For Those About To Rock

Cell phone use at concerts rises

Bon Iver took the stage, Justin Vernon picked the icy, escalating riff that drives “Perth” and Berkeley’s Greek Theatre turned into a sea of cell phones.

There were dozens of illuminated screens punctuating the standing-room-only crowd, each trying to retain the experience in some way.

It continued throughout last week’s show and no one questioned it, batted an eye or, as far as I saw, asked anyone to stop. Less than two days later, every song from the show was available via YouTube.

That’s what concert-going has become as the 21st century creeps toward its teenage years. Everyone is tweeting, texting, taking pictures and trying to preserve a piece of the show to post on YouTube or parade on Facebook, provided you found the Rosetta Stone to understand how the news feed works now.

So if everyone’s fidgeting with their 21st century technology, who is actually watching the show?

I’ll give you an extreme example. I was at a concert on the night of May 1 when President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. Papercuts, the opening act, was about five minutes into its gig when the news broke.

I’ve seen opening acts feel ignored before, but when confronted by an audience collectively talking to each other, looking at its phones and completely disregarding the performance, one could read the confusion on Jason Robert Quever’s face. He knew something out of the ordinary was going on.

That shows how powerful a weapon the cell phone has become in the concertgoer’s arsenal. Short of having a ticket to get in the door, it’s the most important thing a person can bring.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s a statement about the evolution of the cell phone, actually.

Ten years back, people were bringing phones to concerts, too. The difference is they were calling a friend who was sitting at home to rub it in instead of snapping pictures to post later on Flickr.

I’m as guilty of anyone else. I take pictures and use my phone to keep track of the setlist. I’m not trying to take some high road and act like I don’t do all of this, too.

But when my eyes aren’t on the stage and instead pushing through the menus on my phone, I’m trying to hit the brakes on a train that has already left the station.

It feeds a culture of “hey, look what I did.”

Plus, if the recording effort goes awry, then the person figuratively missed the show twice. The show-goer threw away the opportunity to watch the artist perform in person and won’t get to check it out later, unless of course some other person was recording it, which isn’t out of the question.

People do it not simply to brag to their friends on Facebook, but because concerts are, by nature, elusive. No matter how many live albums, photos and YouTube clips amass, nothing is quite as magical as “you had to be here.”

Capture is the key word here. People will never recreate the experience, but they are trying to preserve a piece of it.

I read an interview with Robert Randolph, a blues guitarist from New Jersey, that captured this notion perfectly.

“Carlos Santana said to me if you ask 50 people which they remember most, a show or a record, 48 of them will say a great record,” Randolph said. “Because you live with a record, you can pick it up 50 years later and still listen to those songs.”

It’s still true. Even when tapers bring microphone stands and record the gig and turn out a high-quality recording, the tendency to drift back toward the studio recordings is ever-present.

It’s not behavior that is going to change. That Silly String is out of the can — no one firing off pictures and taking video is going to just give it up for the sake of going back to simpler times.

And why should they? You better believe that if there were smart phones and YouTube in The Beatles’ day, we would have a plethora of shaky, handheld iPhone videos of the Fab Four playing the Ed Sullivan show that you can’t really hear over all of the girls’ screaming.

Show time: Bon Iver @ Greek Theatre, 9.22.11

BERKELEY — "We definitely feel like you guys really like us," said Bon Iver's frontman, Justin Vernon, right before the band launched into "Flume."

It was a statement that summed up the sort of honesty and humility of Vernon's demeanor.

If the (true) legend of Bon Iver is that of a man who shacked up in the woods for three months and birthed a mellow, moody masterpiece in 2008's For Emma, Forever Ago, Vernon was the humble man emerging from the woods in Thursday's stop in Berkeley.

"We know where we are," he told fans later, speaking of the backstage area which shows photographers of previous artists who've taken the Greek Theatre stage.

Much of the night was devoted to living up to the headliner billing as well as stumping for the group's latest effort, Bon Iver, Bon Iver, hitting nearly every track off the platter, including its closer, "Beth/Rest," which might be the single most divisive song issued in 2011 to date.

"Beth/Rest" did nothing to mask its pastiche '80s flavor, abandoning any question that Vernon's recent piano-only rendition would supercede the original.

With a nine-member lineup to deliver the Bon Iver material, it meant cuts from the sparse For Emma were beefed up with a pair of percussionists, multiple guitarists and a horn duo. "Creature Fear" climaxed to a buzzing finish while the wistful, solemn "Blood Bank" was powered a by foot-stomping locomotion that surprisingly fit the song just as well.

However, the evening's finest moment came when all of the backing was stripped and Vernon stood alone under the spotlight to deliver an electric, solo rendition of "Re: Stacks" as his crew watched in the wings.

The set closer, "The Wolves (Act I and II)," called on the audience to sing the "What might have been lost" refrain repeatedly, something Vernon encouraged by stepping to the side of the microphone and mouthing as the band growled accordingly.

The encore was a pair of songs from For Emma, "Skinny Love" and "For Emma." While "Skinny Love" was primarily Vernon sitting center stage with his entourage singing backing vocals with light percussion, the singer said he wanted to "leave us on a positive note, bumping up against the 10 p.m. noise curfew as the final, horn-swelled strands of "Emma" played out.

"Emma" was the capstone of a strong, 100-minute stand for the humble Vernon and the band. They knew right where they were and they lived up to the billing.

Also not to be missed was the opening act, Other Lives, a rock outfit from Stillwater, Okla. The group showed off its most recent record, Tamer Animals, which is quietly one of the year's stronger efforts. The material translated well and the dusk time slot helped set the mood for the band.

Show time: James Blake @ The Fillmore, 9.21.11

SAN FRANCISCO — Bass that shakes the walls is for amateurs.

In a packed house Wednesday night at The Fillmore, British dubstep artist James Blake blasted the low notes so heavy, my nose felt like it was vibrating. I think I could feel the reverberation in my internal organs.

It was a highlight of the night when, at the conclusion of "I Never Learnt to Share," Blake boomed that B-A-S-S bass as he croaked about how his brothers and sisters don't speak to him (although he doesn't blame them).

Blake's minimalist approach to electronic music drew a packed house to The Fillmore. He was joined on stage by two men, one who handled the drumming — which explained where the sinewy spine of "To Care (Like You)" comes from — and a multi-instrumentalist who handled everything from the bass riff that glides through "The Wilhelm Scream" to programming the beats in "Limit to Your Love."

It was the lone cover of Feist's "Limit to Your Love" that the audience knew best, but it was clear Blake need not rely on that, burying it in the middle of the set and leaving "Wilhelm Scream" to close.

Blake showcased his ability to manipulate his own voice on the two "Lindisfarne" tracks, the first using synthesizers to twist and contort his voice into an instrument all of its own with the second finding the band jumping in and adding some accompaniment.

That lilting falsetto that is Blake's trademark served him well even when it was unadorned by machines and manipulation as he let it early on with "Give Me My Month."

Blake, who showed little signs of the sore throat he said he was battling, croaked out many cuts from this year's self-titled, debut album, as well as tracks from his CMYK, Klavierwerke and forthcoming Enough Thunder EPs.

"CMYK" in particularly was a highlight, leaving the Fillmore humming.

A pair of unknown songs, "AWD" and "Once We All Agree," filled out the encore, one a juicy rave and the other a mellow end to the night.

Blake was the perfect juxtaposition to opening act Teengirl Fantasy, which looped a mix of deep house beats with elements of chillwave. The dynamic between the two members of Teengirl was interesting, as Nick Weiss was in perpetual motion, waving his arms, kicking his legs and hopping to the beat, while Logan Takahashi appeared all business.

'Release date' is a misued term

Let's jump in the way-back machine, all the way to 2001.

It was a strange and different time, before smart phones and dumb reality shows. Eric Clapton was only on his sixth or seventh "no, this time, I really mean it" farewell tour.

All right, I agree. Reality TV was always dumb.

I missed the defining moment of my generation, 9/11, because I was sleeping in after staying up late to buy an album at a "midnight sale" at a "record store."

These dated terms show how much the music industry has changed even in the last decade. Record leaks were less common in 2001, but they did happen.

Now, it's pretty unusual if a .zip or .rar file isn't floating around the Internet before the release date.

That makes me wonder what value, if any, the term "release date" holds. If someone has a copy of a record days, weeks or, sometimes, months before it hits shelves, isn't it already out there in the public conscious?

Furthermore, what about bands that bust their own release dates, such as when Wilco recently streamed "The Whole Love" on its website nearly a month before the drop date?

Musicians want fans to hear their music. That's the whole point. They would much prefer to be paid to do it, but many are fine with giving you a free, low-quality sample if it makes you a fan.

That means the entities most upset by leaks are labels, mostly because they're still warming up their publicity robot, Publicitor. The robot takes several months to turn the robot on and it does things in a methodic, purposeful way, including settling legal issues and blowing into the conch shell to warn all the kids on the island that the record is coming.

Fans certainly don't mind leaks. Many of an artist's diehards download a leak because they have already pre-ordered — which is another stupid term for another entry — the limited edition, super jumbo pack physical copy, which includes a sticker pack, sew-on patch, static window cling, extended liner notes, Blu-ray disc, bonus tracks, and, why not, a personalized license plate, bundled in a gold-foil-stamped tin made of a flimsy metal that will bend easily when it falls off the shelf because it doesn't fit in neatly with the rest of the albums.

These are the lengths to which labels go to entice people to actually buy a record. Beg. Pretty please. With sugar on stop. Please?

The physical copy may never cease to exist, but it will continue to appear in smaller quantities. The asteroid that is the digital revolution hit the music industry dinosaur and it's still figuring how to endure.

Some acts already are catching on, such as Wilco. A popular feature on NPR is First Listen, which streams albums before they hit shelves.

Earlier this year, Radiohead sold "The King of Limbs" digitally and told fans the physical copy was arriving a few months later.

Accidents happen, too, such as Bon Iver's "Bon Iver, Bon Iver" being put on sale on iTunes more than a month before it was supposed to be earlier this year.

We've long been moving toward a they-make-one-day, we-buy-it-the-next dynamic when it comes to buying music. The "Help: A Day in the Life" project, which included Radiohead, Gorillaz and Boy George, was recorded and released within a 30-hour period in 2005, so it's not hyperbole.

That's also why an album's true release date is the moment it first becomes available, whatever that means. If the first way it's available is through a stream on the band's site, that's the release date. If it accidentally went on sale ahead of time, you can't stuff the cat back in the bag. The album has been issued.

Release dates really only serve as the date it's legally acceptable to be in possession of an album. It's as outdated a term in music as "hep cat."

It isn't the day a record is released. It's the day the physical copy arrives in stores. We'll probably go on calling it a release date, but, to me, that is reserved for the first time a record is available, regardless of the format.

Labels will continue to insist we stick to those dates. Besides, they still need time to get Publicitor up and running.

9/11 reinforced purpose of artistic freedom

I was a college sophomore the day of the 9/11 attacks. All of my professors canceled class except one.

My poetry professor looked me in the eye and said something that has resonated with me for years.

“Now is when we need poetry the most.”

It sounded like self-important hyperbole, but I rolled my eyes and went to class.

In the days, weeks, months and years after 9/11, I came to understand exactly what she meant.

In the first few years after the attacks, dissent and differing opinions were muted in a chilling way.

I was at the Pearl Jam show in Denver in 2003 when Eddie Vedder placed a George W. Bush mask on his mic stand and smashed it to the stage. The fighting in Iraq began less than two weeks earlier and Vedder’s demonstration turned into national news. People questioned whether he had a right to do such a thing, to make such a statement.

That was weeks after the Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks said she was ashamed to be from the same state as Bush. The trio was called unpatriotic and received death threats.

In 2002, Steve Earle issued “John Walker’s Blues,” which attempted to understand the motivations of John Walker Lindh, the American-born Taliban fighter who spent his teenage years in the Bay Area. Earle came under fire for sympathizing with terrorists, but he said he was trying to empathize with a boy near the age of one of his own.

With a president saying, “Either you’re with us or you are with the terrorists,” I found a strange comfort in Earle’s song, knowing there were other Americans who didn’t wholly and completely subscribe to Toby Keith’s “We’ll put a boot in your a-- / It’s the American way” way of looking at things.

That it was a question whether they had a right to say these things astonished me, but it also reinforced what my professor meant.

No incident said it better, however, than the cancellation of Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” show on ABC. In the weeks after the attacks, he rejected the notion that the hijackers were cowards. “Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it — not cowardly,” he said.

It didn’t cost him his show, but it cost him advertising support, which eventually led ABC to ax his program.

His remarks even prompted the White House press secretary to say “people have to watch what they say and watch what they do.”

In the decade since 9/11, however, artists such as Earle, Maines and Vedder made room for opinions that might not be as popular, but have just as much of a right to exist.

In 2006, we saw the release of “United 93″ and “World Trade Center,” two films that took their stories from that morning’s events, suggesting we had moved to a new place in the pop culture discourse.

In that same year, the Dixie Chicks issued “Not Ready to Make Nice” (left), which touched on the controversy — “They’d write me a letter / Saying that I better shut up and sing / Or my life will be over.” It became their highest-charting single to date.

In 2009, James Cameron released “Avatar,” which went on to be the highest-grossing movie ever made. It also served as Cameron’s thinly veiled parable about the Iraq War.

“Our only security lies in pre-emptive attack,” the film’s Col. Miles Quatrich (Stephen Lang) tells his troops before battle. “We will fight terror with terror.”

Earlier this week, FX’s “Rescue Me” aired its final episode. The dramedy depicted the lives of New York City firefighters post-9/11 and the emotional and psychological ripples throughout their lives. In the fifth season, one of the firefighters announced to a journalist he believed 9/11 “was an inside job,” an allusion to the 9/11 truth movement, much to the disgust of his colleagues.

That story line says just how far we’ve come.

During the last decade, as time heals our wounds, we increasingly accepted a level of discussion about that day and the events that followed it.

Discussion and disagreement are so valuable that those who made this nation thought it should be first among all our constitutional rights.

Our artistic community should never lose that freedom, no matter what.

Because when we are at our most hurt and vulnerable, that is the time when we need poetry the most.

'Breaking Bad' cooks up a new direction for TV

Tony Soprano might’ve spent the better part of the last decade redefining family, but he also redefined our expectations in a television drama.

Before his arrival, even the best dramas were procedural or had a formula.

“The Sopranos” gave a cinematic touch to television, reimagining a season and a series as an entire work of art, paving the way for a caravan of quality shows behind it such as “The Wire,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Shield,” “Mad Men,” “Rome,” “Deadwood,” “Dexter,” “Breaking Bad” and more.

Though some of those have left the airwaves, it is AMC's “Breaking Bad” that is now securing its place as a trailblazer.

In Sunday’s episode, we saw one of the juiciest scenes in the show’s history. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) asked brother-in-law Walter White (Bryan Cranston) to place a tracking device on a suspect’s car.

The dilemma for poor Walt was Hank had the right guy — it was the car of the owner of a fast-food chicken chain who, unknown to Hank, is Walt’s drug kingpin boss.

It’s this dynamic that is at the heart of the show and which defines it and separates it from some of the aforementioned ones.

As “Breaking Bad” progresses, we’ve seen the slow descent of Walt from sympathetic, cancer-diagnosed chemistry teacher to a murdering, meth-cooking criminal, which is in keeping with show creator Vince Gilligan’s stated desire to turn the protagonist into the antagonist — to “turn Mr. Chips into Scarface.”

Gilligan is trying to do something unheard of and seemingly impossible, which is make his main character increasingly unsympathetic, not known as the winning formula for a successful series.

The way he’s achieving this is by making most of the rest of his cast’s increasingly likeable.

Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) has been beaten, bloodied, suffered the death of his girlfriend, committed murder and fallen through the roof of a Port-a-Potty. He’s been Walter’s personal whipping boy for four seasons and, though he initially seemed like an immature, mouthy ne’er-do-well, he evolved into a man who is trapped by circumstances beyond his control.

Walt’s nagging wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) might just be a better criminal than her husband. She’s proven to be incredibly resourceful and powerful as his ally rather than his kept-in-the-dark housewife.

However, it’s Hank (left) who has undergone the biggest transformation.

He began the series as an obnoxious, gung-ho, law enforcement cowboy. In an early season, when Walt shot him a scowl, we cheered Walter on.

As the seasons have worn on, Hank has taken physically and psychologically blows. A shootout in a parking lot last season cast doubt that he would walk again, but in the most recent episode he struggled along with a cane. It’s these little details that make us sympathize with him.

If Gilligan is forcing us to redefine what it means to be the hero of the story with Walt, he’s holding up a giant mirror and daring us not to root for Hank, who by all rights is the true hero and good guy in “Breaking Bad.”

Hank now exists in a strange place in television history. He’s neither the hero or the villain. Gilligan has set up a dichotomous dynamic in which we’re cheering for both Walter and Hank, whose goals are at cross purposes.

Hank is clearly not the anti-hero of the story. That’s Walter White. Hank is sort of an anti-villain, if that’s possible. He’s the guy you’re supposed to dislike, but he’s doing everything for the right reasons — he’s trying to bring down a meth syndicate. He just doesn’t know that the elusive “Heisenberg” at the center of his investigation often shares dinner with him.

The tracking device scene also made it clear that the endgame for this series — which Gilligan doubts will go beyond one more season — is Hank discovering Walt’s actions, as well as what Hank chooses to do with that information.

Time will tell if that’s the direction the show takes. But how Gilligan and company chooses to get there are what make the show continually worth watching.

However, what will define “Breaking Bad” and its legacy is the outcome of its previously unexplored role reversal for his protagonist, Walt, and his antagonist, Hank.