I’ve been more deliberate about
seeing live music the past few months. Since August, I’ve listened to the
youthful and plucky (Lord Huron) and the sadly ill-attended (E-40). The most
harrowing live experience I’ve ever had was in early October at a Fiona Apple
show. She was heckled on stage and the last ten minutes of the set were a
prolonged, excruciating ordeal of tears, profanity, tirades, and the worst kind
of audience participation: shouting matches and spiteful Balkanization. There’s
no other way to describe that sour mix of Portland hipsters and a frail songwriter
genius on a bad, bad night. Despite all of that, I’ve enjoyed the groovin’
indie of Laura Veirs and the affable bluegrass of the North Pacific String
Band. It’s been a good little ride. Easily the best show of the season happened
two nights ago at the Holocene Lounge in East Portland. Swearin’ and
Waxahatchee were in town, and the cold November frost warmed in their friendly,
grungy glow.
Google these two bands and the
biography emerges quickly: twin sisters from Alabama (Katie and Allison
Crutchfield) have been playing in punk
bands for years (The Ackleys, Bad Banana, P.S. Eliot, etc.). They parted ways a
few years ago when Katie wanted more creative control. The sisters remain
close, but the two bands, Swearin’ (Allison) and Waxahatchee (Katie) reflect
different directions. Swearin’ is an up-tempo, collaborative effort whereas
Waxahatchee is quieter and more confessional. Swearin’ is a group; Waxahatchee
is a personality. They complement each other, especially when they share a
stage, as they did for this show.
Both bands may as well have come
from the year 1995. To me, this is the
most remarkable trait of their sound. The band members are all in their
mid-twenties, firmly entrenched in the millennial generation, and yet the
audience was, on average, a decade older. With quiet verses and ebullient,
distorted choruses, their songs channel Nirvana and the Pixies. I was grinning
most of the show—it was like I’d gone back in time. Transfixed, the audience
nodded and tapped their feet during many songs that (I imagine) they would have
moshed to in middle school.
But it isn’t just nostalgia that
makes these two great. Swearin’, for example, can sound like Pavement, Liz
Phair, or Blink 182, depending on the singer or the tempo, but the experience
is unique: the songwriting itself holds up. They’ll veer between silliness and
honesty, often in the same song. “Watered Down,” off their new
album, crashes around like a drunken old friend, and then suddenly quiets, to
reveal a long-kept secret. Volume and guitar swings between these extremes
until “Watered Down” stumbles into its sloppy, satisfying conclusion. I like
Swearin’. I bought their t-shirt.
It’s hard to write about that night’s headliner, Waxahatchee, without hyperbole. Waxahatchee is the best
band I’ve heard in several years. Katie Crutchfield’s solo project has been received
with near-unanimous acclaim, especially
this year’s Cerulean Salt, an album
that’s already made several “best of 2013” lists from major publications.
Whatever. Seeing Crutchfield live, I don’t get the impression that she cares
about the mainstream. Waxahatchee’s set was subdued and controlled. She said
very little to the crowd; she seemed almost shy (the encore, while excellent,
was hurried, and only prefaced by a timid “thank you”). The music of Cerulean Salt comes from a strange other
place, where music exists as art and not commodity.
Waxahatchee owes a lot to nineties grunge, but
it’s much more than a quaint tribute. Like Swearin’, the songwriting is
supreme. Many of the arrangements would not work on the radio, despite their
potential catchiness. The less-than-two-minute song “Misery over Dispute” is
essentially two choruses, and that’s it. “American Weekend,” off her first
album, is the opposite: three verses separated by instrumentals where every
other musician would try to squeeze in a chorus. “Dixie Cups and Jars” is the
length of a radio hit, but it builds and builds to nothing—a thoughtful
meditation on a family event that had no clean conclusion. The songs on Cerulean Salt do not sound like each
other as each one claims its own space and stands alone. The album’s effect, of
course, is mosaic.
Because the lyrics are personal and
erudite—Crutchfield is inspired by southern literature and confessional poetry, and
it shows—the temptation would be to make Cerulean
Salt acoustic and spare. Wisely, Crutchfield layers the album with electric
bass and distortion. This is a trick that hasn’t been used as effectively since
Nirvana. The growl of the album’s louder moments only highlight the quiet devastation
of the focused lyrics. Think of the contrast of “Lithium” and you have much of
the sound of Cerulean Salt. This is
an evolution for Waxahatchee; the first album was more subdued overall.
Happily, much of the songs off that album were “grunged up” for the concert,
and the effect was wholly positive.
I’m glad that 2013 has been a good
year for Swearin’ and Waxahatchee. There was a fun vibe at the show, like we
were witnessing an ascent, like there will be many bright days ahead for these
talented acts. I don’t know where mainstream music will head, and I have my
doubts, but for these two, I’m thankful.
