So here’s the thing. When you get into a lot of music through the internet/print sources, you don’t always necessarily learn how to say band names properly, so you’re forced to sort of bullshit your own pronunciations, with sometimes embarrassing results. For a pretty long time I was saying SURF-jan Stevens and Devendra BARN-hart. And I’m fairly certain I still am saying Les Savy Fav and Gastr Del Sol incorrectly. So what I’m saying is, up until last night I thought Menomena was said “minnow-meena,” when apparently it is in fact said “minnah-minnuh.” I like my way better.
Anyhow, pronunciations be damned, Menomena has been one of my favorite bands for a pretty long time now. I Am The Fun Blame Monster should be considered a classic, I think. Their creative and spontaneous songwriting is unparalleled, largely due to their unconventional process of composing their songs by arranging looped samples with a homebrew computer program. But can their songs translate to a live setting? Surprisingly, yes — very well, actually.
All Smiles opened Friday’s show at the Bottleneck. The solo project of Jim Fairchild, guitarist for some now-defunct band from Modesto called Grandaddy, All Smiles plays breezy, sunny jams that have been getting pretty solid rotation in my car stereo this summer. They’ve been touring as a four-piece band, although Menomena’s Justin Harris filled in for their regular bassist, who was out of commission thanks to a violent case of food poisoning. Jim sat on the stage teaching Justin the songs no more than an hour before they went on stage — really, that’s pretty rad that he would step up like that. Impressively, they made it through their set with only a few hardly-noticeable missteps, and generally sounded pretty fantastic. Jim’s voice is absolutely brilliant; he should have been the singer in Grandaddy. They played the bulk of the material from Ten Readings of a Warning, including the amazingly catchy “Moth In A Cloud Of Smoke” — check it out if you haven’t.
Menomena delivered a solid and very impressive set comprised of songs from both of their albums. Somehow, with a little bit of creativity and surely dozens of hours of rehearsal, they have worked their compositions into a very effective show that packs all the punch of their albums. They did a decent amount of instrument swapping and multi-tasking, but they held the chaos together very well, largely thanks to Danny Seim’s mindblowing skill on his drum kit — he beat the hell out of those things for the whole set, even while singing, egg-shaking and whatever else. Justin was rocking this awesome Moog foot pedal synthesizer while playing guitar. There was a certain tension, a feeling that everything could fall to pieces at any moment — the exact reckless energy that makes their records so brilliant.
They played basically all of the songs I wanted to hear them play. Highlights included the awesome “Muscle ‘n’ Flo,” “Wet and Rusting” (during which Brent Knopf’s voice sounded beautiful, like Mercury Rev’s singer but less annoying), the catchy but strangely unsettling “Rotten Hell,” and “Boyscout’n” (the ending was super climactic and rad) from Friend & Foe, and the spazzy “Cough Coughing” (Seim’s drum break bit in the middle kicked my ass) and a strong contender for my favorite song ever, “The Late Great Libido,” from their debut.
Menomena surpassed my expectations and delivered a very cool night of music. I left convinced that they are really a special group of musicians, probably with an exciting and productive future. They’ll still always be “minnow-meena” to me, though.
Check out my photos from the show on Flickr.
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