Thurston Moore
By Tim Bugbee
Monday. Oct 08, 3:20 PM
live at Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA) Sept. 27th, 2007.

Following on last year's wildly successful "College Night," where free admission to the museum and a chance to hear Joanna Newsom in Remis Auditorium (capacity willing, so get in line pronto, Mister) yielded a resounding event, this year Dan Hirsch et al. booked another doozy in the form of the elder statesman of underground music, Thurston Moore. Looking eternally youthful in a Liquid Swords / Pitchfork fest t-shirt, Mr. Moore assembled a pretty nice supporting cast for previewing his just-released second solo record Trees Outside the Academy, a dozen years after Psychic Hearts came out. Samara Lubelski (ex-Tower Recordings, Hall Of Fame) recreated her fluid violin lines from the album recordings, and Steve Shelley was a familiar face behind the drums. Although fellow Western MA resident Jon Moloney was in attendance (but only as a spectator), fellow Happy Valley denizen J Mascis was not on hand to fill in the spots of blistering guitar solos of certain songs on the record. Instead, additional guitar duties were handled admirably by Chris Brokaw (ex-Come et al.), who is always in demand, and bass was anchored by Matt Heyner (Test, vague NNCK connections), also referred to as Jesus by T. Moore (who introduced the ensemble as "Legion Of The Untamed Ox" or some such).

It was a bit strange to see Thurston on stage rocking out with an acoustic guitar, and despite his well-known outré leanings, especially on side projects and collaborations, he didn't go all Derek Bailey on us (though he may have been responsible for playing Albert Ayler as between-set house music in an attempt to spread the virus among the new breed). Indeed, as Sonic Youth is an oft-referred to “art rock” band, at least during their start, it was ironic that playing in an actual art museum eschewed the more abstract parts of T. Moore's oeuvre. Instead, the tightly crafted songs from the excellent new solo record were in full display, starting straight away with "The Frozen Gtr," with Thurston and Brokaw bringing an impressive amount of sound and depth out of their acoustic bodies. As the set list progressed, anyone in the audience hoping to hear any SY would eventually figure out that this was indeed, as billed, a Thurston Moore show, so hey! We get solo material! Not that I was disappointed, as the new record is uniformly excellent. The more off-kilter songs weren't played (the "Providence"-like piano of "American Coffin," the general short blast fuckery of "Free Noise Among Friends," and the hidden bonus "Thurston @ 13," which in retrospect might have been funny had it been played), but the strongest ones certainly were, especially "Off Work" and the title track closer of the first set, which was worked into a right frenzy. "Off Work" in particular is what I consider the strongest song from Trees Outside the Academy: it could have started life as a fragment left over from the Made in the USA soundtrack, but now it's fully fleshed out, and Samara's violin line is the clincher. Christina Carter was also ushered back to the stage for her vocal contributions to "Honest James." After a brief break, the band returned for an encore which consisted of four electric stormers off Psychic Hearts: "Queen Bee and her Pals," "Patti Smith Math Scratch," "Feathers," and just the Moore/Shelley combo for the closer of "Psychic Hearts." The museum-goers were now free to mingle among visual pieces of art, the aural part being concluded.

Christina Carter opened the evening with a difficult pastiche of forlorn vocals and arrhythmic guitar strums. I'm almost certain she was touching on the same themes (almost even the same word phrasings) as the recent Jandek live performance I saw, though “house of despair” and “whirlpool” were not cribbed verbatim. I'm not sure she connected with the audience: mutterings of “suicidal” and “lifeless” were overheard. I must admit I prefer her contributions to the earlier Charalambides output as compared to the more recent material.

Tim Bugbee

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