SOUNDTRACK: THE BREEDERS-Tiny Desk Concert #731 (April 16, 2018).
Gah! The Breeders do a Tiny Desk Concert and you only get 3 songs in 11 minutes?
I understand that three songs is accepted for the Tiny Desk, but come on! Other bands have been eking out nearly 20 minutes, you’ve got Kim Deal and the original line up in front of recording devices having a grand old time and you don’t ask for a fourth song. Well, perhaps they just didn’t want to.
The Breeders play three songs. Two new ones and one old one (which comes not from one of the albums with this original line up, but from Title TK).
What’s most notable about this Tiny Desk is just how goofy they all (especially Kim who is laughing almost throughout the whole show), it seems.
“MetaGoth” seems to open in the middle of the song, like they just started recording while they were jamming. Josephine Wiggs is on lead guitar, Kim Deal is on bass and Kelley Deal is making some fascinating noises on her guitar (this is especially true later in the song when she seem to be simply scratching up and down the strings with her blue gloves). Kim and Josephine are duetting lead vocals with Josephine speaking and Kim delicately singing over her. About midway through the song we cam see that drummer Jim MacPherson is hitting heir roadie in the head with his brushes and the roadie is going “chhhh” to be a cymbal. The song is weird and cool and very Breeders.
As they set up for “All Nerve” Josephine switches to bass, Kim takes acoustic guitar. Kelley stays on electric guitar but takes over as the spoken vocal underneath Kim’s quiet leads. Kelley’s voice is echoed pretty heavily and almost creepily. It’s got a very cool sound, but is quite short.
“Off You” is a nearly 6 minute delicate, surf rock-feeling song. The song begins with “Kim Deal’s faux-exasperation at Josephine Wiggs for starting a wind-up toy just before a song.” Kelley says “you guys can sing along if you know the words.” Kim chides, “no they’ll be out of pitch, Shut up Kelley.” They start the song, “1, 2, here we go. fuck, shit, 1, 2, here we go” (Kim apparently messed up but it’s unclear to me what she did. For this song Kelley switches to bass (and is apparently reading the sheet music). She has taken off the blue wrist guards she had on. Kim is on electric guitar and is playing it in a fascinating way–holding it almost vertically and strumming gently on the neck–laughing as she sings the vocals. Jim doesn;t have anything to do and Josephine isn’t doing much for the first minute or so. She is sitting up front on a desk but when the time comes she plays bass as well–doing some lead bass lines. The roadie who was the cymbal is now playing the more lead guitar parts while Kim strums. There’s a lot going on for such a quiet song.
As the Concert ends, Kim apparently stands at attention just repeating thank you, thank you. Maybe they didn’t want to do four songs after all.
[READ: April 12, 2018] “How Did We Come to Know You?”
This was a fascinating story that went more or less around the world to talk about family.
Arkady left the Soviet Union with his mother and brother when he was 4. He now finds himself back in Moscow looking after his elderly grandmother, who is nearly ninety. As the story opens, he has grown a little tired of “babysitting” her and has let her go out by herself–where she falls on the stairs and needs a hospital. The ambulance takes her nearly an hour away to a national hospital.
When they left the Soviet Union, Arkady’s brother Dima was 16. Dima remained Russian in outlook and when the Soviet Union collapsed, he returned to Moscow. Dima lived with his grandmother and was involved in all kinds of businesses. He called Arkady to look after their grandmother because he was going to London for (no doubt questionable) business and he didn’t want anything to happen to his grandmother (or her apartment) while he was gone.
As it turns out, Arkady was happy to get out of New York for a time as well. (more…)
