The Ramones beginning songs with a
count-off of “One, Two, Three, Four!” was charming and stupidly
sophisticated.
But it takes real intelligence to utter
over a cheesy mechanized beat accompanied by bass and guitar, “I
need a haircut and a head on a spear/Nothing's important when the
morning is near” before beginning to monotonously intone: “One,
Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
31, 32, 33 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 40, 41, 42, 43, 44—ladies and
gentlemen, the band.” Bringing it all musically together—real
drums, keyboard, bass, guitar—for the rest of the track “I Love
La” (from the highly-recommended Everybody's
Got It Easy But Me).
The brains behind the The Intelligence,
Lars Finberg, called the musical set depicted in these photos the band's
"worst show of all time.” The bass player had quit just before the
tour started in Denver, forcing the band's keyboardist to play only
bass parts at Finberg's dispirited pre-show request. But I was
charmed by the minimalism that accentuated Finberg's guitar and
vocals. Quirky, sly, post-punk pop. I went to the Hi-Dive in Denver
to see the headliner, but left with opening act The Intelligence
percolating throughout my gray matter.
The Intelligence recently opened for
FFS (the Sparks/Frans Ferdinand collaboration). A full band boosted
the sound of Finberg's songs. Finberg stood deadpan, playing guitar
and singing songs from his latest release Vintage
Future. Angular, sometimes surf-sounding guitar lines.
Sometimes a song will take the road-less-traveled from where the Cars
rode into town. Compositions about love and deviousness. Cinematic in
certain regards, the soundscapes might be tagged “Lynchian”—if
they weren't actually more “Finbergian.” And then, at the end of
the set, Finberg literally stretched-out, unexpectedly and
acrobatically, slapping his foot onto his keyboard while
simultaneously leaning over and placing his guitar's headstock
against his amp, generating feedback and keyboard blurt.
The Intelligence: at its best, just
brilliant.
No comments:
Post a Comment