Nina Nastasia, The Jeffrey Lewis Band (Feat. Scritti Politti), The Cape May - London Scala - 28/11/06
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
It's only upon arrival at the Scala (being very careful not to get shot, as is customary) that we find out tonight is supposedly part of something going under the banner of the Twisted Folk travelling festival. To see Nina Nastasia would have been enough, but given that tonight's promoters were All Tomorrow's Parties, all signs suggested that the evening's support slots could only have been filled with some remarkably talented individuals who, come the end of the night, we might count amongst our favourite new bands. If there's one thing this site will have taught a regular reader it's this - trust ATP with your life. They can only enhance it.
So whilst first act The Cape May (filling in for the absent William E. Whitmore) aren't incredible per se, they're still (predictably) pretty darn good. In my view, tonight is a night designed to twist people's perceptions of singer songwriters more than folk as such, as everything here has too many quirky twists and disturbing, uncomfortable turns to really be classed as genuine folk music. Yet these are people standing there singing slow songs with acoustic guitars, and if there's one thing that the coffee tables of richer friends have revealed over the past few years it's that the main stream of such performers make dire, hellish music. The Cape May are quite a sombre proposition, hardly brimming with stage presence, but they pedal a nice line in introspective acoustic explorations all the same. They indeed write better songs with better melodies and stronger lyrical points and deliver them with more passion and musical flair (hark at the drummer, he's a leg-end) than anyone you'll get to hear without doing a fair share of self motivated investigation. But they ain't anywhere near the best band on the bill.
Now begins a series of major cock ups in the sound department - levels go all over the place, whole instruments are lost in the mire and feedback threatens to drown subtle melodies that need their time in the limelight. It continues throughout the night. Nina Nastasia will later understandably get a little peeved with it, but The Jeffrey Lewis band carry on as if they don't care - they're funny guys, and they have films after all. They can get through this. Lewis comes across as the most amiable person I've never met - his songs are born of a similar mindset to those of a now-solo Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson, except where Kimya revels in the cuteness of it all Lewis seems to be pushing that craft as far as it can go, boasting mid song in 'Roll Bus Roll' about how he only needs two chords to have the best time, smiling and making people laugh in this social setting with songs that, if they heard them for example on a long journey away from a loved one at night, would have them in tears.
Despite his impish demeanour, he's a showman, even showcasing a couple of films - the first a frank retelling of the story of Rough Trade records complete with hand drawn cartoons (though as he puts it in the song "I also made one for K records in case Rough Trade drops me"), after which some 'key players' in that song, and former touring buddies of Lewis's Scritti Politti come on and play their own song for an all too brief period, staying to join the Lewis Band for the remainder of the set. Unusual for an act who refused to play live for 26 years, but that's the effect Lewis seems to have on people (Nastasia will later declare her love for his whole band, too). They close with another film, the fantastic (and once again illustrated) story of 'The Creeping Brain', a brain who by dining on human beings gets bigger and more intelligent until it eventually rules the world, ensuring that the refrain of "the creeping brain, creeping brain, creeping brain..." is lodged in the heads of the now adoring crowd well in to the headline set.
It's a bit of a bitch actually. Here I am trying to enjoy Nina Nastasia (who, in 'On Leaving', has one of the greatest records of the year on the shelves right now), and I can't stop singing "creeping brain, creeping brain, creeping brain..." to myself. You see, unlike those of Jeffrey Lewis, whilst Nina's songs are many things, they're hardly catchy. But whilst on record this can mean that the full depth and skill behind the tunes is only revealed after a long while spent living with the product, live it's easier to be impressed simply down to the fact that few of us will have ever, ever heard a voice quite like this one. And on the songs one's familiar with, it's now double the glory - however those aforementioned sound problems do their best to destroy this writer's personal favourite, the immense 'Counting Up Your Bones', to both Nina's and my annoyance.
Nina excels live mid song, her vocals possessive of a capability to be both delicate and devastating often dozens of times within the same song (there were eight or so from the new album but hey, that's cool - you'll notice a perfect score in a review of it somewhere around here). Most of the time however Ms Nastasia, a notoriously private and somewhat shy individual, doesn't look entirely at home on the stage - her banter can often trail quickly off in to nonsense (something she realises, pointing out that "when you've got nothing to say, you should just play a song"), and it's only when she gets back in to one of her tunes that you think she might actually be enjoying playing after all.
What's obvious is how much everyone here is enjoying it - some of them too much. One heckler won't seem to leave the poor girl alone, and it's here you notice that whilst she may not enjoy the crowd interaction that seems to come as an inherent part of these quiet acoustic shows, she's certainly good at handling it - the heckler gets a polite talking down that reveals him for the drunk loon he is, but because she's something of a sweetheart, she then deems it appropriate to give an airing to the songs he slurred after. You might be a fool, Mr. Heckler, but 'Treehouse Song' was a very nice choice.
In the space of a few encores, she tries to play every song requested by everyone, eventually running out of time after in fact running quite a bit over it. Thankfully, she's stopped whilst hearing peoples wishes granted remains special, before she becomes "your private dancer", as she puts it. Nina Nastasia showcasing her rarely seen vulnerability whilst maintaining just enough mystery was perhaps the main triumph of an evening which, whilst it was debatable whether it was particularly folk or not, was without question wholly enchanting.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment