you know it's so sharp

There was a (belated) Earth Day festival on campus yesterday. As per the usual protocols for these types of events, the organizers set up a sound stage in the courtyard between the student center and science building. While mostly used to broadcast repeat plays of a Best of Bob Marley CD (because no matter how mainstream ecological awareness has become, it is vital to stress its hemp-shirt-and-Birkenstocks roots), it did host at least one live musical performance, and I caught a couple minutes of their set during one of my trips to the vending machines in an adjacent building.

I didn't catch, or care enough to learn, the act's name. Judging from the members' patchy facial hair and skinny jeans, they appeared to be a standard-issue hipster jam band, though I was unable to make a more detailed musical assessment because the only sound coming from the amps during the performance was a fuzzed out feedback screech laid over a cacophony of drum beats, with only brief snatches of vocals and melody rising over the din.

It's absurd to expect studio-quality sound from an ad hoc setup wedged between two large concrete stuctures, but it is possible with a a little effort to mitigate the sonic damage caused by so-so audio equipment and poor acoustics. Finessing the balances on the sound can do wonders, for instance, and it also really helps if the band doesn't jack up the volume to "11" during the performance.

I've never understood the whole "louder is better" conceit when it comes to rock and pop music listening. While certain songs invite the listener to crank up the volume, there is a threshold where too much becomes too much, and the material's nuance, subtleties, and expression of craft resolve themselves into a thumping indeterminate mass of basslines, drumbeats, and distortion where one could easily get the same results by loosening the fanbelt and muffler clamps of one's car before going for a drive.

This is particularly true with live performances, which is one of the major reasons I don't attend many shows these days. As production wizardry has become such a huge factor in crafting and polishing how many pop and rock acts sound, there's a tendency to compensate the lack of access to overdubs and whatnot in a live setting by simply cranking up the amplifiers so that the music is lost in a maelstrom of reverb and white noise.

This de-emphasizes the musical aspect of the perfomance in favor of creating an overall "experience." While some acts (especially among the synth/dance pop set) are savvy enough to successfully pull off such a feat, it's hard to justify dropping $30-60 a ticket to battle the crowds and risk damage to my tympanic membranes in order to bathe in some proxy stardust set to the tune of some marginally recognizable rendition of a familiar song. All in all, I'd rather just say in and listen to the recorded version in private, where I can hear and appreciate the melodies, harmonies, and/or vocals and not worry about a drunken Boston University puking on my boots.

If one has composed something worth listening to, shouldn't it be performed so that folks can actually hear it?

As for today's musical annotations, I present a trio of live performances done right, pulled directly from 1981's Urgh! A Music War, the greatest concert film of all time. Both the homve video of the film and the soundtrack are criminally out of print, supposedly due to distribution rights issues. (The abridged CD version of the soundtrack goes for extortionate prices on the secondplace market.) If you're not familiar with the film, think of it as an IRS Records-heavy punk/reggae/new wave version of Woodstock, only without Sha Na Na and the legions of smelly hippies.

The Dead Kennedys - Bleed For Me (Live) - A track omitted from the official OST, which is a damn shame considering Jello Biafra's priceless opening monologue ("There's no punk rock in Argentina...") and how it differs from the version of Plastic Surgery Disasters, referencing Jimmy Carter rather than Ronald Reagan. (Urgh! was released in 1981, but the performances were filmed in 1980.) As my wife and I were discussing on the commute to work the other day, you know things have gotten really bad when life imitates Dead Kennedys song lyrics.

Wall of Voodoo - Back in Flesh (Live) - What a band. What a song. What a sound. My dinged up version of the Dark Continent LP, which includes the studio version of this song, is one of my most prized possessions and one of the few albums I would call an unqualified favorite with zero hesitiation.

OMD - Enola Gay (Live) - Angsty synthpop and nuclear nightmares: a match made in retro heaven. My first exposure to this song (and Rational Youth's "Saturdays in Silesia") came from a bootleg cassette drive program for the Commodore 64 titled Synth Sample, designed to showcase the computer's sound and music capabilities. The songs could be listened to straight up or accompanied by a pixelated "laser show" visualization program.