mailing down the house.

last wednesday night, i went to a benefit concert for the 826 writing labs collective, which was founded by dave eggers, who hosted this b.s., i mean b.c.

the whole thing looked to be very promising, what with the likes of j-stew, sufjan stevens, and david byrne holding court.

but to me, the artists ended up mailing in their performances. aside from some other meaningless tripe perpetrated by eggers and his cronies, j-stew told a few timely jokes, but mostly read from the paperback version of america, even cracking wise about how the new edition is just an opportunistic retread; sufjan played some of his best songs, but hardly in a 'rocking' or even jazzing manner: more like he was afraid of his own spotlight-induced shadow; and when his time came, david byrne got up and threw a bucket of lukewarm water on the audience by immediately announcing that he was 'going to do a country set.'

now, i'll admit that my initial reaction - 'i wouldnt go to a yankee game to watch derek jeter dribble a basketball' - though clever, could have ended up being off base (im punny). byrne could have ended up rock-twanging out, blowing us all away with new, alt.country versions of some of his most-liked songs. after all, it would be kind of cool to see jeet do cartwheels around the bases for a homerun trot, or make his throws to first underhand. nothing wrong with spicing up the same old same old.

but byrne didn't spice anything up. he watered it down. he first played two country songs that were good songs, but which certainly didn't require the founder of talking heads to do them justice (think derek jeter pitching batting practice). then he played two lesser-known heads songs - the big country, creatures of love - in the same country vein (think jeet jogging to first after hitting it in the infield).

now, im not saying he should have played burning down the house (which im not even crazy about at this pt) or once in a lifetime or even psyhco killer. i can understand byrne not wanting to play the most popular heads songs, whose first bars might well make him nauseous. but c'mon. suck it up and gimme some this must be the place (naive melody) or crosseyed and painless. gimme something to which you know i stand a good chance of mouthing along. gimme that sweet, sweet two-way street concert dynamic, not the lecture hall laboriousness.

there's no way david byrne could have reasonably thought that most of the people who were there to see him did not want to hear some classic talking heads songs. no way. i mean, he should have at least played one heads classic, out of the four songs he played.

i know musicians get tired of being painted into their own hit-song corners. they want to show they can do more than write those catchy top-forty nuggets, both to the audience and to themselves. they want to show that they have grown as artists. and i understand that.

so do that for part of your set, and for the rest of the set, give us what you know we came to see. grow on your own time, when it's not on my dollar (btw, my ticket cost over $50, and yet eggers still had the audacity to pass a hat around midway through the concert, asking for donations; but im not gonna go off about that here).

so you dont like playing psycho killer anymore. well guess what? i dont like going to work sometimes either! and the dude who runs the walk-in closet breakfast cart on my corner - i dont think he likes waking up every morning at 4 am just to ensure that shmucks like me can have their bagel and coffee. and i dont think the dudes who clean the toilets in my office building run up and down the stairwells jumping for joy. but you know what? they do it. you could be a lot worse off then having to once again perfrom swamp for adoring fans who worship you. you, david byrne.

am i wrong? is that too much to ask? i know creativity makes the performers' job different - inherently makes them have to tweak their performances (their work) now and then - but they still should show up and do their job. and as i saw it, byrne mailed his work in that night.

as an encore, stevens joined byrne to sing lefty frizzell's saginaw michigan. it was a fitting cap on the night, because this great pair of singer-songwriters sang a song neither of them wrote, and together they enjoyed all the chemistry of an easy-bake oven cooking a lame-ass brownie with a two-watt lightbulb.

rock 'n roll, meet oil 'n water

to add insult - but also corroboration - to injury, when i was deciding what link i would use to reference david byrne (sometimes i feel like i rely on wikipedia too much for this), i came upon his website journal, in which he talked about the benefit himself:

Benefits are funny things. Often the public pays exaggerated ticket price to see “watered down” versions of the musical acts — most times I myself play a few songs on acoustic guitar, as do many of the others. Now, watered down it maybe be, but sometimes the “unplugged” version is more moving and emotionally involving that the more fully arranged version — well, sometimes. When that happens it’s not a bait and switch deal.

i mean, you gotta love that. i didn't make that up (just click on the link), as i did with some of the bush story in july. byrne himself actually acknowldges his less than stellar performance, even using the words 'watered down', not to mention 'exaggerated ticket price'! and i also love the 'well, sometimes' part. he might as well have have included the ;) or :p emoticons. byrne, i consider myself byrned. indeed, bait and switched.

i still think david byrne is a god, and im glad i can cross him off my have-to-see list. but he's enjoying a perpetual sew-his-oats sabbath, and i didnt want to subsidize it to the tune of 50 ducats.

The State: Taco Mail

i wanted some talking heads; i got some tacos.