9/20: Girlyman @ The Cat in the Cream

There's a genre I've gotten whiffs of over the course of concerting. Queers tend to do it real well, and large groups of people do it well. Large groups of queerios tend to do it best. I'm thinking Dangerous Ponies and The Gertrudes and (my own) Speaker for the Dead. It's a genre based in pop/rock, but focused on mashing a variety of different experiences together on stage; or maybe it's about making standard and beautiful songs about things that don't often get beautiful songs. I think that's what Girlyman mean by gender pop. I heard nothing that astounded me tonight, but I heard a lot of excellent musicianship, different influences, and a rare sense of community around being sexual/gender-expressive others.

The stage lay open with a variety of instruments for the four musicians: acoustic guitars, electric guitar, electric bass, mandolin, banjo, keyboard. This music wasn't sneakily or smoothly diving between their parts like, say, Plume Giant; instead the instrumentation, and the songwriting, was like seeing pleasant different faces of the same dodecahedron or something.

Quite notable also are the consistent 3-part harmonies, usually voicings of a single chord moving to occasional close dissonances. It was this that bound their pop together, which was always reminiscent, though particularly with the keyboard piano patch, of that of Ben Folds. We even got the three of them directing the crowd in 3-part harmonies of their own on "Postcards from Mexico." Even though they lack Ben Folds' overstatement of the same ideas over and over (some songs ended far too quickly to make sense), the need for unified harmony and texture in each of the songs (necessary to make good pop lyrics fly) meant that their fabulous individual musicianship often got lost in the changes, each supporting the other in a whole that was often expectable, not stellar.

But...that's pop. And to that pop they added a variety of personal experience, covers, varied key regions and approaches, music for sexual minorities coming into their own. They're also really, really fucking good at that pop, and really good at each other. They made composing on-the-spot tuning songs, vocal harmonies and all, seem effortless. Maybe it's musical talent and effort that would be better spent in another form, but then, one's studio work can be totally different from one's live work. This music means a lot to a lot of people, and it's well done, facile, often clever in its changes and instrumentation. Stuff like this doesn't always need to break the mold.

So a good time was had by all, with an encore and a standing ovation, a bunch of CDs, and friendly talk with fans and friends after the show. They're on their final tour before a break. I'm excited to spin the CD I got, but more than that I'm excited to follow these musicians into the things that feel right for them.