How does the California group Cold War Kids sell out the Troubadour without having an album for sale? I have no idea.
Seeing Cold War Kids live reminded me of Blueshammer, the fictional band from the movie Ghost World. Their brand of indie rock resembles an immature version of The Walkmen. At the Troubadour, the band lacked the darkness and density of their Up in Rags EP. As the members of the band, flailed around the stage, singer Nathan Willett sang in a voice that would make Jeff Buckley jealous, “All us boys on death row, we're just waiting for a pardon.” There was something too lively about their performance, which presented a disconnection with the inherent melancholy of their music. Their set included songs about alcoholic fathers, injured war veterans, and death row inmates. Just like the clueless band Blueshammer that introduced their music as, “authentic, way down in the delta blues,” Cold War Kids lack a subtlety and respect for the American Blues tradition.
Elvis Perkins started off the night. The son of actor Anthony Perkins reminded me of another Elvis, Costello not Presley. The short set Elvis Perkins played was similar in style to the early work of Colin Meloy and The Decemberists. While recently the Decemberists have evolved in both scope and sound, their early albums are quite tender and somber. The songs from the album Ash Wednesday engage in Meloyisms, but on a much more personal level.
Dr. Dog followed Elvis Perkins. They started their set with a tighter, faster version of “The World May Never Know.” The song that begins their Easy Beat album can’t help but elicit a Beatles comparison in its “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” bass line, but here, the song sounded more like an inverted “Two of Us” off of Let It Be. Played tighter and faster, you hear how well written it is. Like the bridge in “Two of Us,” that meanders off course and finds its way back, the lost sensibility that is expressed in the verses of “The World May Never Know” find their way back to during the bridge.
The band closed their set with “Wake Up,” the song that ends their Easy Beat album. This was a particularly rousing version that featured the participation of the responsive Los Angeles crowd. As the song ends, it dissolves into an unaccompanied maudlin sing-a-long. The repeated refrain of “Wake up, wake up, we are only part of a dream” took on a particularly heightened significance in the tight space of the Troubadour, Reminiscent of a scene somewhere between The ending of Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life where George Bailey & company sing Auld Lang Syne and the scene described in Henry Rollins Get in the Van when the power goes out during a show at a European club and the audience starts to sing the Black Flag songs themselves. Dr. Dog were able to initiate a sense of community in West Hollywood, without the unexpectedness of power outages or the triteness of telling the audience to all clap their hands or shout designated phrases.
In addition to songs from their first two albums, Dr. Dog played songs from their new EP Takers & Leavers. The new tracks demonstrate their ability to combine The Beatles with Basement Tapes era Bob Dylan and layer in the sunny California sound of The Byrds and The Beach Boys. While obvious in their influences, Dr. Dog came across sounding more original then the band they were supporting.
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