SHOW REVIEW: Frankie Rose w/ Dive and Night Manager

There's a certain art to being cool. It requires equal parts detachment, judgement, untouchability, and flippancy. Being cool might make you the envy of your less-than-cool counterparts, but it's ultimately an empty, lonely act. Because being vulnerable isn't cool, being cool entails keeping others at bay, elevating yourself to a level above the uncool, refusing to let anyone in, and never showing emotion or excitement because it is somehow unbecoming. It's a problem that is unique to my generation; though real “cool” barely exists anymore except as a marketing concept many of us have been posturing ever since, fearful of ever revealing the uncool sides of ourselves, deprived of true connection in order to maintain the illusion of coolness, feeling pain only when the facade fails us. In the real world, this looks like a dimly lit bar in which everyone nurses PBR from a can and no one talks to anyone. And in that bar, Frankie Rose fills the jukebox.

As a drummer for Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, and Crystal Stilts, Frankie Rose was at the forefront of the resurgence of a noise pop movement that took its cues from the intertwining jangle and grit of sixties garage rock and girl groups. In recording her first album as Frankie Rose and the Outs, she never strayed far from this sound. Her vocals had begun to take on a dreamy sort of submerged quality with her first solo album, recorded under the moniker Frankie Rose and the Outs. But by and large the album, while expertly crafted, was nothing new. It was perfect in terms of continuing the sound and vibe that made Frankie something of a household name in indie rock circles. To some, the resume she'd built was not only impressive but impenetrable, unapproachable. But to be honest, it felt cold and rehearsed and well-worn to me, not a record I could get behind on an emotional level. It wasn't bad, but it it wasn't life-altering and ultimately I lost interest. To join the Frankie cult I would have had to buy dark sunglasses and a leather jacket and thrown away all my clothing that wasn't black, and I probably would have had to spit on anyone who talked about how into Adele they were. But what I really wanted was license to feel and share freely with my peers, not judge them or their tastes, not act like mine are better than anyone else's.

Here is what I like to imagine happened next. Frankie was walking through the graffiti-scrawled streets of Williamsburg when a white light enveloped her and suddenly, the Earth was no more than a blue speck far below. Her abductors, benevolent alien beings with glowing solar plexuses, took her on an epic interplanetary voyage in which she witnessed incomprehensible forms of life and their bizarre customs, each of which held more meaning and beauty than her indie-rock royalty act. She was shown the error of her ways and told to go forth to the earthly masses and write an album with some heart, lest she be re-abducted and dissected. No longer obsessed with being cool and furthering her own reputation as purveyor of such, Frankie Rose came back to Brooklyn and wrote her gorgeous sophomore album, Interstellar.

While this may be a fanciful version of the truth, the end result is the same.  Interstellar, out now on Slumberland Records, gives having your head in the clouds a whole new meaning.  Frankie's vocals sparkle and swirl like gauzy nebula gasses, the stuff of galaxies being born. The gritty guitars have been replaced by poppy riffs and spacious synths that reveal yearning and hope and a red-hot emotional core. Every second feels expansive, reminding us that the big bang is still happening and that even as we rotate on this rock we are hurtling through space. The lyrical content isn't particularly heavy and remains relatively carefree, but that's not to say it suffers from any of that.  Rather, it feels much more relatable than anything she's written to date. There are instances (particularly “Know Me” “Daylight” and “Night Swim”) that recall the most impassioned moments of new wave, though that heartfelt artfulness permeates each new song. Tracks like “Gospel/Grace” are still informed by the jangle pop of Frankie's former work but here she has made everything bigger, warmer, more urgent and airy. Closing track “The Fall” is like listening to a dream – the kind you go back to sleep for so you can keep dreaming it. Its hushed vocals unspool over a simplistic but indelible guitar line, diffused synths and a droning cello reminiscent of Arther Russell's "This Is How We Walk On The Moon". Listening to Interstellar basically made me reevaluate every snap judgement I'd ever made about Frankie or her tunes. There's a line in title track and album opener that sums up the whole endeavor perfectly - “weightless, free from predictable ways”. Amen, sister, amen.

I got tickets to attend the release party for Interstellar at Knitting Factory, expecting some grand announcement, an ushering in to a new age of Frankie Rose. She's one of the most influential musicians in the Brooklyn indie scene, so perhaps we'd all be given a crystal and told to let our hearts breathe, to embrace each other and stop worrying about our haircuts. Night Manager opened with an enthusiastic batch of precocious noise pop anthems.  Some bands get on stage and act like it's the most boring thing in the world to be on stage, which is always annoying because everyone at one point or another wants to be a rock star. Night Manager can't have had long to fantasize about such things – I'd say the average age of the five band members couldn't have been much over twenty – and that youthful exuberance was their strongest point. Their lead singer's vibe was somewhere between Bethany Cosentino and Anne Margaret but I probably only make that connection because I've been watching the third season of Mad Men while battling a head cold.

I had high hopes for Dive, a(nother) Beach Fossils side project whose reverb-drenched singles are catchy and evocative of epiphanies had while staring at clouds. From the looks of it, these guys really struggle to get dressed (evidenced by the rubber bands utilized to hold the guitarist's pants in place) and speaking of haircuts – yikes. While their shoegazey tracks have a just-woke-up sort of haze, Dive's performance was so boisterous it could have been a commercial for 5-hour energy shooters. The kinetic set was incredibly fun to watch and included an unrecognizable take on a Nirvana song and a pornographic tee-shirt.  Dive's debut EP is scheduled for release next month on Captured Tracks, and seeing them play the material in such a spirited manner has me psyched for it.

Frankie Rose took the stage just after 11PM with four band members, opening with the title track from the new record. The stage was bathed in starry projections, but there were no house lights at all on Frankie or the majority of the band, which reduced everyone but the drummer to indistinct silhouettes. That might have been cool for a song or two, but they played the entire set that way, and it was slightly off-putting. Much like when you spend a hot day at the zoo and all the animals are sleeping inside fake caves, the lack of anything to rest eyes on was disappointing and disconnecting. Perhaps the lighting guy was in the bathroom, thinking he'd have plenty of time to light the stage once the band really got going. But he never had a chance – the show was over practically before it began. The crowd, myself included, was just settling in to Frankie's performance, and then it abruptly ended after they'd played for just under half an hour.

I've seen some short sets, but this one left me stunned in terms of its brevity. You'd think that with two albums of material she could have fleshed it out for another fifteen minutes, even with stage banter or something. I didn't even recognize the new songs; I assumed she'd not played many of them but was later informed she'd played seven of the ten new tracks from Interstellar. The thing is, they were interpreted for the stage in such a way that they might have belonged on older albums, in the work she'd done with bands prior to striking out solo, in the detached, too-cool-for-school manner of everything that had come before. There was no trouble taken to document the evolution and preserve the openness that makes Interstellar such a great album; instead I was reminded of all the reasons I'd felt put off by Frankie in the past. She returned to the stage apologetically to play one more track (video of the encore is below) and finally asked for the house lights to be turned up a bit, though it was done begrudgingly by the house.

My overall impression was that Frankie is somehow afraid to bring her newfound sincerity into the spotlight both literally and figuratively. She was hiding the entire time – playing in the dark, rushing through the set as if nervous or embarrassed, and masking the intimate vibe of the new record behind the practiced ways of her rock-n-roll persona. Perhaps this was an effort to make the material more stage-ready but for me it had a numbing effect. I can only hope that in time she'll figure out how to parlay the stirring ardency that makes Interstellar so salient, will become comfortable with letting any pretense fall away and be truly present in the new material. I can imagine that day – Frankie stands on stage in a halo of white, assuredly plucking each note from her guitar strings, backed only by atmospheric keys and somber drums, letting Interstellar truly explode – vulnerable, earnest and far beyond the trappings of coolness.

SHOW REVIEW: Blouse w/ Cosmetics & The New Lines

nice blouse, Charlie Hilton

Looking at the line-up for Tuesday night's show at 285 Kent, I wasn't sure if I was about to see a handful of fashionable indie bands or if I was making a shopping list for things I needed to pick up from Bloomingdales. Blouse, check. Cosmetics, check. The New Lines, check. (Original openers Beige and Mosaics were replaced last minute by Beach Fossils side project Heavenly Beat, but could have easily fit into a department store otherwise).

Luckily for my bank account, it was the former. I missed Heavenly Beat although heard from a photographer I struck up a conversation with that his set was pretty befuddling. Actually, I think the term autistic might have been used, but I feel remiss to pass judgement on an act I didn't actually catch. I made my way toward the stage just as New Lines were setting up.

The three members of The New Lines had this adorably quirky indie rock band circa 1995 look, like they'd be scratching their feet in the dirt all sheepish-like if they hadn't been playing a show. Unfortunately, that's probably what they went and did after a set besieged by technical difficulties. It seems strange to say of something “It was so loud I couldn't hear it” but that's the sort of effect the mixing had – it seemed like every other thing was drowning the vocals, but I couldn't tell specifically what needed turning down. Surely one guitar, or even the keyboard, couldn't be obliterating my ear drums. Then they asked for “less iPod” followed by “less backing track” followed by some other way of saying “we don't have a bassist, so we need to play our songs over another part of the same song that we already recorded” and I suddenly understood. After a false start, the band stopped playing their last track halfway through a second attempt and left the stage. Even so, I wanted to hug them and tell them not to give up; I could tell that given a proper opportunity to listen to their poppy, psych-influenced songs I might fall madly in love with them. Luckily, they have a bandcamp and the only thing missing there is the trippy projections that swirled behind them as they performed.

Misty Mary on the keys

After the longest equipment change of all time, the Cosmetics frontwoman explained “We got caught in a snowstorm on the way here.” I was not sure if she meant from the bar to the stage or what, as it had been sixty degrees (!) in NYC just hours earlier. The songstress was lovely to behold and had a nice voice, while her equally attractive male compatriot backed her up on no less than three mini-synths. The overall effect was a semi-sluggish brand of electroclash but I think given time to develop and expand on their sound this could be a really fun band to see again. They have two seven inches out on Captured Tracks (which you can listen to at bandcamp) and it will be interesting to see if they are able to move past their sweet tooth for Glassy Candy.

Patrick tunes his bass

Blouse took the stage just after midnight. Leading lady Charlie Hilton repped the band name in a flowing garment, cuffed at midwrist and layered over tan short shorts worn with sheer tights and tall black wedge booties. I don't know if that is relevant to anything, but it seems when you've named your band after the fanciest of shirts that it might matter just a little. According to Patrick Adams' cool haircut it matters. Misty Mary (likely not her real name) tapping her toes clad in ripped pantyhose indicates that it matters. Everything about drummer Paul Roper says it matters – from the suspenders to the Elvis Costello frames, partially shaved head to the vintage tee.

What definitely matters is that Blouse lived up to the hype that's surrounded their self-titled release, out last November on Captured Tracks. The set was blissed-out and dreamy, yet retained the signature new-wave throwback sound that has garnered so much buzz for Blouse.  Ms. Hilton's emotive crooning made me feel like the only person bopping around in the cavernous, graffittied space. Her limited banter was sweet and humble. But for one song, the set was comprised entirely of material from the record, and the live renditions were flawless.  They closed with heavy-hitter “Into Black” before politely ducking offstage. You can watch my video of “They Always Fly Away” below.