benefit of the doubt

Before I left, I meant to write something about Effi Briest and rude New Yorkers. Effi Briest opened for Go! Team at the Bowery Ballroom a couple of Saturdays ago and I was really taken aback and was unexpectedly charmed by them. My friends were all there to see Go!Team. I knew nothing about either band before arriving and was left with the impression that some audiences, especially this one, like predictability, repetition, and for everything to go according to plan. Go! Team was loud, energetic, and as their name implies, adds cheerleading to the mix of guitar-driven, double-drummer, hip-hop music. The audience loved them and pogo’ed along to all of their songs.

Nothing personal against all of you cheerleaders out there, but something about the ideas of ‘team spirit’ and ‘winning’ have always grated on me. I threw stuff at our high school cheerleaders, even though some of them were my friends, and had to leave a few football games before I was kicked out.

There’s also something about bouncy, guitar-driven, hammering up and down and audience participation that bores me silly these days. Yeah, I know I like electronic dance music and I fail to see any contradiction.

I’m still amazed at how rude people in New York can be sometimes. To be fair to the New Yorkers, I’m not sure the rude people in the audience are actually New Yorkers; the culprits could be tourists or recent arrivals who haven’t been humbled yet, who haven't learned to be good to strangers because this city isn't so very anonymous. To get on with the story, somebody yelled out “You suck!” at the end of one of Effi Briest’s songs as the room had quieted. The bandmembers obviously heard it, but ignored it with stunned silence and continued into their next song. Twenty minutes later, I realized I should have yelled out something like “and who anointed you genius music critic in the room, asshole?” or “I would be happy to refer you to a clinic that treats Tourettes.” My reaction was delayed due to the fact that I was thoroughly entranced and that interjection was unexpected. I don’t think it’s the responsibility of the band to react to something like that, nor is it mine; that person’s friends, if he has any, should ostracize him until he learns how to behave.

Yes, perhaps it could have sounded like Effi Briest’s instruments were out of tune and they couldn’t keep time. But given that your blogger here has just run off to Berlin, the band named themselves after a German novel with a plot based on an adultery tragedy, said band is comprised of seven women living in Brooklyn and one of them plays both clarinet and accordion, I guess I was predisposed to give them the benefit of the doubt, believing that maybe their tuning and rhythmic clashes were purposeful. Also, our vocal, young music critic may not have much of an ear for improvised or contemporary classical music- or have any idea what it means to be experimental with one’s own sound. From my point of view, Effi Briest's effort was a more worthwhile than the crowd-pleasing power chords that came later. Actually, EB were quite good and I’ll go see them again. You should too.

P.S. Berlin is way cool. Nearly broke my shoulder flipping over the handlebars of a bike while attempting to get home last night. Bar that we went to had an open dj night, so people could bring their own records and play them. I think the place was called klub der republik.