Grizzly Bear at the Metro

Grizzly Bear with Beach House, The Metro, Chicago, IL 9/27/09
By Trevor Geiger

It has been a remarkable journey for the members of Grizzly Bear over the past three years. Since releasing their second album, "Yellow House," to critical acclaim in 2006, the indie-rock heroes have gone from virtually unknown to sharing stages with some of the biggest acts in the business including Radiohead, Paul Simon, Feist, and TV on the Radio.

Their latest album, "Veckatimest" (Warp, 2009), sold over 33,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 8 on the album chart despite having been leaked on the Internet much earlier. Just recently, famous couple Jay-Z and Beyonce were seen rocking out at a free concert of theirs in New York City.

But as they took the stage at the Metro Sunday night, Grizzly Bear seemed unaffected by all the hype. The four young men that walked on were quiet, humble, and a bit awkward to watch... until they started playing. As the first notes of "Southern Point" sounded, the soft-spoken band members transformed into a single ferocious live being; beautiful vocals pouring out from one, then another, then overpoweringly from all four members. And their name gained new meaning.

I had seen the band play earlier in the day at a taping for an NPR radio show. At that performance the band was stripped down, using only a single acoustic guitar, a single tom, a bass clarinet (surprising cool), and their angelic vocal harmonies. It was a stirring early morning performance; the boys' voices carried the songs and proved the strength of their material.

But that night at the Metro, you could tell that the band was in their element. Each member had his own musical station complete with an astounding array of effects pedals and multiple instruments (among them a Wurlitzer, a drum machine, two clarinets, a mini dulcimer, and a recorder).

Despite guitarist Daniel Rossen’s signature warble, Ed Droste stood out as the most extraordinary singer and the leader of the band. His voice was almost operatic, impressively under control, and wonderfully clear despite thick layers of reverb and delay. In contrast, Daniel’s tone was a quiet, gruff vibrato, the calm at the center of the storm.

Bassist Chris Taylor was that storm: a hurricane, a swirling mass of sound and manic energy. Often disappearing to the floor of the stage to create a looping effects-pedal haze, he was the sonic master of the show. On “Knife,” his high voice seemed to loop around you like a Doppler shift.

Finally, drummer Christopher Bear was the booming thunderclap that held the mass together. Solid in his playing and singing, his clear voice was often altered with wild effects rivaling those of Mr. Taylor.

As the band played through most of Veckatimest, it was easy to see why members of Radiohead have called Grizzly Bear a favorite of theirs. They are a musician’s band: talented, original, and experimental. Even the most accessible of their songs (“Two Weeks,” “While You Wait for the Others”) are challenging and emotionally rewarding.

The show was a big payoff, especially after seeing Grizzly Bear “lite” earlier in the day. The guys were tight and well rehearsed. They maintained an amazing amount of sonic power and clarity for a four-man group. The opener Beach House was a wild new-wavy group with a charismatic lead singer and a love of all things triangle. They were more than appropriate for an opener and did much to establish the mood of the evening. The mood was good.

The Critical Condition of Donna Seaman

Donna Seaman is a books critic for Booklist, WLUW’s “Open Books,” Chicago Public Radio’s “Eight-Forty-Eight,” and the Chicago Tribune. After reading several of her book reviews on her Blog, Under Cover, it is clear that she loves literature and takes her job very seriously. In TimeOut Chicago’s article Critical Condition, she is an advocate of passion, education, and professionalism in her field, but the latter almost to a fault. By the end of the article one begins to suspect that she views herself as much a reporter as an artist.

Donna begins the conversation with a plea that to be a critic, one needs “passion, first and foremost.” But before everyone can agree with her on this key aspect of good critical assessment, she immediately backtracks into the realm of journalism, stating that despite one’s passion, they should “sustain enough distance to see a work in context.”

So which is it, passion or distanced logic? Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock? Donna continues to walk this line as she explains that passion must “lead to discipline.” She sees integrity and trust as “crucial,” stating that a critic needs a “track record,” and that they must “stay with it… without compromising standards.”

But she doesn’t state what these standard are, leaving one to assume she’s speaking of a kind of journalistic objectivity. When pressed about this referenced objectivity (Anne Holub: “are you saying critics have to like everything?”), Ms. Seaman retracts, but points out that when slamming a work, one should be “sharp and precise.”

Clarity and precision are a theme throughout her responses in the interview. “Be clear about what it is that matters in a work of art,” she intones. In her reviews, Seaman is clear about what matters to her, however, one would be hard pressed to find a review of hers in which she “slammed” anything, or perhaps she only chooses to review books that she likes on her Blog.

Ms. Seaman struggles throughout the interview to define herself as a professional while making sure she is viewed as an artist. She bemoans the state of modern criticism, saying “creative, thoughtful work is undervalued,” but at the same time defending the merits of professional, published work which is subject to “constraints regarding form, length, [and] voice.”

Surely the job of a critic is to balance the two sides; part journalist, part poet, they must find a middle ground. In the end, Donna is revealed as the idealist she is, relishing the conversational tone of Blogs and user-generated reviews while lamenting the loss of professionalism and the paycheck that once came with it. She speaks of the artist’s need to express one’s opinion, but also the importance of advocating for work and “exposing the workings of the mind.”

Reading her reviews, one finds she is probably more of an artist then she would like to believe. Reveling in and advocating for the literature she loves and ignoring that which she does not, her education is clear while her critical eye and professionalism not so much.

TimeOut's Article Critical Condition can be found at http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/features/25801/critical-condition

Reviewing Reviewers: Pitchfork vs TimeOut on the new Grizzly Bear

Reading a review of your favorite band, album, or song, can sometimes be more infuriating than insightful. While listening to a critic bash, mislabel, or poorly describe your cherished music, one is left to wonder, "Were they listening to the same thing as me?"

But alas, music (and art in general) is subjective. And such is the job of the critic; to subject works of art to his/her subjective point of view. In doing so, it is no wonder that diverse opinions, observations, and emotions are evoked. As individuals, each critic is more than entitled to their views/ideas, just as readers are entitled to disagree with them should they feel differently.

However, to accurately assess a piece of art, and in presenting that assessment to the public, a critic has a duty to take him/herself out of the picture. This doesn't mean objectivity, for who among us can boast that? What this means is a genuine attempt to take one’s ego out of the landscape of the review. The success or failure of this "ego-removal" very often differentiates the good review from the complete piece of crap.

An examination of this distinction can be seen through two reviews of Grizzly Bear's new single release of "While You Wait For the Others" featuring Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers on vocals. The strange pairing, sure to illicit varying responses, brought out the best and worst of two reviewers, one David Raposa of Pitchfork.com and Brent DiCrescenzo of TimeOut Chicago Magazine (respectively).

Raposa of Pitchfork begins his review with a quote from another reviewer, setting the conversational tone and acknowledging the most important fact about this version of the song for anyone who has not heard it yet, that "Michael McDonald... could not be more different than original singer Daniel Rossen." Grizzly Bear fans beware.

But Riposa goes on to describe in great detail the virtues of the elder McDonald's version of the Grizzly Bear tune. Pointing out that he has a hard time selling some of the more tender lines, he also makes it clear where and when McDonald's "soul holler" works for the song, namely, the climactic ending where he is really able to use his famous pipes.

Riposa's review reads like a short story about the song with McDonald as lead character. It covers the ups and downs of the song's dynamics, references the "frustration" in the lyrics, and the "frenzy" of the songs ending. It also does a great job of explaining just why McDonald is singing lead for Grizzly Bear anyway.

DiCrescenzo's review on the other hand reads like the story of BD's opinion about Grizzly Bear and Michael McDonald. Within the first two sentences you can tell he's not a big fan of the band when he says they're "fun to ridicule." He further mocks the band by implying that here they are "where they belong -- as backup singers." Finally, you can tell he does not understand the band when he ends the review with the sentence "Grizzly Bear is the new Seals & Croft."

In between, BD offers up humorous wordplay in the place of descriptive language. He refers to the addition of McDonald on vocals as "putting white chocolate in the Grizz's peanut butter." Besides being non-descriptive, this sentence would have made more sense the other way around. DiCrescenzo goes on to call the acclaimed album "wallpapery" and tell you that with McDonald on vocals, the band can finally "look you in the eye." What does any of this actually mean? Not a lot. In the end, DiCrescenzo review of the song comes across as self-serving and indifferent, doing more to amuse than educate the reader.

Read the Reviews at:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/11483-while-you-wait-for-the-others-ft-michael-mcdonald/

and

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/music/78403/tracks-9-10-2009-grizzly-bear-feat-michael-mcdonald-and-massive-attack

Listen to the song at:

http://hypem.com/track/899898/Grizzly+Bear-While+You+Wait+for+the+Others+(feat.+Michael+McDonald)