Last night when I was watching Why? perform I noticed that Yoni Wolf's brother and Why? drummer Josiah, with his beard and white-boy 'fro, bore a striking resemblance to former South Melbourne/Sydney full-back Rod Carter. Unfortunately, the internet has not been up to dig up decent photos of the pair. You'll just have to trust me.
One of the odd things about the Subtle show on Friday was the amount of "hip hop" types there. I fully expected it to be full of Pitchfork readers, but it was all baggy jeans and hoddies, and dudes were doing that thing with their arms that indicates that they approve of the beat. Last night, however, it was back to black-frame glasses and ironic girl scouts t-shirts.
Having to refer to Why? as a band now rather than a person is a bit strange, but I like the music Yoni has made with the band. The Sanddollars EP is completely awesome, and although with Elephant Eyelash they didn't clear the bar set by the preceding EP (which is what I was expecting), it's still a good album. It's rather odd when you go to a gig mainly for the the support band. Whilst most people were getting drinks and trying to think of pick-ups lines to use on the hot girl standing to their left, I was down the front singing along and wiggling my bottom.
Once you get to your mid to late thirties you shouldn't be making music anymore. There's nothing more unseemly than a band that refuses to go away. There seems to be two exceptions to this rule. Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo.
As I was watching the band move seamless between their sweet pop melodies and 10 minute spazzy noise-rock wigouts, my mind was drifting back to Josiah Wolf's resemblance to Rod Carter and with lookalikes on the mind I notice something that I had never noticed before. Ira Kaplan totally fucking looks like Larry Sanders! Check it out:
It's uncanny. Furthermore, he has the same dry wit. Whilst wishing everyone a happy High Holy Days for the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Ira mention that the band wouldn't be fasting, adding "We love Judaism and all, but that's just fucking ridiculous".
During Why?'s set, Yoni had warned the crowd that Yo La Tengo used "The Brown Note" (the mythical frequency that makes you crap yourself). While I don't believe in the brown note (Mogwai have attempted several times to explode my internal organs and have failed), Yo La Tengo, for a bunch of old Jewish geeks, do know how to make a ridiculously fucked-up noise. It's late Sunday afternoon and I am now starting to regret stranding right next to one of the speaker stacks as my right ear is still ringing.
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