If one wants to be a serious musician, to make real art, the stereotype is often that of austerity – humor has no place in real art, and any writer, musician or visual artist who traffics in funny business is, while still an artist, somehow derided as less deep or meaningful. Bands that use humor as their primary mode of being are either ignored or enjoyed merely as a novelty. It’s tough for me to get into that kind of mindset though, and I bet ninety percent of those reading this don’t believe it either, but what are we taught to appreciate as serious art by the suits in academia? Classical music, and not the playful Prokofiev kind, but the big names are the ones that get trotted out. Serious names. Sure people love irony and cleverness (oh so cleverness) in their visual art, but outright humor is scarce. This, of course, is in a realm far removed from the one that most of us make and appreciate art within, but even in our realm, two towns over from the ivory tower, humor is still underappreciated – bands that employ it are often derided as joke bands – still not as worthy of our attention as say someone deep – someone who writes about emotions, as if music (or art period) could or should be hierarchically ranked. I preach to the choir though.
I preface my review with these remarks because Adams and the Blackout is a funny band, or rather not a funny haha (and especially not a funny weird) group, but rather one whose entirety is suffused with good humor. Any schmuck can start a band with a funny concept or engage in shenanigans live, jump or punch or dress in weirdness, but being funny is not the same thing as being funny, you see. That is, when witnessing that which has the property of being funny, the feeling that resonates within one is of a different kind; it elicits a different reaction in the audience, the internal map takes on a different topography (this is not a metaphor). AATBO exist as this latter kind of funny. Although Siegel’s lyrics are humorous, and the band visibly has a lot of fun onstage, these are physical manifestations or symptoms of what I mean. This may all sound obscure, but think of it like this, think about the specific feelings certain musicians evoke within you, think of a band that might make you laugh with their antics or maybe they’ve written an ironic or clever song, this is a degraded, deficient version of the feeling I am attempting to delimit.
Live in Garfield then is the perfect document of this spirit (being funny), not for its content, but rather for its existence itself. Highlighting the severe end of the band’s dual nature – bassist Lori Felker has long held that the live and recorded experiences are distinctly different, the former being a hulking Manthing, the latter clear, distinct and sharp, the only link between the two a compositional one – the recording is a sludgey, lo-fi affair. Siegel is missing; vocal duties then lie on the larynx of guitarist Adam MacGregor, whose vox seem more sinister in tone. Though this is definitely AATBO, it is rougher than usual, and the question is, why release an aberrant recording, one that doesn’t seem all that representative? Precisely because this lumbering, shambolic mess is the concretization of being funny. If I wanted to be dramatic or shittily art-speaked, I could say something like it’s subverting the idea of what a live recording is supposed to do – offer a typical document of what the band sounded like live or be a record of an exceptional show – but we all know that that kind of abstraction is bullshit; even so, I do have to admit that I get the being funny feeling simply by contemplating this. Will others get the same feeling? What will be evoked within you when you hear this? Will you dismiss it? Is this only of use to fellow or former Pittsburghers? Doubtful. The album is interesting and enjoyable in and of itself – odd rhythms, MacGregor’s gruff vocals, weird lurches – the recording quality even gives it the feel of some lost NYC no-wave tape from the late 70s. As the incipient release on guitarist Adam Strohm’s Ordnung label, there are only a few of these left. Grab one quickly.
