Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 105/106 - 2011

105
2011/09/25, Webster Hall, NYC
Spazz
Long hard book
Independence street
Polvo
Tune grief
Planetary motion
No one is (as I are be)
Love is like oxygen

I remember a contemporary interview in which Stephen talked about the Jicks' plans for their Fall 2011 tour. Rehearsals would focus on the Mirror Traffic songs (of course) and some surprise older songs. But once into it, they got carried away by a bunch of new songs instead. It explains the lack of older material at Jake's first set of shows. But what they did play (all of 'Mirror traffic', a bunch of covers and a handful of new songs), they certainly did justice.

I only kept about half of the Webster Hall show. It wasn't a perfect show, but very good nevertheless. The eight performances above are pretty hard to beat. If the recording quality had been just a little higher (though it's very listenable), they might rival the studio versions. The uptempo stuff (Spazz, Tune Grief, Polvo) is played ruthlessly – no great variations on the versions we know, but highly effective. 'Long hard book' and 'No one is (as I are be)' get kinda fuzzy – 'Long hard book' has distorted guitar and an extended coda with lovely solo. 'No one is' lacks the horn and bells of course, instead Stephen stretches out with some liquid guitar soloing. Great.

I mentioned my 3 waves of songwriting theory before, right? The Fall 2011 tour is the first wave that led us to 'Wig out': 'Surreal teenagers', 'Independence street', 'J Smoov', 'Planetary motion', 'Scattegories', the unreleased 'Flower children' and the unplayed-but-on-the-setlist 'Pick up the spare'. The first wave songs are slow, pondering, singer-songwriter songs on the one hand, knotty, prog-rock songs on the other. As the oldest wave, the songs also ran the highest risk of being past their peak when they entered the studio. Not all of them ('Planetary motion' and 'Scattegories' gained in the studio incarnation) but to me the definitive version of 'Surreal teenagers' happened at Fallon. Likewise the definitive version of 'Independence street' was at Webster Hall. Nowhere else can you hear the ruined splendour nailed quite so accurately, in lines like 'I don't have the stomach for your brandy / I can hardly sip your tea / I don't have the teeth for your candy' and so on. 'Everybody hurts / On Independence street', that much is clear. Decay. It's been a while since I used a Dylan analogy, so here's one. This song's like one of those old man songs Dylan did between 1989 and 2006 (after that he didn't do old man songs anymore, he was just old).

'Planetary motion' is a knotted nugget, riffing on basic chords at Webster. All of the guitar lines overdubbed on the studio version aren't played here. I prefer the final version, but this one's nice to have. I'm also a massive fan of the closing cover. 'Do you think we have a future on the wedding band circuit?' Stephen asks. Going by this evidence, hell, I'd get married just to book 'em. Note to self: investigate options.

106
2011/10/02, Variety Playhouse, Atlanta GA
Forever 28
All over gently
Stick figures in love
Asking price
Scattegories
Gorgeous Georgie
No one is (as I are be)
Long hard book
Tune grief
Independence street
Radio free Europe

One week later, at the Variety Playhouse, the Jicks played a similar set (a different new song, a different cover but the gist is the same). Yet with a different mood. You never know to what extent the recording set up alters your perception of the concert – sometimes recordings sound nothing like what the people in the room actually experienced. But to me, from my vantage point, at Webster Hall the Jicks were extraverted, aiming the music out there. At the Variety Playhouse they play the same songs and just as good, but it sounds lost in a daze, introverted, four people on the stage creating their own pocket of the universe. You need to be pretty far into the livetape collecting lifestyle to appreciate these subtle differences. Most people, I'm sure, would hear two identical versions of the same songs, and both sound worse than the record. But if you've read this far, you and me both have drifted pretty far from that viewpoint. The differences are as subtle but real as the differences between two 1968 Grateful dead shows. [There's one more option of course: the perception I have is based on the track selection I've made. I've kept a large part of the songs but I've pruned some dead wood here and there. Could be listening to the full concert would sound different yet again.]

The heart of the show to me is in the elongated endpart of 'Stick figures in love', in the drifting version of 'Gorgeous Georgie', a beautiful 'No one is (as I are be)', a pared back and hollow (the sound, not the emotion) 'Long hard book' (very different from Webster Hall where it was covered in fuzz guitar, here it sometimes drops out altogether between drumbeats and Mike's piano playing dominates over a subtly feedbacking ringing guitar note), another lovely 'Independence street' (just behind the Webster Hall version).

Besides that, there's the first recording of 'Scattegories', already announced as an 'old favourite'. It's a little longer than the album version. That one gets by on the suggestive 70s organ – which is only implicitly present here. Dare I say, in the first version, it strikes me as a b-side material? Shows what I know. And of course, the final enthusiasm-over-exactitude cover of REM's debut single, played on the occasion of their retirement, I think.