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April 27, 2004
Movin' Like a Tortoise
I've been on a rare show-going streak of late....on Sunday I finished up 90% of my last remaining assignment for school this semester, so I decided to go check out Tortoise and Beans at the Cat's Cradle. There was a time in my life when I would actually travel to far-away metropolises to see Tortoise, but I must confess that I've only heard a couple of tracks off their new CD and neither of those really grabbed me that much. But since it's not every day that one gets the chance to see one's former "favorite band" play a mile away from one's house, I suppressed any hints of "Tortoise-is-so-mid-90s" cynicism and entered the Cradle for what might've been the first time in....several months? Long enough to forget about the fact that it became a smoke-free club last fall....that was a nice surprise all over again.
I missed Ex-Models, but Beans (formerly of Anti-Pop Consortium) was pretty entertaining for a one-man hip-hop show. It finally hit me during one of his odder songs that his whole nonlinear poetry-slam rap style has an almost cartoonish Fat Albert/Mushmouth element to it that kinda saves it in some places while also making it wear thin over the course of a whole set. I tried to remember when I've seen another single solo hip-hop artist manage both the mic and the beats onstage for an entire set....I remember J-Live did it (quite spectacularly) for a single song ("Braggin' Writes"), but an entire set? Hmmm. As he did last summer when he opened up for Prefuse 73, Beans proved that the best way to deal with potential on-stage loneliness while completely entertaining your audience is to do your fusty old-man dance! The merch booth had free copies of the "Mutescreamer" video, which features Beans doing variations of this same dance in a snowy forest.
Tortoise started really strong with "Seneca", that perfect opener from Standards that starts with a blaze of guitar noise and free drumming and ends with a syncopated handclap jam. McEntire, Herndon, and Bitney all took turns behind the two drum kits and there was plenty of the double-drum action that I enjoy so much. Throughout the show, the background digital images/patterns were really great. But as far as song selection goes...almost everything Tortoise played was from TNT or after, and presumably much of it was from the new disc since I didn't recognize it. The one exception was a cool and significant reworking of "Magnet Pulls Through" (or so it sounded)...and then once all of the jam-band kids raucously demanded an encore, Tortoise came back and did the classic epic "Djed". I normally don't love Jeff Parker's guitar stylings, but he added some nice King Crimson-y touches to the early krautrock section of "Djed"....and then later in the song, a hot beatbox rhythm segued nicely into the closing mallet section.
All in all, the show was a bit unsatisfying....the rest of the encores (two!) seemed a bit lackluster, as if Tortoise really just wanted to quit and get back on the bus. I left thinking that as much as I had tried to be open-minded about newer material, I couldn't really get past the overwhelming obstacle that Tortoise and their new stuff just aren't very exciting to me right now, especially in comparison with how completely fresh and exciting and "now" they used to be in my eyes. I'm actually glad that the jam-band kids discovered them, because musicians that are that talented deserve an enthusiastic audience. And I don't begrudge them that one bit. Next time, though, I'll probably just keep myself at home and throw on "Gamera"....
Posted by Tim at April 27, 2004 01:54 AM
Comments
gamera?
Posted by: justin at April 27, 2004 09:37 AM
Not a Japanese monster movie, but rather this epic 12-minute-long Tortoise song that I think is really incredible. They used to play it live, but no more.
Posted by: Tim at April 27, 2004 10:59 AM
and what a live jam it was - new yrs 94-5 in nyc at the cooler, bitney and herndon with shit-eating grins as the pickup came after the last chord change... the tort don't do it like that no mo', and the world's a sadder place. but at least the jam kidz aren't still stuck on the string cheese incident, right?
Posted by: CP at April 28, 2004 02:40 PM
True dat...and I didn't even realize until after Sunday's show that Tortoise had played the 2003 Bonnaroo festival! No wonder the jam kidz like them. In that spirit, I wonder if anyone has a "phat board" of that Cooler show kickin' around...it was actually '95-'96 in case there's a website for Tortoise boardz, man.
Posted by: Tim at April 28, 2004 03:26 PM
whoa "brah", i mighta been too baked to figure out the date that time around (but not too baked to dig on the Ali/Gayle/Parker trio that preceded the tort)...
and i would think there'd be A TON of tort boards out there. jam kidz unite!
Posted by: CP at April 28, 2004 04:58 PM
Thanks for the review, Tim. I was in DC for The March on 4/25, so I saw them at the 9:30 Club on Saturday 4/24.
I was also afraid I'd be disappointed. They still are one of my favorites to listen to, but I haven't bought the most recent album so you could say my interest is waning. I'd been talking it up to by boyfriend so much, I was sure the show would suck.
Beans was good at his thing, but it just wan't very interesting after 5 minutes. Does it make me really old if I tell you I was annoyed that I couldn't hear the actual words he was saying? Maybe but words is all he had, so...
Anyway, I thought Tortoise was amazingly good. Although it creeped me out to think about how much a Phish fan would proably love this show. I needed to have a good time really bad 'cause it was already my birthday (they started after midnight) and I had to get up before 5am for The March. I thought they were excellent, really showing off their talent, and I enjoyed the new songs too.
For me, it was worth only getting 2 hours of sleep before the biggest day of my year to see them.
Posted by: Ruby at May 6, 2004 02:52 PM