Big is beautiful

So I went to see Broken Social Scene last night at the Beaumont Club in KC's cool and slightly seedy Westport neighborhood. I'm getting closer to something like old, as I'm feeling in almost every part of my body the hazy afterglow of a great show.

I appreciate a great power trio and opening act Land of Talk was a very tasty musical morsel. I liked them so much I bought their new CD, "Some Are Lakes." Definitely worth a listen. Lead singer reminds me a lot of early, teen-aged Natalie Merchant-era 10,000 Maniacs, when they were still punk. The title track is particularly fun.

How do I describe Broken Social Scene? Hmm...

Most things I've read about the band feel compelled to mention that they're great (which they are) and that they're from Canada, as if that's some remarkable point. I don't see why. Our neighbors to the north produced Rush, after all, still one of the greatest prog rock outfits ever. And if Iceland can give birth to Bjork, Canada certainly has the right to rock greatness.

BSS is big music.

Every once in a while the goddess of music transits her hand across the aural constellations and lines things up in the same place at the same time and something transcendent happens. In 1999, that happened in Montreal, and BSS was born, a motley crew of musical polymaths who strayed from one instrument to the other during a non-stop set that lasted two hours and was still going strong when I left the club slightly before midnight.

BSS is wonderful. They're a stone soup of influences: the Clash, P/Funk, Green Day. They love to interweave staccato guitar lines with quiet, tension-filled moments that build and build until you realize the barbarians are definitely at the gates and actually you've been overrun and you might as well slap on face paint and start dancing like everybody else. Tribal.

Co-founder Kevin Drew (below left) is the group's frontman, in as much as he sang slightly more than anyone else. If Warren Beatty's character from "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," (below right) instead of being shot to death, was transported to 2008 and made a alt rocker, that's Drew. Fellow BSS founder and bassist Brendan Canning had some fun, including some old school stage diving. It's not fair, I know, but Canning sounds uncannily like Rush bassist and lead singer Geddy Lee. Is it a Canadian thing? Either way, Canning and Drew have built an impressive stable of fine musicians, which is always a good thing.

I know that BSS is sometimes called (or accused of being) a jam band. I'll deny that 'till the day I die. Every song they played was composed. It had a pointed beginning, middle and end, with appropriate--though not predictable--rising and falling motions throughout. There was purpose to their noise making. They may share some traits with jam bands, in as much as they're very democratic while on stage. But they're not a jam band, and I don't want to hear another word about it.

One shoutout: Though everyone else had some time in the green room during the show, drummer Justin Peroff (left) sat on his throne and kept the band's musical "stuff" together. That's the hardest working man in show business these days.

Two revelations: (1) BSS has the best brass section I've heard since I last saw B.B. King, and they were used perfectly to spice things up. (2) Guitarist (and sometimes bass player) Andrew Whiteman (right) was easily the most charismatic person on stage and his playing was brilliant. Wielding his guitar like a red cape, he posed and strutted like a torero at a Spanish bull fight. Whiteman also helms the band Apostle of Hustle, and I want to hear more.

getting my bona fides

It's official. I'm now a hard-core veteran teacher of inner city juvenile delinquents. Thirty minutes into my work day, the students came down stairs. And one little fellow just wasn't going to cooperate. Who knew that a second request for him to get his binder would rouse the sleeping monster within. He let out a growl and slugged me in the right hip. Good thing there is a lot of extra padding. After my adrenaline subsided, I did feel a bit of a sting for a while.

The poor kid. He really needs to be in a psychiatric hospital setting. But until then, he better be in lock-up. Assaulting a teacher is not a good addition to a wrap-sheet.

a perfect fall saturday

Up at 6:30. Work on refinishing the front door.
8:30 go to KMart to buy a new pair of soccer shin guards.
10:00 head to soccer game.
11:15 picnic with soccer team.
12:30 drive to Bonner Springs for the Renaissance Festival.
6:30 eat dinner at Bo Lings in City Market.
8:00 watch the Hawks destroy the Hoosiers.

A perfect day!

Well, duh...

So the other day we're in the car on the way to church, talking about Cascone's Restaurant, an old school KC institution on North Oak Parkway.

Titus asks, "What restaurant?"

"It's the one we pass when we're taking you school," we reply. "The one with the sign shaped like a diamond."

"No," Titus says, "it's a rhombus."

Getting real

An interesting take on the VP debate by a couple of academics.

"Biden vs. Palin - Movement Analysis Defines Who Won the Debate"

By:Karen Kohn Bradley
Associate Professor
Certified Movement Analyst
University of Maryland

and

Karen Studd
Associate Professor
Certified Movement Analyst
George Mason University


Sarah Palin lost the room immediately after Joe Biden got real.

Until that moment, the debate had been a farrago of swirling facts, shuffling notes, and competing spins, with the occasional Palin wink and smile at the people in TV land. On a movement level, both the Vice-Presidential candidates showed a sense of urgency, and the increasing speed of their deliveries overcame whatever meaning the sound bites had. About halfway through, all of us, Gwen Ifill included, were headed into a trance, as if we were watching a merry-go-round spin faster and faster, punctuated only by those strange smiles.

What about those smiles? Not exactly heartfelt or even remotely resembling pleasure, the candidates took turns smiling during the other’s answers. Each time, it appeared that a choice had been made: to smile rather than “go negative”.

Palin was narrow in posture and gesture and directed herself to the camera, reaching forward, advancing and committing to a course of action. Biden was a little more open, gathering information and presenting a broader range of options. Both were very good at letting people see these stylistic differences, making the choice much clearer.

But then, Palin made the wrong choice. Once again she spewed her talking points, completely failing to notice that Biden had just produced an extraordinary answer — an answer not about policy, but about himself. Biden made a direct and powerful connection with the American people, the very "Joe Six Pac—soccer mom" voters Palin had been rhetorically and repetitively attempting to own. Palin was incapable of responding to this authentic moment, which was rich with nonverbal information about Joe Biden as a father, a parent, and a public servant. Instead Palin just stood there, looking straight at the camera, with not a moment of concern or compassion in response to what Biden had revealed.

Why this moment was the critical moment: movement reveals a great deal about how people make decisions, how they tackle problems, and how they relate to others. Too many "body language" experts focus on a particular gesture or body part. In our movement analysis, we look at the movement "event" as a part of the individual's style. The movement event we saw Thursday night was authentic honest emotion. Joe Biden choked up. And then he pressed on.

No pitches for sympathy, no lingering in that emotion. He felt it, squelched it, and took it to a universal level, relating his own terrible experience to that of many Americans. At that moment, millions of viewers understood the role of a leader: to take one's own struggles and challenges and to relate wisdom gained to the situations at hand.

A stunning moment indeed and Sarah Palin missed it.

Karen Kohn Bradley and Karen Studd are Laban Certified Movement Analysts, who study the nonverbal and movement behaviors of political leaders.

One of my favorite bands, Broken Social Scene, and one of their best songs, "7/4 Shoreline." I'm going to see them at the Beaumont Club on Oct. 16 in KC. Still looking for someone to join me, since it's not really Nancy's thing.