Yeah, you read that right. The Great Pumpkin himself made a surprise guest appearance at last night’s Ya Ho Wa 13 concert in Silverlake. It was the most nauseating spectacle I’ve seen since that time he had a speaking part in an SNL sketch with Cameron Diaz. No, wait, since his appearance on Bill Mahr’s show. No, wait, since I saw Zwan at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Actually, pretty much every spectacle involving Billy Corgan is nauseating. Oh God, he totally ruined what should have been a cool night.
Robedoor, my how you have changed. No longer are you content to just moan into microphones and totally grind shit up over the course of twenty minutes. There’s a third guy, now! It’s the guy from Antique Brothers, I think. Unless Robedoor were consciously trying to change directions last night, or trying to pull one over on the ten people who were in attendance, they actually compose songs now. You know, with a bass and a guitar and two guys banging on floor toms. It was very hard for me to enjoy to because, well, I really liked what they used to do with their live shows! Now they just wear black hoodies and play mediocre space noise. Whoopie.
Listen To Robedoor: “Wasted Estate”
The Moon Upstairs was described to me as Pink Floyd with a large George Harrison influence. They were mellower than I expected, at times sounding like The Black Heart Procession with higher-pitched, pretty vocals. The first several songs had minimal arrangements and relied heavily on organ/synth parts. The rocking numbers they played in the latter part of their set owed a nod to Guided By Voices. They also stood in stark contrast to the first several songs they played, which was nice.
Midway through their set, a bunch of people barged through the door of the club like a flash mob. In the middle of the group was a tall, pale guy wearing a dark jacket, Nike sneakers and one of those stupid snow hats with the floppy ears. He situated himself at the bar and started playing with his cell phone. I thought he looked kind of like Billy Corgan. Then he took his stupid hat off and of course the he was bald. “Fuck,” I thought. “Uncle Fester is gonna stand there sending text messages for the next two hours and pretend he’s here to take in Ya Ho Wa 13? What an asshole!”
Listen To The Moon Upstairs: “People In The Trees”
The Moon Upstairs finished their set with a very cool Floyd-ian tune. Just as quickly as they broke down their gear, the three members of Ya Ho Wa 13 had set up theirs. Billy Boy wandered away from the bar and stood flush against the left side of the stage, watching intently as a guy with short black hair tuned-up a guitar. Then Billy crawled on stage and the guy with the short black hair handed him the guitar. Corgan began noodling. I thought, “Oh my fucking God, please tell me that Billy Corgan is not going to get on stage with — wait a minute — did he actually bring a guitar tech to a show with an audience of 20 people?!” Oh, Billy. You’re such a rock star.
Sunflower, Octavius and Djin took the stage (alone, which made me wonder if maybe Billy was planning on taking the stage after Ya Ho Wa 13, in an attempt to upstage them with a silly navel-gazing solo set). Sunflower introduced the other two members of the group, spoke about their past with the Source Family and Los Angeles, and then invited the crowd to participate in a pre-show breathing exercise. He asked us to extend our arms with our left hand facing up and and our right hand facing down, spread our legs — so our bodies were shaped like stars — and then breathe in-and-out deeply. I wanted to yell out, “I can’t breathe! The bald guy over there is sucking all the air out of the room!”
Listen To Ya Ho Wa 13: “One” (I’m Gonna Take You Home)
Ya Ho Wa 13 played for about an hour, spoke about fire water and air, and generally sounded like they were making things up on the spot. They weren’t too far out; neither of the three members looked our sounded like an acid casualty. Well, the guy who looked like a cross between Willie Nelson and “Blue” from Old School wasn’t making much sense. He strummed his guitar with a feather! The music was heavily improvised, and obviously sounded at times good and bad. I’ve seen tons of shows where bands claim to be making shit up on the spot, but this one appeared to be the most realistic. Why? Because long passages sounded really awful, like the musicians had no idea what they were doing, and then a few minutes later they clicked and it sounded awesome. There was a sense of realism that one does not see often at concerts. Lots of bands claim to be improvising but can be seen talking things over with each other before they take the stage. Ya Ho Wa 13 appear and sound legit.
So, yeah. Sunflower approached the microphone and stated that the band was going to be joined on stage by a good friend. “Oh fuck. No, no no!” I screamed to myself. “Stargate?” he asked, apparently addressing somebody in the audience. Then Billy Corgan and his large frame lumbered over to the stage from the back of the room and slung his guitar around his neck. The next eight or ten minutes were kind of a blur, but so many angry, violent thoughts passed through my head in rapid succession I barely had time to listen to him play the solo from “For Martha” over the Ya Ho Wa jam. It sounded bad. He was lurching, moving slow and heavy. I felt like the late, great John Mayer when he sang, “I want to run through the halls of my high school / I want to scream at the top of my lungs / I just found out there’s no such thing as “the real world” / There’s just a metaphorical playground where Billy Corgan is an overweight child slamming into you on his way to riding the horsey that you were just about to climb aboard.”
I left before they finished their first song. I wanted my memories of Ya Ho Wa 13 to be good memories. Unfortunately, King Pumpkin soured what could have been a really special evening.
Listen To Smashing Pumpkins: “Drown”
I’ll post video footage and edit my rant after work. I’ll be more composed then.
