John Vanderslice is a very interesting person. Of course that’s not saying much; Adolf Hitler was an interesting person too. But Hitler never put out a whole heap of brilliant LPs, released a wonderful cover of David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs in its entirety, or established himself as one of the planet’s foremost proponents of experimental analog recording techniques. Nope, Adolf was too busy vying with Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin in an imaginary TV game show called Who’s The Most Horrible Person of the Twentieth Century?
Vanderslice’s multiple talents make him a kind of Steve Albini, minus the legendary snottiness. Vanderslice is a truly friendly guy, although when I confronted him with this fact (probably making him uncomfortable in the process) his only response was “I’m normal!” Normal my ass; he’s released 10 LPs since 2000—my favorite of the moment is 2004’s Cellar Door, although that changes by the minute and could change again when I finally get my paws on Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs—all bona fide winners. As for great songs, he’s written a shitload, including “Speed Lab,” “Up Above the Sea,” “When It Hits My Blood,” “How the West Was Won,” “Exodus Damage,” and “Peacocks in the Video Rain.”
Vanderslice’s lyrical and storytelling gifts remind me of John Darnielle, the fellow lo-fi traveler who helped write the lyrics for Vanderslice’s 2005 LP, Pixel Revolt. Vanderslice’s subjects range from the political to the deeply personal, and his lyrics vary from the Blakeian poetry of “Fiend in a Cloud” (“My mother groaned/My father wept/Into the dangerous world I leapt/Helpless and naked/Piping loud/Like a fiend hid in a cloud”) to the conversational tones of “Convict Lake,” a great song about LSD that reminds me of the night a buddy and I dosed up and decided to become the first humans to scale the college field house. We somehow reached the top without killing ourselves, only to stumble over a couple having sex. We felt like Captain Robert Falcon Scott, looking at Roald Amundsen’s Norwegian flag at the South Pole.
As for Vanderslice’s songs, they’re an eclectic bunch; some are simple, stripped-down affairs, while others are unusually structured and feature strings and electronics, as one listen to 2013’s Kickstarter-funded Dagger Beach will demonstrate. Vanderslice possesses a very pretty indie-rock voice; you won’t confuse him with Captain Beefheart, Tiny Tim, Darby Crash, or Foghorn Leghorn, and he can utterly captivate you with his vocals, as he proves on songs like “Radiant With Terror” from Pixel Revolt.
Vanderslice is touring to promote Dagger Beach as a duo with Jason Slota; Vanderslice plays guitar (with tons of effects including a nifty 1980s-vintage Ibanez analog delay unit) and sings while Slota plays drums and a 1982 Moog Source. And Vanderslice announced he’d be playing some songs he’s never performed live, not to mention selections from Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs. Me, I’m such a Glambammer I’d have shown up just to hear the Bowie covers, keeping my fingers crossed that he’d play “When You Rock’n’Roll With Me.” (He didn’t.) Now if he would just cover Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, I solemnly swear to personally pay out of my own pocket to add his face to Mount Rushmore.
I missed the opening act due to an unfortunate occurrence; namely, I nodded off listening to Guns N’ Roses and fell into a long, beautiful dream that Axl Rose and I were lovers. Axl was a perfect gentleman and a genius to boot. He sang “Welcome to the Jungle” in Latin, doing the translation on the spot, scribbled long and complex mathematical formulae on my pillow, explained the factual underpinnings of the myth of Atlantis and how to precisely determine the age of a sea turtle, and perfectly reproduced the yodeling in “Hocus Pocus” by Focus. A lover who can do trig AND yodel! And we spent a wonderful Sunday making and canning applesauce, Axl patiently guiding me through every step. I woke up an hour late and was bereft, and cried “Axl!” in despair but nobody heard me, not even my chair. (Catch the musical reference, anybody?)
Fortunately I got to DC9 just in time to see Vanderslice mount the stage. It was a strange but wonderful show. Vanderslice is a friendly, loquacious, and very funny man, and he spent almost as much time interacting with the audience as he did playing. He stopped the show to wear another guy’s hat, find out who brought him cookies (he bought her a beer), tell a long story about how bought an entire bar beers at a free gig thinking he wouldn’t have to pay full price (he did), go into a lengthy explanation of the band’s equipment, talk about how much he loves the “new” Genesis, and hold a competition in which Sloat played an iconic song’s opening and the audience had to guess both band and drummer (it was impossible—“Jack and Diane,” okay, but who the hell is Kenny Aronoff?)
Vanderslice opened with “The Parade” off 2007’s Emerald City, a simple and very melodic number on which Slota played what sounded like a bass (I didn’t know it was Slota and kept looking for the phantom bassist, but all I saw was a second microphone with no one behind it, and concluded he must be invisible) on his Moog Source. Slota is a marvel, perfectly capable of playing the drums with only his left hand—and the din he made! I haven’t heard anyone hit the skins so hard since John Bonham. Before the set Vanderslice had said they were “burnt out,” but after “The Parade,” which was a rousing success, he said, “See? You didn’t have anything to worry about. We’re professionals!”
The duo then played the fantastically perky “Exodus Damage” off Pixel Revolt, which opened with Vanderslice singing, “I’ll see you next year/At another gun show” to the accompaniment of Slota’s drums and a beautiful sample programmed into one of Vanderslice’s foot pedals. A great big hook, a wonderful chorus (“Dance/Dance Revolution/All we’re gonna get/Unless it all falls apart”), and Vanderslice’s lovely vocals—“Exodus Dance” was my favorite of the night, with the possible exception of the band’s rendition of D. Bowie’s “Big Brother.”
“How the West Was Won” off Vanderslice’s latest release was also very melodic and beautiful. Syncopated drumming, some rapid electrified acoustic guitar strumming, and Vanderslice’s wonderful vocals on the chorus (“Oh oh oh/I’d like to know/Oh don’t it feel good/To be understood tonight”) all made this one a rocking horse winner, and the band followed it with the slow as poppies growing “Tablespoon of Codeine,” which featured a cool drum opening, some appropriately sleepy vocals redolent with echo, and three—count ‘em, three—very freaky, feedback-laden guitar solos, which Slota backed up by knocking the living hell out of his drums.
“Time Travel Is Lonely” opened with some syncopated and vaguely martial drumming, then Vanderslice sang, “No one” over and over again, finishing the long series with “Knows what happens—next.” Time travel wasn’t as melodic as the earlier songs—although it had its catchy moments—and it wasn’t my evening’s favorite, but Vanderslice did play a great guitar riff I would have liked to take home with me and use as a pillow. Meanwhile Dagger Beach’s “Song for Dana Lok,” which Vanderslice wrote for his girlfriend, was quiet and relatively short but quite pretty and featured a lovely guitar riff, some hushed and lovely vocals, and Slota using mallets. “I taste salt on my tongue,” sang Vanderslice, “I will stay strong/I will not be undone,” and it was quite touching and made me wish I had a girlfriend to write a love song for, called “A Love So Great My Dick Fell Off.”
Next up was “Underneath the Leaves” off 2002’s Life and Death of an American Fourtracker, which featured a guitar pedal effect that sounded like a melodic chirping robot and was very reminiscent of the late, great Grandaddy. The song was mid-tempo and opened with a big guitar riff, and from then on the guitar riff alternated with the chirping robot before Slota kicked in with a big drum crash and Vanderslice played some mucho crunchy power chords. “I’m coming down,” sang Vanderslice, “I’m coming down on everyone,” before breaking into a mad, bad guitar solo with enough feedback to kill my mother.
The audience erupted when Vanderslice went into Bowie’s “Sweet Thing” off Diamond Dogs. Slota made a big bass noise with his Moog Source, and Vanderslice’s vocals were rich with echo (and passion) as he sang, “If you want it/ Boys, get it here, then,” then talked-sang, “I’m glad that you’re older than me/Makes me feel important and free/Does that make you smile, isn’t that me?” Vanderslice then played a very impressive and feedback-heavy take on Bowie’s great guitar solo on the song. I swooned, as I knew I would, and when Vanderslice asked if everybody’s sight lines were good and invited people to sit on the stage behind the band, I almost took him up on it.
Vanderslice picked up his electrified acoustic to play the strange love song “Harlequin Press” off Dagger Beach. Slota hit the drums so hard I thought they’d explode, but it didn’t distract at all from how pretty the song, and Vanderslice’s vocals, were. Meanwhile Vanderslice played a fluty-sounding sample by hitting a foot pedal along with some gigantic guitar riffs as he sang, “She replaced the song birds with pornographers/The love scenes with brutal murders,” after which the song stopped on a dime. “Time to Go” off Emerald City was a mid-tempo number on which Vanderslice announced, “I’m turning my amp up to total saturation.” But despite the saturation you could still dance to this rock’n’roll station, because it was so melodic. Then the tempo changed and it wasn’t so melodic, but you could still, I’m happy to report, dance to it.
“Kookaburra” opened with some strummed guitars and Vanderslice singing, “Lightning shot from the sky/It breathed life into every, every living thing,” and it was quite pretty, especially when Vanderslice sang, “White on white/Like dirty confetti/The Chrysler Building had disappeared,” soon after which the tune changed tempo, and Vanderslice banged out some big riffs while Slota knocked out a very heavy but basic beat while playing some reverb-thick Moog Source. Then Vanderslice played a total spaz solo chockfull of distortion and tremolo, after which he recommenced singing while continuing to play that freaky guitar.
“Plymouth Rock” off Pixel Revolt featured a very funky drum beat and some lounge-cool guitar, not to mention some excellent lyrics (“Tuwaitha on a moonless night/Blacked out, except for the street fires/My first raid, made up like a Shawnee brave/I even had my head shaved”) that Vanderslice sang in his prettiest voice. The duo then briefly kicked out the jams and Vanderslice sang some more, then he and Slota engaged in some wild and wooly guitar-moog interplay, with Slota still managing to sound like Conan the Barbarian on drums using only his left hand.
The very pretty “White Plains” off Cellar Door also featured great lyrics (“Vietnam/I’m long gone/I’m up the river/Way past Mekong”), echo-laden electric guitar, and a deafening and primal drum beat, and Vanderslice showed off some hip stage moves while he was at it. “White Plains” is the most beautiful cry of despair (“But the truth is I have no faith in happiness/It turns to fear, draws the devils near/So I jumped the fence/And went out West”) you may ever hear, and it speaks volumes about both Vanderslice’s lyrical gifts and songwriting ability.
The band then played Bowie’s “Big Brother/Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family” and man was it hip, even if Vanderslice had to restart it. He unfortunately didn’t include the nifty trumpet opening on his samples pedal, but it didn’t really matter what with Slota producing a big bass sound on the moog while Vanderslice sang, “He’ll build a glass asylum/With just a hint of mayhem/He’ll build a better whirlpool/We’ll be living from sin/Then we can really begin” and the great chorus (“Someone to claim us, someone to follow/Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo/Someone to fool us, someone like you/ We want you Big Brother, Big Brother”) in a big echoing echoing echoing voice voice voice. Then the duo segued into “Skeletal Family” and Vanderslice, I swear, played one of the coolest guitar riffs ever, before hitting the foot pedals to produce yet more echolalia along with some feral feedback, then switching back to the effects-free riff again.
Just how nice a guy is John Vanderslice? Well, a young fellow came up to him before the show and asked if he could sing “Trance Manual” with the band. And Vanderslice said sure. Try to imagine, say, Bono doing that. He would likely sneer, say, “Sod off, mate,” then kindly direct security to taser the poor fool and kick him in the goolies for good measure. Anyway, the volunteer vocalist—whose name was Shep, like the dog—did a great job, eyes closed despite the lyric sheet clutched in his hand, and it was a simple, beautiful song, and Shep really got into it, crying “Everybody!” on the chorus and then, “Drum solo!” Then Shep and Vanderslice sang together, and it was a great moment, and made me even gladder than the Bowie songs that I was at the show.
What happened next made me even happier, as Vanderslice and Slota carried acoustic guitar, mallets, and floor tom into the middle of the audience and played a mini-hootenanny consisting of “Nikki Oh Nikki” and “White Dove.” The audience was one big smile, despite the bummerific lyrics of the former song and the fact that it fell apart in the middle and Vanderslice had to start again where he’d left off. And everybody sang and clapped along to the lovely and perky “White Dove,” while Vanderslice knocked on the body of his guitar in punctuation. When the song ended, Vanderslice announced a dance party, and his sound guy spun Public Enemy’s “Welcome to the Terrordome,” and those people who didn’t throng the merch booth commenced to dance, and it was all pretty darn beautiful, it really was.
Most rock shows are distanced affairs, with an invisible but impenetrable divide separating audience from band. Vanderslice tore down that divide, and the result was a show so intimate it could well have taken place in your living room. He’s the ultimate punk in this respect, but the friendliest punk you’ll ever meet, and if you weren’t there I suggest you go see him as soon as you can, because I may be an adamantine cynic but DC9 was full of love last Thursday night, and the love went both ways. Great music, a lot of laughs, a few Bowie songs—and presto, even a Morrissey-like miserablist like me left happy. To paraphrase the great Mr. Bowie himself, “This ain’t rock’n’roll—This is Genesis!” Or Vanderslice, rather, but if he likes Phil Collins’ Genesis, that’s good enough for me.
