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Soundtrack of Our Lives at the Mercury Lounge
Tuesday, March 12 2002
This evening Gretchen and I went into Lower Manhattan to see Soundtrack of Our Lives, a Swedish band I never would have discovered were it not for the eclectic musical evangelism of Linda. The venue was the Mercury Lounge, which the papers seemed to indicate was the same thing as the Bowery Ballroom, though it isn't (it's owned by the same people). As we walked around Chinatown and Little Italy, the spotlights of the new World Trade Center memorial were illuminating two square-shaped spots high on the altostratus clouds overhead. From our perspective, the two beams of the memorial looked more like lanes of a highway than they did the ghostly images of the former buildings. It was something of a cautionary exhibit on the difference between an artist's impression and, you know, the real thing.
The Mercury Lounge is a smallish venue (20 of these might fit inside the Bowery Ballroom), and tonight seemed busy for a Tuesday (though it was just another Saturday night in the capital of the unemployed). People were packing in well before the opening band took the stage, and I could overhear Swedish accents nudging vowels around in much of the dialogue. Gretchen overheard one gentleman saying to another, "Dude, you're here for Soundtrack? Cool!"
The band that opened for Soundtrack of Our Lives was also Swedish and hailed from the "wall of sound" school of music. Between the guitars, looped guitar samples, and synthesizers, they rather reminded me of Nikolai's band Moth. But instead of being a band built around lyrical songs, this one had as its soul the creepy Ozzy Osbornesque stage presence of the band's youngish mop-headed lead singer/screamer. Their music was a dynamic, engaging experience for a time, but well before they were through I was weary of them. [I'm still trying to find their name.]
In the brief time before Soundtrack took the stage, I muscled my way out to the bathroom and then bought us a second round of beers. Given the density of humanity, drilling my way back to the stage (the edge of which Gretchen was actually sitting upon) was no easy feat. Somehow, though, I did so without spilling much beer. By being sufficiently assertive and acting like you're only going to a point within eyesight, you can make your way through any crowd, even carrying two plastic cups full of Sierra Nevada.
Soundtrack of Our Lives was a six piece band featuring three thin photogenic young guitarists and keyboard guys; a somewhat older blondish drummer with a knack for twirling drumsticks between beats; a slightly older, shaggier guitarist; and the lead vocalist front man himself, Ebbot Lundberg. Now, if ever there was a perfect example of someone who would never make for an American pop front man, it's Lundberg. He's an older, slower-moving, quirky imp of a man. A singular beer gut, protruding yet concise, imparted a quality of pregnancy to his person. Both Gretchen and I soon had him figured as gay; perhaps this accounted for all the pretty boys in his band.
But they weren't just pretty, they were virtuosos with their instruments. They had their licks, songs, and techniques down to such perfection that they could devote considerable effort to onstage antics. Like the classic rock sampled in their sound (lots of Rolling Stones in there), their rockstar moves had a way of making the cliché come across as thoroughly original. This was rock and roll the way it was meant to be, gathered snips here and there from all the high points of the rock golden age, with no filler and no waste. It was rock and roll perfection, through and through. "These guys are rock and roll gods!" I declared.
Unlike, say, Bob Pollard, Lundberg knew better than to execute any dramatic kicks or sudden stage moves of his own. His technique was entirely deliberate, done in the manner of a wizard who knows something scary about the Universe and finds it both comic and depressing at the same time. Occasionally he'd slump down off the stage and go wandering through the audience, pulling his microphone cord behind him as audience members scrambled to maneuver it around obstacles. At one point his stumbling around caused a mike stand to tumble towards Gretchen's head and I caught it at the very last moment.
Interestingly, though, despite the extremity of the rock and roll excellence, Gretchen and I were virtually the only ones dancing in front of the stage. Turning around I'd see a sea of faces, a few of them doing the "this is pretty good; I hope that girl to my left can see me" head bop thing. What was wrong with these people? Sure, nobody has ever heard of Soundtrack of Our Lives, but the music spoke for itself. What, were they all calm and collected Swedish ex-pats thinking this was going to be a night of shoe gazing? Maybe we were the people who were uncool. Who cares, fuck, sometimes music is too good to be cool while it's on! Gretchen later characterized the scene as "geeky with a hipster element," which may have been correct in a black-clad New York kind of way. There was one plump grey-haired middle-aged man near us who wore a huge Guided by Voices tee shirt and he kept sparking up joints throughout the show, but that was as crazy as the audience got.
After Soundtrack left the stage, Gretchen managed to snag a pristine copy of the setlist from the drumkit. Waiting for the crowd to leave, we sat for awhile on the edge of stage. A woman came up to us and asked if we were related somehow to the band. She'd made that assumption based on our enthusiasm during the show. Nope - it was all about the music. We hadn't even taken drugs. Our enjoyment had been entirely sincere.
Out on the street in front of the Mercury Lounge, I was amused to note that one of those "No Honking/$300 Fine" signs had slid down its pole and obscured the ES part of the ESSEX STREET sign, leaving it saying, "SEX STREET." Later, walking down the sidewalk, Gretchen and I were amused to think that people on the edge of cliffs are always tempted to jump, no one is ever tempted to do something horrifying with much less impact, such as deliberately stomping in a pile of dog shit.
While eating a couple slices at a nearby pizza joint, we found our music-induced buzz still going strong. The pizza was divine and the staff was unusually friendly.
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