Deerhoof, Fiery Furnaces @ the Opera House

Sometimes checking out a band you don’t know much about can be a good thing (see The Rapture, Camera Obscura). Sometimes it can be, well, not so good. Deerhoof and Fiery Furnaces are a couple of bands that I’ve always read about, but have never actually heard. When I found out they were playing at the Opera House, I figured it was my chance to check them out.

Italo Calvino wrote a metafictional novel in the ‘70s called If on a winter’s night a traveller, which is made up of the first chapters of other novels that you are reading in your quest to find an accurate copy of If on a winter’s night a traveller. Deerhoof made me think of this book, because it was like their songs were made up of all the good parts from other songs. It was damn frustrating to listen to, because whenever they hit a groove -- or whenever you thought the song was over -- they would suddenly and unpredictably change tempo, key, melody. It messed with my head, which really wanted a cohesive song with conventional structure, especially when the little nuggets they played were so hooky.

It was still a pretty good performance; the band was tight, the drummer was manic (losing a drumstick at one point but continuing to drum with his hand), and frontwoman Satomi Matsuzaki fascinated me with her semaphore-like hand and arm movements. But ultimately, they were not for me. I probably would have really liked them 10 years ago, when I thought it was cool to like stuff that was inaccessible. Now that I’m old enough to like what I like without making apologies, I’m going to pass on their oeuvre.

Speaking of not making apologies, I think Fiery Furnaces was the first band I’ve ever wanted to walk out on. It’s not that they were bad; they were excellent performers. They were just...abrasive. The frontwoman channeled Patti Smith, which was cool at first but quickly became exhausting as there was no variation in her singing. Actually, there was little variation overall, and it didn’t help that there were few breaks between songs. Like Deerhoof, you didn’t know when you were supposed to applaud. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing; it's just that in Fiery Furnaces’ case, all their tunes sounded the same, whereas each one of Deerhoof’s sound bites was different.

I consider my ear to be pretty sophisticated, and I tried very hard to get into them, but in the end it was the songwriting that turned me off. Their songs all sounded like death metal covers: call-and-response style interplay between discordant, repetitive riffs and forceful vocals. The whole experience was tiring. Still, we stuck it through to the end, but gratefully escaped before they came back on stage for an encore.

And so the best part of the night -- other than leaving -- was stopping across the street at Dangerous Dan’s for an enormous grilled cheese sandwich and discovering like-minded folk who had also fled. So I'm not alone in my opinion.

Deerhoof website
Deerhoof on MySpace
Fiery Furnaces website
Fiery Furnaces on MySpace