EVERETT TRUE 2000



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