Jeremy Jay, Uni And Her Ukulele, The Gladeyes & The Debutantes

Friday, November 20, 2008

Whammy, Auckland

Honestly I wasn’t much looking forward to this gig. After a day of biking and walking around town, my legs ached and my energy was shot. I was ready to succumb to the couch, bag of pineapple lumps in hand and cheesy TV at the ready. But I made myself go out.

Jeremy Jay’s first visit to New Zealand proved to be a fruitful one, he gained a spectacularly accomplished and professional live band for his two-date tour (the talented Lisa Crawley on keyboard and amazing Eddie from Dictaphone Blues on drums) and some tourist advice from the crowd. Though something tells me he won’t heed my advice of “Go visit Waiheke Island!” While Jeremy likes to go off-course with his music, playing jarring and jagged, angular and whimsical crooning post-pop/rock and roll odes from another era, he was almost off-puttingly shy and went about expressing this in the most weirdest of ways. And although his band – which he’d assembled that day after he’d scrambled off the plane, which he slept on – was pretty much thrown in at the deep end, and at times stared bewildered at him, seemingly paralysed with concern for what he’d do next, they were one most entertaining and able.

The night started out with The Debutantes, who have really upped their game. Have they always been this funky and dancey? Their sound seemed a lot cleaner and quirkier than recent times, and their familiar, jovial college band-feel has been tightened up and almost professionalised. They managed to sound at once like The Rapture, and other times like The Unicorns, with dance/punk bass lines jabbed with cute “bouncing spring” keyboard. I was impressed.

An even quieter than normal Gladeyes came on while we were at the bar, to rapturous applause, and the audience’s eyes stayed on them throughout their set. Their twee, aged pop has been put through Sonic Youth’s washing machine and come out all shoe gaze, with enigmatic, soft distortion, dual guitars and Velvet Underground-esque lullabies, like when Nico was in the band, but with less harshness and posturing. Much less posturing. The two demure girls with wide eyes and open hearts reconfirmed my belief in them as one of the most original, imaginative and beautiful bands in the country. Charming, disarming and with bitter-sweet pop songs, if only the crowd chatter hadn’t almost drowned them out.

For a time the most show-off aspect of their set was Jade’s hot pink nail polish, but then Gwen told us the best Snoop Dogg joke I’ve heard: Why does Snoop Dogg always carry an umbrella? For Drizzle.

After the Gladeyes were whisked away into a wonderful fairytale somewhere in the depths of their songs, a goat-like girl struts on stage. Covered in glitter and spotty black eye make-up, the eager and amusing Uni And Her Ukulele began playing medleys and few and far between original songs on her lone Uke. Overly energetic for the quiet and sleepy crowd, she was an exhibitionist, but a very charming one at that. Nick likened her to an American child beauty pageant, all Americana and slightly cheesy. But something about her to me screamed smoky, dimly-lit coffee bar nestled in dingy LA. In other words there was this sweet romanticism in her set that took us all away for a little while. The only times I was pulled out of that was when she turned slightly smarmy and cheeky in her delivery, and it got the better of me. But her jokes too, were classic. “Are you guys ready to party!? I wanna see some clothes come off ‘n shit, oil wrestling. I heard you guys do that in Auckland.” Closing her set with a cover of Daniel Johnston’s True Love Will Find You In The End was beautiful, too.

With a weird blend of earnest mic-grabbing, crooning rockabilly and hip-thrusting debauchery, Jeremy Jay soon took the stage, albeit after some highly visible hand-wringing and nervous pacing. All suited-conservative, Scandinavian cheekbones, feathered fringe and moniter-standing irony, Jeremy was quite the showman. Weird, raw, honest but strangely captivating. Jeremy Jay was so much more exciting and entertaining that expected! Not at all like his latest record, which I found dull and dreary. With a voice like those from the Elephant 6 stable, all harsh and old-timey, and an elasticky, rubbery, intuitive way of playing his guitar, stretching his arm way out over the pick-ups, it was totally captivating. Jeremy Jay got a crowd dancing, and that’s hard to do nowadays – a testament to his live show!

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Posted by Sarah Gooding under Los Angeles