Music for grown-ups

Yesterday evening I went to see ‘Music for grown-ups‘ play at Basement Studios in Paris. The venue is, just like it sounds, nothing else than a basement, and one as such with a holding capacity of approximately 100 people; the scene itself can be estimated to taking up one third of the floor; it is lit up by a few ground lights, though the rest of the room falls under a sooty darkness, and the air – muggy; it’s warm, and a bit uncomfortable to be in there. The shortcomings of the venue aside, the atmosphere is great; it is as intimate as nothing I’ve seen before and simply being there feels a bit like a thrill in itself.

Entering the stage, singer John Hughes starts out with mentioning that he’s in a bad mood tonight, and that he won’t be talking very much in between songs; Hughes seems, however, to be the band member in the best mood, seeing the other fours complete reluctance to in any way interact with the audience. Cellist, bass player and guitarist (I am not blaming the drummer too much) are barely even facing the crowd, in fact, barely moving at all. And in contrast to this, Hughes himself does a brilliant job in reaching over the stage; throughout the set, he emanates a strong glow of emotional presence and to some extent, he reminds of Ian Curtis, with the way one can perceivably tell exactly what he is feeling during the songs. The sound of the band, too, seems to be drawing on the post-punk scene, and sounds at times like Joy Division (the song Reprisal) at times like a quieter Interpol (Victorian Letters), and at times just like Jens Lekman (The Drinker). Hughes sings sometimes in falsetto, seemingly to manifest the change of characters throughout the lyrics – or perhaps not: one can’t really tell, seeing as Hughes takes on an almost self-mocking posture as he does this – whatever the case is, it contributes an interesting aspect to the songs, and one has an amusing time interpreting these small signs. The use of a megaphone is another, quite crucial feature on how the songs come across, the sounds emerging from it adding a particularly haunting sensation – perfectly communicating the sense of melancholic loneliness, betrayal and lost love that the lyrics wishes to portray. On an overall, however, Music for grown-ups is an unremarkable, but nevertheless and paradoxically, an interesting band; whichever of the two opposing sides is the strongest, only time will tell – the band may just as easily remain another unknown but talented indieband, as they may achieve wider recognition, and that is also to say, perhaps, how stagnate this scene of music has turned out to seem in recent years.

(On an aside, here’s a quick reflection: as a warm-up act, a fairly anonymous singer/songer-writer known as ‘Yoko’ takes the stage; Yoko’s sound doesn’t surprise anyone, and in all fairness, she sounds just like any other of her kind out there – which makes it interesting to speculate over how many thousands of records she could be selling, had her name been Carla Bruni.)

tmG