The Tris McCall Report

Notes From The Front, October 30, 1999

Olivia Tremor Control, at the Knitting Factory

Olivia Tremor Control was very good, brilliant at times. They were like watching a West Coast run and gun basketball team -- scoring points like crazy, but occasionally exposed in unflattering matchups (like the few times that Cullen Hart wound up playing drums... perhaps they could minimize that the next time out). The thing that surprised me the most about them was their cheekiness and collegiality; I expected that, in keeping with their psychedelic schtick, they would be a little more mysterious and reserved up there. Instead you had the kind of in-jokes and smartass banter that you used to get at Camper Van Beethoven shows. At times, I kid you not, they reminded me more of Phish (the very early Phish) than anything else. That isn't exactly a compliment, but Phish certainly used to be able to kick it in a live setting.

Highlights: a wigged freakout on the end of "New Day", "Sleepy Company", "California Demise" (much better live than on the EP), and two very interesting Cullen Hart songs that I had never heard before -- one about being a symbol, and another midtempo one which had John Fernandes going "looping, looping, looping..." that was probably the closest I will ever come to seeing Yes circa 1968. Very rock and roll in the best possible way to see seven guys onstage, playing reckessly and enthusiastically (especially since the night before I had caught the Archer Prewitt show at Maxwells, and he was, I swear to God, the least inspiring performer I've ever seen in my life. He discharged his set like it was a homework assignment he had to turn in).

Bill Doss took the stage and strummed his guitar, and it sounded kinda awful, and I expected him to spend the next five minutes tuning it. To my surprise, he just put it down, and played it like that for the rest of the set, never tuning it once. Of course it was awesome in context. That's the kinda amateurism that i get accused of supporting, but i'm not even a punk guy (I don't think so, anyway).

Last night, Mary Timony opened the show for Quasi, and Hilary kept saying to me that she couldn't even play her guitar. Which is technically true, I guess, but I felt that she had an idiosyncratic way of approaching the instrument, and that was interesting and aesthetically rewarding to watch. It was a lot more compelling than Number Two, who were on first -- those cats just competently played barre chords and couldn't really draw me in, though the songs were nice enough. Hilary feels that there's a base level competence that a performer should have before getting up onstage. I probably agree, but I think I have a broader concept of what instrumental skill might consist of: imagination, a relationship with your axe, a willingness to explore and take chances. That's probably why it always looks like I'm apologizing for players who make lots of mistakes and fuck up all the time.

Quasi then took the stage and rendered the argument irrelevant by putting on a virtuoso rock show. Janet Weiss plays fills like Muhammad Ali threw punches.

I know it's hard to believe in something you can't see.