Last Man Standing - False Starts and Broken Promises (Imprint)
4/5
By: Christiana Spens
Imagine an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting... You go in, grudgingly... You don't want to be there at all, you just think that maybe it would be a good idea, now that you've broken your leg falling down some stairs when you were wasted, your partner left you, your parents think you're a disgusting disappointment, and you drink vodka for breakfast (just as good as coffee!).
So you think, idealistically one early morning as the sun rises and you're lying on a park bench, again, that maybe you should clean up your act, be responsible and try to be a better person.
This leads you to AA, one blowy night in October, say. Let's also imagine it's in Soho - New York or London - you take your pick... You wander in, trying to look sober even though, half an hour earlier, you had a little triple vodka coke (THIS one is the last...) But you're walking in a straight line, so far so bearable. You sit down in the plastic chair in the circle, not really paying attention to anyone else, when suddenly curiosity overwhelms you... Who are these people?
You look up: wow, it's Led Zeppelin! And the whole of Arcade Fire, and Patrick Wolf and Bowie, and a bunch of beatniks and tormented souls and tragic faces, comic faces, burlesque dancers (too many martinis can make a girl cry...)
"THIS is Alcoholics Anonymous? Why didn't I come here earlier? All the awkward mornings and hangovers have been worth it for this," you think to yourself...
Then it dawns on you. This isn't really AA. You have just accidentally walked into a little party with Last Man Standing. That's not really Mick Jagger, it's the band's lead, Max Vanderwolf. That's not Arcade Fire, It's the rest of the band. You just thought it was them because they sound just as genius and amazing.
"But I thought this was AA!" you exclaim louder than you intended... They look at you warily for about a second, then laugh, and someone says, "No, we all dropped out, too, welcome..."
Yay! A party!
You sip on your beer and chat to the band, and it turns out that you're not that far off AA really. Turns out the band met in AA, but dropped out to form a band.
"So we're meant to be together," you say, hopefully,
"Yes, it must be fate. You never really wanted to go to AA. You wanted us."
What is the moral of the story, you ask? The moral is, Last Man Standing have been through it, they've been to those boring meetings, and they turned them into something so much better. Music, you see, is the best therapy, and the best drug, for all the torment and tragedy you can fall into. It's the alternative to AA. It's so much more fun.
"Did you dance disguised with painted eyes closed,
Did you change your sheep for someone's wolf-ish clothes
Did it lead you all astray?"
Because Vanderwolf especially has been through it... After many years writing songs and popping pills on the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side, of being miraculously talented but unappreciated, he eventually met his producer and guitarist, Chris Cordoba, in rehab and they began to sing the blues they had already lived. They moved to London, where the band became a nine-piece, where they gathered a cult following, playing at the Lost Vagueness Burlesque night, the Secret Garden Party Festival, and the London Calling Festival at the Paradiso in Holland... They play intoxicated jazz and heartbroken blues, an incredible range of style and song, clearly the culmination of many, many years slaving away on tunes and words, downtrodden but glamorous, pouty and gorgeous, completely lovable music.
"I threw the wrecking ball,
I watched the towers fall
The crystal palace smashed
The sacred ark was trashed
I stood upon the wreckage
Wondering: What else can I love?"
They're soft, they're rough, they're an illusion, they're real. "Waiting so long" is my favourite track, it could send a tired writer into a tantrum, could make you pick up a cigarette and sway the wrong way, but still keep it up, keep it going, because it's worth it. It must be. Because they did it, they cried, the sighed, they may have had a few hissy fits on the streets of Soho in Manhattan and London alike... And at the end of it all, they produced this beautifully glamorous and decadent and triumphant, downbeat album. It's everything you want it to be. It's the air in Soho, it's falafel and gin, the wrecking ball, the passion, the heartache, the pink champagne.
"Where would I be without you? I don't know who I am..."
It's all those performers defying reality, singing for nothing but a scattered applause and lights shining neon. It's rock with a pout, and it demands attention... Go dance...
"I'm so damned depressed,
I just gotta rock..."
Stream two tracks from 'False Starts From Broken Promises' HERE.
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