Tag Archives: Jake Sanders

Concert Review: Memory Tapes (live at Johnny Brenda's)

–Jake Sanders

Seeing Memory Tapes play at Johnny Brenda’s this past Wednesday reminded me that hearing a band or musician play live can be such a unique experience from hearing them on record. As a concert goer, you expect a musician’s songs to be changed at least a bit in the live performance, or at the very least you expect to see how they’re played. This seems especially true with electronic music. At a show you see how the musician innovates on the sound immediately with mixers and turntables rather than from studio overdubs. This could have been the method that Memory Tapes’ Dayve Hawke employed, but instead he played guitar with a bassist and drummer, which is interesting given that he records and produces all the music on his albums himself. I thought this might be just an arbitrary choice before the show, but the band was so strong and cohesive that it made the songs all the more enjoyable.

After goth-synth Philadelphia band Instamatic and a short DJ set, two screens descended from the ceiling onto which were projected kaleidoscopic images. While Hawk and the band set up, the DJ spun a prolonged note that resonated for a bit too long, inciting a curt “Yo dude. Where’s the spaceship landing?” from Hawk. I got to chuckle a bit before they broke into an impressive version of “Yes I Know” from Player Piano, which sounds downbeat on record but came across radiant and much more expressive with the three playing together live. Right off the bat, anyone could hear how strong and collected the band sounded, and how well they played off each other. They kept the flow going with loud, big versions of “Wait in the Dark” and “Offers”. Everything about the music was confrontational and right up front, including Hawk’s voice, which shot through the speakers as loud as anything else (a big difference from his vocals and the instruments on record). They played two I didn’t recognize, then “This is Our Life” and “Trance Sisters,” which amplified the desperation and disaster of the song, rendering it all the more cataclysmic. They closed with a slow-building version of (their now-classic?) “Bicycle,” which turned into a bombastic dance number that got the whole crowd groovin’.

In short, I liked the record a lot, but the show totally sold me on how good Memory Tapes is. Hawk is a special kind of musician because he does all the writing himself, but it really made such a difference to hear everything played together. The already excellent melodies became fire and electricity with the group’s performance, and I think that might be just the result of the cooperation (or competition) natural between musicians. It’s a credit to Hawke that he can do both—play everything together and make a show that powerful. This isn’t to say that live music is always superior to music on record, but I think it showcases a different type of musical skill. Hawk constructs and records memorable melodies demonstrating his skill as a composer. However, he can also translate that into the kind of performance that shocks, which certainly places him as a forerunner in the category of “artists to watch.”

Album Review: Memory Tapes' Player Piano

Album Review by Jake Sanders

Player Piano, the second release from home-based electronic recording artist Memory Tapes, is a very welcome continuation of the gentle pop-electronica that the sole musician Dayve Hawk crafted in 2009’s Seek Magic. Like the last album, this one is rich with clear pop-melodies that jump playfully around, constructing a sound that’s both melancholy and charming, and both old and new. Hawk himself describes the music on the album as ‘keyboard-based psychedelic girl group songs, a sort of motown suicide note’. If that sort of description eludes you, I doubt you’re alone in that. There is something elusive about the sound on this album, partly because it does seem like a throwback, but one that still keeps the novelty of chill-wave. What eludes me on this album is the conflict beneath the surface, like with the pleasant synth sounds and high-pitched vocals that pull in a sunnier direction, but with lyrics that explore much more stressful that don’t seem to fit with the airiness of the music, including painful relationships and the inability to mend them. But I think its real success lies in Hawk’s ability to organize the different moods together flawlessly on each song, to make it all seem nonchalant and easy.

“Wait in the Dark” introduces the layers of synth-noise, clean bass and real percussion present on the rest of the album. It’s hard to deny the sadness of this one, though it still has an upbeat rhythm and a mobile instrumentation that implies cheeriness. “Today is Our Life” and “Yes I Know” sound like the music could delve into the sadness that‘s implied, but they end up sounding as pleasant and nonchalant as the others. Hawk has said himself about his recording style that “the music is my better nature, and the lyrics are me shouting myself down with self-loathing and cynicism. You end up somewhere between a genuine smile you’re trying to hold back, and a false smile you put on for a show.” That’s a really good description of the double-life of this record, or on a lot of chill-wave for that matter. The music is so well packaged and planned that it doesn’t cross the boundary that separates “chill” from anything else, but often it does imply something heavier, like in the lyrics. In a song like “Sun Hits,” there’s not even an attempt at getting at any other mood: it’s all candy. But with the last five tracks, Hawk does pull forward at the darker stuff in the music, with “Fell Thru Ice” and “Trance Sisters.” I was glad to hear the cataclysm and the desperation of the synths on these tracks, partly because it seemed like that’s what he was trying to get to the whole record, and partly because it shows that he’s capable of breaking those boundaries for himself.

All in all, this is a great second album in itself and for the interesting questions about recording that it inspires. One of the interesting things about the music is that Hawk records it all himself with live instruments, without a sequencer to help him. However, on this summer’s tour, he has been playing with two other musicians in a guitar-bass-drum set-up. This Wednesday, he’ll be playing at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it’ll translate live. I’ll be writing a review of the show later this week, so stay tuned!

Memory Tapes will be playing in Philadelphia at Johnny Brenda’s. Doors open at 8PM.

Pitchfork: (Or…Reading About It Online) (4/4)

by Jake Sanders

Ah yes. Like a national holiday for those who aren’t quite patriotic, The Pitchfork Music Festival comes around but once a year…however, I don’t have the money to attend. No, I’m not bitter or jealous. After all, there’s a ton of music blogs to choose from that give an group-by-group account of the festival, plus all the really juicy stuff that happens off stage. That should be almost as good as being there, right?

Trying to get to a concert of this size is the same story almost every year. The ads show up around the beginning of spring for the summer shows, there’s a lot of hype, there’s a lot of bands listed, and even the price is affordable. And I think, “Yes, this will be the year I’ll get to see at least one, get out there and really jive, y’know?” Yet I wonder.. “How will I make it there? I don’t think I know anyone who lives in East Sussex, and I’m not sure if there’s even a hamlet nearby where I could rent a room.” So I become resigned to looking around for local shows, or if the money’s really tight, watching The Last Waltz at home.

Thankfully, the blogs are there for people who couldn’t go to Pitchfork. You can skip a rock on the internet and hit a music blog covering it. If you’re quick enough, you can catch the live streaming videos during the performances, but if not, there are the write-ups that some blogs do. It’s not exactly the same as hearing the band live, but if you know them well enough it’s kind of interesting to read what they sounded like, and to check out some pictures too. And for bands that you’ve never heard, it’s good to read about what their performances were like, and to check them out some other time. To be fair though, sometimes they can leave something to be desired. I would like to know how Neko Case and Fleet Foxes played, but reading on Pitchforks’ blog that an out-fit looked like it was from a yard-sale and how there were five beards were on stage seems a bit like reading tips from Vogue or GQ.

One thing that I do love about reading the blogs is checking out the pictures. I’d like to think that I’m a purist and couldn‘t care less about what a band looks like. But, I know that I’m really not, and that I do like to see the funny faces that musicians make and the like. Like, scrolling down a list of pictures on onethirtybpm.com and Brooklynvegan, then seeing Robert Pollard performing a high-kick without any context or without actually having been there is hilarious to me. Or, seeing Ariel Pink putting three fingers in the air and grimacing. “He looks so angry here,” I think to myself, “and yet he makes such pleasant music”.

It is a stretch to think that a combination of pictures and a short description is any substitute for seeing a band live. But I found out about a lot of new groups looking over all this stuff, so thanks to all those who went and wrote about it. Then again, it could be that the bloggers are just flaunting how much fun they had, just callously rubbing it in our faces. Just giving us little tidbits of information to keep us mildly interested, but really laughing themselves silly thinking about all those who couldn’t go.

But no, I’m not bitter at all, really.

Live – The Feelies, Maxwell’s Hoboken, NJ 7/3

Hey WPRB listeners (and readers!), this is Jake again letting you know about the Feelies’ show last Sunday at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. As I got the tickets, I thought it would be a good opportunity to hear cuts from their new album Here Before, which addresses the themes of returning home, starting again, and staying in the game. Maxwell’s has been something like home-turf for them since they started playing in ‘77.They reunited after a 16 year hiatus in 2007, and the new record is the first in 20. I was looking forward to hearing the new record live, especially since it sounds like a return of the jangly acoustic pop of their earlier records but with more personal lyrics about the band itself, and about happily reuniting and recording after being apart for so long.

The band opened with “When Company Comes” and played tracks from the new record, including “Bluer Skies,” “Nobody Knows,” and “Should Be Gone.” They played with total ease and confidence—the band reinforced Glenn Mercer’s airy delivery and repetitious lyrics, and everyone built off each others’ quick play. No talk in between songs either – except for a joking “Happy Holidays” from Bill Million at the start, but again, they don’t really need it. During the second set, the band played more of their older stuff, with a bombastic four song finale starting with “Loveless Love,” moving into “Time is Right,” and ending with the driving “Moscow Nights” and “Crazy Rhythms”.

After they rushed off stage, the members returned to play an encore of covers, including The Velvet Underground and the Stooges, followed by another encore of The Beatles and “Fa Ce La”. The covers seem a total change of style owing to the Feelies’ own unique sound, but they put so much energy into them that they didn’t sound out of place with their originals either. This is a band of music-heads, and they show it with how much fun they have in paying homage to their idols (Especially Mercer, who was a total surprise when he belted out some very oily Iggy Pop vocals). I thought that would be it for the night, but as I was walking out, I nearly ran into the band coming back to play yet another set of covers, with two new tracks and an excellent cover of the Doors’ “Take it as it Comes”. They left the stage again I thought, “Okay. It’s pretty late in the evening. That’s probably it.” But I didn’t make it too far before the band again rushed to the stage and started off with two fiery Rolling Stones covers, “Rocks Off” and “Paint it Black.” I thought to myself, what if they played non-stop all through July 4^th, constantly entering and exiting the stage? Or, what if the rest of my life were just a series of encores by the Feelies, punctuated with short breaks when I could eat and sleep for three minutes before the next encore began?

Well, that would be all right, actually.

Jake Sanders is a contributor to the WPRB blog. He’ll be covering more shows in Philadelphia and New Jersey for the blog in the next few months.