do make say think / kepler / mark molnar
01-10-2002
babylon, ottawa
(when i get back to the alter-reality, something else will appear in this space.)
i was obviously not at the san francisco show, but i *was* at the ottawa show a little less than three weeks earlier - on the 1st of october, 2002. the setlist looks about right; this is a fair representation of the show i saw.
this was the second time i'd seen do make say think, but it was the first time i saw them in a headlining capacity (the first time was as a part of a new music festival, and i didn't stay for the headliner). the singer i was distancing myself from was at the show, but i'm frankly not sure why he went: he was disinterested in the band and unwilling to watch the show from the floor, preferring to sit in the back and chat over a drink. this would actually become the norm with this person: a tendency to go to a concert and chat and even have the nerve to get irritated if you ignored him. i can't grasp this - if you want to talk, why not get a coffee? you're at fucking concert. watch the fucking show! you can chat later. but, the circumstances as they were, he was interested in something else and i experienced the show by myself....
the opening acts were both boring in their own way. mark molnar is a local noise "artist" that aimlessly runs his cello through an effects rack and then gets confused when people don't appreciate it. to be fair: i would see him open for many other shows as the years progressed, and what he does can make some sense if it's in an extremely small space (capacity ~100) due solely to the volume he can generate. but, the babylon in ottawa is actually a medium-sized rock club, and the acoustics were open enough that it just came off as what it really is: some pretentious arts school drop out aimlessly fucking around with some effects pedals, and thinking it was brilliant when it was truly anything but. kepler were mopey "indie rock" before it was fashionable, and boring to the core before it was hip to be boring to the core.
do make say think were technically touring their third record, but the setlist stuck closer to their second, which had received higher reviews. i didn't agree with the review consensus; i found their deeper use of electronics to be a step forwards, and the third record to be a worthy follow-up to the second one. but, i didn't have the indie rock baggage that my contemporaries did, and wasn't tied to any particular aesthetic or presentation related to the prominence or lack there-of of guitars. the reality is that the reaction to &yet&yet was mostly just ludditism: it was a fear of technology in an era where the rock form severely damaged and perhaps destroyed itself by refusing to embrace it. the people slamming this record for embracing technology were the problem within the form, and the reason it ended up strangling itself. this record truly should not have been panned, and will in the end transcend it's specious critics...
in contradiction to the opinion expressed by the parasitic bureaucracy within the bourgeoisie of the reviewing class, the material actually came across as exceedingly vibrant in a live setting. the band is in fact truly extremely fluid, utilizing volume and instrumentation and dynamics in a way that envelops a space. they would reproduce this truth repeatedly, as i saw them perform over and over again over the next several years - an event i always looked forward to as quite the treat.
the greatest part of seeing do make say think, for me, was always in the syncopation - because i knew it, perfectly. i'd just listened to these records so often that i knew every fill on the drums and every riff on the bass to the point where it took control of me every single time. and, i want to make this point about this band: it's easy to misunderstand them as distant and cerebral, but it is really not what they are. this is body music. it's just body music that you have to study for :).
if you've done the research on this band, it is truly the greatest thing in the world to get smashed and let yourself go to it - and that is, in fact, what i did.