Tokyo Police Club
By: Phil Roveto |
Thursday August 02, 2007 |
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San Francisco, CA |
| Decent night at the Independent to be sure. Saw some great new bands, had a couple decent brews, and saw some absolutely gorgeous ladies with knee-high stockings and no-finger mitts. All stripes, all the time. The only thing that soured my night was the sinking realization that a great deal of our "youth culture's" music is simply streaming together into a shiny, buffed parade of established popularity. We've gotten so used to the pop plateau that the smallest jump in creativity quickly leads to ravenous consumption, discussion, evaluation, and imitation. The second- and third-comers show ass-loads of talent and the same capability to do similar tricks, but once too many people produce the same kinds of sounds and energy. where does that leave people who want to see some variety, some adventure? It leaves us at Divisidero Street, fresh off some spiced potatoes, taking in San Francisco's Minipop, a darling collection of local indies headlined by their token hot, short and dark-haired, butter-voiced lead singer, Tricia Kanne. A pigtailed drummer loped along, all baboon-armed on the skins. A couple tall skinny dudes bopped about awkwardly, strumming decent rivers of mood while rainfalling high-pitched guitar notes over the top. It's a type of music I'd say I enjoy very much, all cave-y and foggy. Unfortunately, in the same way that songs, bands, and trends can run their course when people are oversaturated with them, when a type of music can be adequately played by more and more bands, it loses some of its appeal for me. Where's the originality? At least Dappled Cities, the Australian opener, gave me something to stand on my toes for, an off-kilter collection of falsettos, bird-calls, and jolting fire. Their two lead singers worked well as vocal foils, one with a grave, theatrically deep timbre and the other with high octaves and piercing barks. Of all the bands I saw, these guys looked like they have the most fun playing together. Members didn't shrug off their guitars and run for the dressing room at their set's close, as I saw with a male Minipop diva, and they generally grinned, joked, and enthusiastically powered through their songs. Tokyo Police Club (or their handlers) did a fantastic job bringing these guys onboard to bring a crowd to attention. After a long layoff, the Tokyo Police Club hopped onstage and performed their songs with aplomb and sufficient energy. "Be Good" featured all its hand-clapping quickness, egged on by rapid-fire lyrics and laser-beam guitar bolts. "Citizens of Tomorrow" got a huge response from the crowd. Another song bemoaning "robot masters," though. I'm getting quite sick of pop bands using robots as song material. Honestly, first it was pirates, now its robots. It's inevitable that certain ideas are always going to be popular with young crowds, but it seems that bands collectively decide to grasp at one subject, then they drive it to death. The Flaming Lips are the kings of robot imagery and sonic sound and have been so since about 1996. It took awhile, but now every group seems to have at least one song about artificial intelligence and subsequent artificial emotion. These things can start to wear on a person. The band's newest single, "Your English is Good," served as a good addition to the band's high energy output. A little fast-stepping, crowd shouting affair, "English" served as a telling example of the band's love of the tambourine, with two members grabbing a hold of a couple to really emphasize its effect. I couldn't help but wonder how the drummer felt. In addition to gratuitous tambourines, a band member would play on extra side drums, and lots of hand-clapping beats are featured in their songs. Is the dude not hitting hard enough or what?? "Nature of the Experiment" closed out the show wonderfully. Best part about this song is the way that they don't wait for the chorus to speed up and louden up their sound. They throw out a couple lines at normal tempo and with "It's not the moonlight that sets me off" they begin flying. They set a damn good driving pace, utilize decent bounding bass action, and, again, that popular high-pitched echoing lead guitar shred. So many things written about this band focus on their similarities to a variety of popular bands (Strokes, Arctic Monks, etc) but to be honest, bands play what people want to hear, and people want to hear what's already popular. There's not a lot of challenging stuff going on between the band and the audience and vice versa. It can be a little depressing and a little boring. Tokyo Police Club play some great music, but it's a shame that we're hearing so many things just like it at the same time. Even within the same night's lineup. The Independent San Francisco, CA Monday July 23rd, 2007 Photo: Mimi Cabell |
