***
 |
 |
||||||||
 |
June 19, 2006
The Legendary Pink Dots, One Bit Music - Knitting Factory Main Space $15/$18 The Legendary Pink Dots are out celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary with album number fifty-something, ROIR's Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves, and a world tour. From the point I began flipping through underground record store bins in the 1980s, to working at a record store and college radio in the 1990s to my occasional visits in the present, this band and their infinity of record covers have been around me for more than half of my life. While I’ll come right out and say that, by the point I first checked them out, I already found their archaic Gothicism to be a bit too corny for my taste and their general aesthetic alienatingly pretentious, I’ve still always admired them for their originality, compositional prowess, and, at this point, perseverance. I also must admit that I missed one of the most necessary components to understanding this band, something that’s also necessary in comprehending the other few Goths worth a listen – their stylized melodrama is not without a self-deprecating humor that softens their grandiosity. Americans who played with spooky stuff, such as The Misfits, 45 Grave, and The Cramps tended to be blatant about the fact that it was a B-movie they were after (with obvious exceptions like Christian Death), whereas the Legendary Pink Dots, or even early Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for that matter, became even more ambiguous in this regard as they became more ambitiousThe self-awareness was there – and, take note young Goths, that’s the secret ingredient that saves the whole thing and gives it dimension. You can’t have Lent without a little carnival – no matter how cold and shadowy your cathedral. The gargoyles gotta be grotesquely goofy. And, like the Bad Seeds, it's important to note that the Edward Ka-Spel and gang've never been about the black costumery and image - their link to the subculture is more about their art than presentation and even in that regard, they're equally Barrett-informed. Since you, if you are anywhere under forty-five, certainly grew up around enough non-ironic Goths to be put off by exaggerated black-paint-by-the-numbers gloom pretty early in life, you’ve since tended to avoid everything associated with the genre and the subculture. But admit it, the dark stuff is powerful and art that goes out on a limb stands the best chance of moving you. That’s why you, like me, still haven’t sold your old Bauhaus vinyl despite the fact that it’s becoming rather valuable. That’s also why, as I sit here listening to the MP3s that I just downloaded from across The Legendary Pink Dots’ career, noticing that around a quarter of the material stinks, and getting into the other seventy-five percent - the more playful and unusual mix of psychedelia, electronics, ambience, and symphonics, I recognize that it ain’t bad odds - particularly for a band that’s been around for so long. I’ve decided to take this momentous occasion in the career of one of the best and most prolific of the Goth acts to reopen my mind to the better bands of the genre. I doubt it’ll ever fully be my thing, but who knows? I’ve recently enjoyed giving the freak folk a chance – haven’t I? Are you with me? If so, they play tonight and tomorrow. I’ll be the mysterious girl all alone in the black lipstick leaning against the bak wall.
MEDIA
ALSO TONIGHT: Baby Gramps –
Lakeside Lounge FREE
|
 |
|||||||
|
|||||||||
