For Those About To Rock

Show review: Bridge School Benefit at Shoreline Amphitheater, 10.26.13

A look at the sky near sunset as Heart performs at the 27th annual Bridge School Benefit, held Sautrday at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View.

MOUNTAIN VIEW — The annual Bridge School Benefit is known as much for its acoustic setting is it is traditionally having one showcase performance in the lineup.

The 27th installment kicked off with a sold out Saturday night at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View with Palm Desert stoner rockers Queens of the Stone Age filling the "how the heck are they going to pull this off?" slot.

While founder Neil Young's presence helped tie the evening together, the day suffered from the extensive number of acts, with most performers taking 25- to 30-minute spots, almost the same length of time it took to set up their gear.

While they never achieved liftoff as a collective whole, most artists closed their truncated sets on a strong note.

Queens of the Stone Age approached the loaded Saturday night lineup by taking its slow, thunderous grooves down a notch. Though booming bass still weighed heavy on "Long Slow Goodbye" or "I Sat by the Ocean," " … Like Clockwork" turned into a piano-based musing.

It was an interesting gamble that reminded the audience how much the Josh Homme-led group relies on sheer might to transmit its message. While it worked better than it should have, as early '00s hit "Go With the Flow" demonstrated, there were others that had to be admired more for their effort than the result.

The night's most buzzworthy band was Arcade Fire, the seven-piece Montreal indie rock outfit whose fourth LP, Reflektor, drops Tuesday. Arcade Fire used the Bridge School platform as a chance to show off three of the Reflektor songs in an acoustic setting, as well as unveiling a new song, "I Dreamed a Neil Young Song," featuring a guest spot by the legendary singer/songwriter and Bridge School founder.

Arcade Fire was tighter and more efficient than during its 2011 debut at the Bridge School, with lead singer Win Butler tickling the ivories for "The Suburbs" and the group closing its half-hour slot with a rousing "Wake Up."

The end of the festivities crept toward 1 a.m. as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young took its headlining slot after midnight. "We've been accused of being political," joked David Crosby before the group launched into an acapella rendition of "What Are Their Names." The set was almost entirely songs written by the group's members not performed under the CSNY flag, although the day ended with "Teach Your Children."

My Morning Jacket mixed covers and work from its last two albums during its first Bridge School appearance since 2007. After frontman Jim James told a story about his mother buying him Harvest instead of Harvest Moon after watching Young play the latter on "Saturday Night Live," the songwriter appeared to play "Harvest Moon" in the highlight of MMJ's five-song set. Drummer Patrick Hallahan emulated the song's signature broom sweeps by swiping brush-tipped drum sticks across the surface of his toms as James and Young traded off on vocals.

Hawaiian acoustic rocker Jack Johnson was a natural fit for the Bridge School stage. Playing only "Tape Deck" from his latest album, From Here to Now to You, Johnson focused more on material from In Between Dreams. Johnson closed his set with the night's first guest appearance by Young, a team up for the Young original "Out on the Weekend."

Husband and wife team Elvis Costello and Diana Krall fused their sets together, with Costello joining his wife to perform his own "Sulphur to Sugarcane" and a cover of Bob Dylan's "Wallflower." Jazz vocalist Krall toasted Young with a rendition of "A Man Needs a Maid," while Costello's half of their set concluded with him and Graham Nash singing The Hollies' "King Midas in Reverse." Costello also experimented with a cross between his own "New Amsterdam" and The Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," a blending which worked well.

New York's fun. translated well in its debut on the Bridge School stage. Shoreline turned into full singalong mode for "We Are Young" as well as a deft cover of The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Nancy Wilson's howl proved ageless in Heart's Bridge School debut. The band worked through a cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song" before closing with an invigorating "Crazy on You."

I arrived too late for the first act of the day, former Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis.

The Bridge School helps students with severe speech and physical impairments in the classroom. It was founded in the 1980s with help from Young and his wife, Pegi Young.

The second and final day kicks off at 2 p.m. today at Shoreline. with Tom Waits taking the place of Arcade Fire and Jack Johnson in the lineup.

'I'll fake it through the day:' Elliott Smith's therapeutic legacy

"I'll fake it through the day with some help from Johnnie Walker Red."

As an opening line, Elliott Smith reveals so much about his state of mind in "Miss Misery," perhaps his most well-known song.

Monday marked 10 years since the death of the singer and songwriter, known for compositions that were raw and vulnerable.

Many times, Smith's voice hovered just above a mumble. Listeners could hear his hands drag across the guitar strings, as though the weight of his depression were so heavy that lifting a finger to tell us his tale was a hassle.

His songs felt like a dull, familiar ache, a palpable melancholy as warm and snugly as a treasured hoodie.

Among those is "Miss Misery," known for its inclusion on the "Good Will Hunting" soundtrack. For his work, Smith earned an Oscar nomination.

That opening line drags us kicking and screaming into the middle of Smith's struggles with alcoholism, depression and heroin addiction. It's a single phrase that walks us into an entire universe.

What's beautiful about "Miss Misery," like so much of Smith's work, is how his tone serves as an invitation. That meek voice roped in so many listeners.

It made him relatable. I think that even people who don't struggle with addiction can find something about those words to understand and appreciate.

It's noteworthy that he doesn't sing "I'll make it through the day," a change of a single letter that would reverberate through the entire phrase. That would read less like an acknowledgement than a confession.

No, "I'll fake it through the day" tells us he feels his every action is a front and that he knows alcoholism is a vehicle to carry the underlying issues, not the road on which they drive.

I don't think I spent a great deal of time thinking about the line or how revealing it was until I'd listened to it for years.

It's appropriate, too, that it's forever tied to "Good Will Hunting." I remember seeing the film in the theater. When the credits rolled, I told the girl I with whom I saw it that I felt like Damon's title character in a way I had difficulty describing. I still wonder if she thinks I was trying to say I believed myself to be a physically abused mathematical genius.

What I meant was that I related to the part of Will who seemed alone and isolated. I think it's fair to say I connected with Will for the same reason I connected with Smith's character — if it is, indeed, a character — in "Miss Misery."

I think the reason many enjoyed Smith's works is because he was honest about himself in his songs. Whether it was addiction or depression, he put it out there.

That resonates. There's a part in all of us, for reasons we don't always know or comprehend, that can feel disconnected from our lives and from the people around us and Smith knew that.

"I'll fake it through the day" is an admission that sometimes we masquerade through our own lives, acting how we want people to see us as opposed to how we truly feel.

It's at this crossroads where I still find Smith's work, even 10 years after he's gone. Though he died of multiple, possibly self-inflicted, stab wounds to the chest in 2003, his legacy is a gift telling listeners that they aren't alone, that other people deal with pain, hurt, loss, isolation and more.

Perhaps he never found the peace of mind that his recordings continue to give others, but, if nothing else, Smith's honest, vulnerable body of work serves as an emotional salve, a reminder that we are not alone in the hardships that we all sometimes endure.

Show review: Kanye West at SAP Center, 10.22.13

SAN JOSE — The evolution of religious symbolism in Kanye West's music took another step forward Tuesday at the SAP Center in San Jose.

He arrives supporting an album named Yeezus, as if that wasn't a clue.

West played every track from the record Tuesday, his second stop on his first solo tour in half a decade. The two-hour show worked both to the Ye devotees who wanted to shake their booties as well as those looking for something deeper.

The show functioned as a performance art piece with its own story. During the opener, "On Sight," West struck a Jesus Christ pose with his arms outstretched for multiple sides of the crowd, a flock of female dancers in white robes feet from him in choreographed fluidity.

From the time he hit the stage until near its conclusion, West wore some sort of mask — white, red, a black one that looked like cloth chainmail, becoming part of his own light show with the face covering for Graduation's "Stronger."

The set was grimy early, working up a sweat with West shouting the end of "New Slaves" and preaching "Power" from atop a four-story tall mountain structure: "No one man should have all that power."

It was his own Mount Sinai. He descended from it to perform for the hoard of thousands at the Shark Tank.

By the end of the night, he and the dancers bowed to a Jesus figure which took West's place atop the mountain.

The setlist supported some sort of tone or story — the gritty early 45 minutes was torrid and danceable, dropping bombs such as "Cold," "Can't Tell Me Nothing," the aforementioned "Power" and a shocking cover of Chief Keef's "I Don't Like."

In keeping with the religious overtones, as "Black Skinhead" faded out, the Chicago-born rapper fell to the stage on his back, a lone spotlight illuminating him. His lifeless body sprang upright when he sang the next song's title, "I Am a God," suggesting a divine presence. His dancers swirled around him in flesh-colored suits.

If the dirty early section represented sin, the sagging middle was repentance. West transitioned into a lower gear with "Coldest Winter," an 808s and Heartbreak track he told the crowd he penned after his mother's death, as well as Yeezus cuts "Hold My Liquor," "I'm in It" and "Guilt Trip."

Though some of the Yeezus tracks — "Black Skinhead" in particular — crackle in the live setting, these needed the fine tuning that comes from road testing.

The final section served as an inspirational testament of faith. Even 'Runaway," a "toast for the douche bags," read as uplifting with West repeating "anything is possible" and "we can be free."

After "Runaway," the mountain split, resembling a volcano as fog filled the arena.

A divine presence was felt no stronger than when West was joined on stage by "White Jesus" (right), a costumed crew member whose words went unheard thanks to a faulty mic. It served as a springboard for "Jesus Walks," West's Grammy-nominated hit from his debut album, a quiet reminder that West's faith has played a major role in his material throughout his career.

It was poignant when West finally removed all facial coverings to face White Jesus, the show's apex of self-acceptance and the presence of a higher power.

If West was playing a character throughout, it marked the moment of self-discovery.

If this narrative is imagined, projected onto the show, well, credit West for thinking beyond a live hip hop show's requisite demand for booty shaking.

Opener Kendrick Lamar delivered a dominant 45-minute set to start the night, leaning heavily on last year's incredible Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. He also invited Vallejo-born rapper E-40 to join him for multiple songs.

Set
On Sight
New Slaves
Send it Up
Mercy
Power
Cold
I Don't Like
Black Skinhead
I Am a God
Can't Tell Me Nothing
Coldest Winter
Hold My Liquor
I'm in It
Guilt Trip
Heartless
Blood on the Leaves
Lost in the World
Runaway
I Wonder
Street Lights
Hey Mama
Stronger
Through the Wire
Jesus Walks
Flashing Lights
All of the Lights
Bound 2

Show review: Passion Pit & The Joy Formidable at Fox Theater, 10.21.13

OAKLAND — An enigmatic frontman or woman can do wonders.

On Monday night at the Fox Theater in Oakland, the unlikely duo of Welsh rockers The Joy Formidable and Massachusetts synth pop group Passion Pit proved that maxim.

For Passion Pit, the headliner, it was Michael Angelakos, an ever-moving ball of energy, windmilling his microphone in the air by the cord and singing to fans from atop the monitors at the lip of the stage. He compensated for the other four members of the group's stationary activities by roaming the stage, engaging all sides of the crowd.

In The Joy Formidable's opening set, it was pint-sized pixie Ritzy Bryan (right), who connected with people, strutting the stage with confidence while wielding her ax.

On TJF's closing number, the cacophonous "Whirring," Bryan churned out the riff while kicking drummer Matt Thomas' bass drum from the opposite side.

Though Angelakos and Bryan connected, they didn't do it alone.

In support of Angelakos were his four bandmates, who added the glitchy groove to turn the Fox into a club for "The Reeling," which arrived early in the band's 70-minute set. They also gave night-closing "Little Secrets" the necessary umph to justify its placement as a finisher.

Both groups arrived with two records under their belt. For Joy Formidable, much of the set was culled from January's Wolf's Law, including "Maw Maw Song," which Bryan said was inspired by "greedy motherf-----s."

Passion Pit mixed material from Manners as well as last year's Gossamer, with Angelakos promising a new LP by the time the quintet returns to the Bay again.

Despite their different sounds and points of origin, the commonality between the singers of The Joy Formidable and Passion Pit tied together what could've been an miscast lineup into an amusing evening.

Showtime: Chris Cornell at Uptown Theatre, 10.16.13

Chris Cornell performs Wednesday at the Uptown Theatre in Napa.

NAPA — Chris Cornell's career is less of a straight line than a drive down Lombard Street.

His acoustic solo tours know this. Wednesday's stop at Napa's Uptown Theatre was no exception.

The rock singer with the honey tenor embraced all periods of his career, reaching from Temple of the Dog's "Hunger Strike" to "Bones of Birds" from King Animal, Soundgarden's first original album since its 2010 reunion.

The acoustic solo setting stripped Cornell of the might and muster of Soundgarden and Audioslave. It also cast him as the guitar player, a role that doesn't come to mind for him when remembering his bands' ax men included Tom Morello and Kim Thayil.

What tied it all together was Cornell's distinct voice, one of the most distinguishing, powerful tones in rock history.

He also kept the mood light, a necessary decision for a man whose catalog has many complex, brooding songs.

Cornell roped in the intimate venue's crowd with lots of banter as well as diverging from his planned, printed setlist. With fans shouting song names at him, he heard a request for "Getaway Car," an obscure Audioslave cut

"I haven't done that one in a while," he said. "I'll do it, but don't be mad if I f--- it up."

He also leaned on covers, none more impressive than a mashup of the music from U2's "One" with the lyrics of Metalilca's song of the same name, a concoction he said came while rehearsing and finding the chords to the former then Googling for the lyrics and retrieving the results for the latter.

Among other covers was his reinterpretation of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," a slowed down take that David Cook rode to success on "American Idol."

There were bright spots, too. "Sunshower" was a blast of positivity and "Dandelion," written for his daughter before her birth.

Some of the biggest applause of the night came for "When I'm Down," a Euphoria Morning track rendered as a standard thanks to a vinyl record to which Cornell sang.

It was a showcase for Cornell's pipes. He wouldn't be mistaken for the confident croon of Tony Bennett or Old Blue Eyes, but in his way, Cornell was just as distinct and, in another life, could have been that type of vocalist.

It spoke to his range and a career that's spanned from being one of grunge's pioneers to cutting an electropop record with Timbaland.

Cornell's voice stood for all of them and made it work.

Sri Lankan-American singer/songwriter Bhi Bhiman opened, hitting "Kimchee Line" and "Guttersnipe" before wrapping with a cover of Dire Straits' "Walk of Life."

Setlist
House Where Nobody Lives (Tom Waits cover)
Silence the Voices
Thank You (Led Zeppelin cover)
Dandelion
I Am the Highway
Original Fire
Seasons
Billie Jean (Michael Jackson cover)
Getaway Car
All Night Thing
Can't Change Me
Wooden Jesus
Hunger Strike
Fell on Black Days
Bones of Birds
Dear Prudence (The Beatles cover)
Sunshower
One (U2/Metallica cover)
When I'm Down
Never Far Away
Bend in the Road
Ground Zero
Like a Stone
Doesn't Remind Me

Encore
Misery Chain

Cassettes rewinding score on consumerism, punk ethos

Some music formats just won’t die.

During the past decade, vinyl sales have increased to the point where Nielsen Soundscan projects 5.5 million units will sell this year.

But now, even more perplexing, the cassette set is showing signs of a resurgence.

As someone who has heretofore turned his nose at their return, I stand ready to do a 180 degree turn: Cassettes are cool.

That sounds like I love them now. I’m not sure that was ever the case. As a child of the ’80s, I have an affection for them fueled by nostalgia, but as a practical delivery system for music, they’re the worst format to achieve dominance since the middle of the 20th century.

However, a few reasons have given me a newfound appreciation for them.

Vinyl’s resurgence makes practical, marketable sense. It’s a durable, high-end commodity that offers unparalleled sound. As vinyl woke from its dormant state, labels embraced it. Many new releases are available on wax, even in limited quantities.

Major labels haven’t been as quick to warm to tapes, but the tide is rising. Last month marked the first Cassette Store Day, a concept spun off from the successful, annual Record Store Day ventures. It also marked the 50th anniversary of cassettes.

RSD encourages shopping at independent record stores and boutique shops, often for limited edition or early release vinyl titles from the likes of The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, The Beach Boys and hundreds more.

The first Cassette Store Day featured limited edition offerings from Animal Collective and The Flaming Lips, the latter of which went full-on boutique-release supernova crazy for RSD last year by releasing picture discs pressed with the blood of the musicians who made it.

The burgeoning cassette renaissance is still flying under the radar, however. If vinyl is a physical music consumers’ pâté, tape is still more like secret sauce.

Cassettes are a low-budget way to support an artist. Instead of dropping upwards of $30 at the merch table for a slab of wax, mass-produced tapes can go for as little as the price of a button, sticker or iron-on patch.

Tapes are easy to buy and produce, easier than wax or compact disc, which makes them underground and counterculture. Appropriately, punk and metal groups are some of the artists who have most welcomed the return of tapes.

If punk rock is often a rejection of the societal norms, — a defiant middle finger to common trends and culture — the most punk thing an artist can do right now is to reject digital distribution and communication.

Punk is about keeping it real. Striving for a return to more human interaction and more personalized distribution serves that. Tapes further that. They’re a voice that says the artist is going to be heard somehow, some way. This mirrors the D.I.Y. ethos of tape’s most dominant era, the ’80s.

That’s exactly what’s happening. They’re cutting records with small, independent labels and distributing them via cassette.

Mike Haliechuk, of Toronto hardcore band F--ked Up, said it best in a recent interview: “Recorded music isn’t really about fidelity of hi-fi sound, as some people would like to believe. It’s about remembering things, places and scenarios.”

There’s an admitted naivete in saying “just get it out there” because thousands of recordings go almost unheard every year. More music is recorded now than at any time in human history, but not even the most diligent listeners who consume handfuls of records every day could hear it all.

Music is about that spark, that connection. When someone hears it and latches onto it, those sounds can forever imprint on that person. Whether the delivery method is digital, vinyl, CD or cassette, if it reaches the right ears and makes an impact, it’s done its job.

While I think the cassette is the weakest format to enjoy extended popularity as a primary format, I can appreciate the underground, punk or anti-establishment ethos behind what they have become.

As long as music is out there to be heard and enjoyed, it’s the what and not the how that matters most.

Did Walter White get what he deserved in 'Breaking Bad' series finale?

"Breaking Bad" is over.

The spoilers flow from here on out, but with a show record of 10.3 million viewers tuning in to the final episode, who with even a tiny interest in the program didn't watch?

Walter White has gone to the meth lab in the big blue sky.

For a man known for murdering, money laundering, meth cooking, drug dealing, bomb making and more, death was a kindness.

Unlike some fans — many of whom rooted for him until the final frame — Walt lost my support along the way. It's a credit to Vince Gilligan as a writer and Bryan Cranston as an actor that the character was ever sympathetic.

I turned on Walt during season three. Jesse (Aaron Paul) lay battered, beaten and bruised in a hospital bed for the second time in the series thanks to Walt's lies and manipulations.

Walt visited with a business proposition (right). Jesse lashed at him, underlining for the master meth chef that his life continued to decline as long as Walt was in it.

That's when I saw Walt through Jesse's eyes. Walt didn't just have cancer.

He was the cancer.

I watched the rest of the series wondering how much darker Walt would become and whether he would pay a cosmic price for his misdeeds.

I'm not sure he did.

The greatest pain he endured came in "Ozymandias," an episode sure to go down as one of TV's finest hours. Walt lost two things he'd sought to preserve throughout the entire show: The life of his Drug Enforcement Administration agent brother-in-law Hank and most of his $80 million.

By the scene's end, Hank's body was tossed in a hole in the desert and Walt had one-eighth of his riches. Hours later, with his secrets exposed to his son, Walt went fugitive, forced into six months of cold, expensive seclusion in a cabin in the New Hampshire wilderness.

This was Walter's penance, not the death he paid at the end of the series.

In "Breaking Bad" terms, purgatory was being isolated in that cabin with just two copies of "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" to watch. That's a horrifying fate, indeed.

But it was temporary. Walt's excursion to New Hampshire served as prelude to his final act, in which he found a space between damnation and redemption.

He returned to New Mexico to right as many wrongs as he could. As his parting moments with his wife, Skyler, demonstrated, he opened too many wounds that will never heal, but did what he could to right them in the 11th hour.

Instead of the anguish of dying alone from cancer, Walt sacrificed himself in a parting act of contrition.

From the viewer's chair, that reads like handling Walt with kid's gloves.

For me, he deserved the misery he felt in New Hampshire, so desperate for human contact that he paid his once-a-month guest $10,000 to play cards for an hour.

This is an emotional, visceral response to being a fly in the lab for years. Almost like a superpower, Walt became a bigger monster than each successive one he outsmarted — Krazy-8, Tuco, Jane, Gus, Mike, Uncle Jack, Todd and Lydia.

His transformation changed the tone of the series. Early episodes are dark and comedic. Later episodes, such as "Ozymandias," are shots of adrenaline.

Walt eroded from a fish-out-of-water chemistry teacher into a self-deluded narcissist who showed no compunction about plotting 10 simultaneous prison murders.

Dying secluded and jonesing for cancer meds was a less satisfying conclusion, but it was the kind of ending he deserved.

Instead of having his antihero pay a cosmic price, Gilligan offered a different perspective: No one is irredeemable. Even the most rotten human beings are capable of admirable acts.

If nothing else, I love that the show delivered on the pilot's promise (right). The first episode put a clock on Walt's life and gave him a goal. That he got to achieve it has a twisted admiration to it, even after the countless lives he wrecked.

Walt's death sentence from cancer and his flawed but appreciable notion to leave his family with a nest egg after he expired paid off.

But the price he paid to meet that end — and the ones he could have — don't feel equitable.