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Ariel Pink is a weird little man. He's exactly what you'd expect of a guy who makes music all by his lonesome, just him and his trusty four track: slight build, disheveled hair in his face, wearing an ugly outfit (green and white stripes with pink and white polka dots?). Monday night at Chop Suey he was singing more to himself than the sparse audience, pacing about while twisting the knobs on his equipment, either starting up more pre-programmed beats or playing a few notes on his keyboard.
His solo stylings are an interesting gimmick, so it's too bad that the sounds he was producing were absolutely terrible. After two strong opening acts (including the guitar drones and trippy visuals of Belong), Pink's set did not start out well. Part of it was the sound - at first, the audio was only coming through the on-stage monitors. Then it was in the venue's speakers, but it was far from melodious. Some members of our party were sound engineers, and they immediately pointed out that the problem---his four track output was set too high---caused the audio to be cropped. Whatever, we don't understand the technical aspects, only that the loud popping was annoying and hurt our ears. Look, Seattlest likes the lo-fi, but there's a difference between lo-fi and just sounding bad. This was the latter.
It didn't help that Ariel also started out with some of his weakest material. While he's got catchy beats buried in there amidst all the over-distorted vocals, these were song sketches, mere rough drafts of songs, most of which were cut off early. Things improved mid-set, where there were a few tracks more fleshed out (especially "Let's Build a Campfire There," which got the most genuine applause of the night). "Ah, " we commented to a friend, "I like these better." "Yeah," our wise companion replied, " 'cause these are actually songs." We managed to stick it out till the end because we had the promise of other people on stage. On this tour, Ariel invites some local musicians in every town to join him in a couple songs. Eventually, two guys, Wes and Lane, took their places: Lane on guitar and Wes manning an organ (huh huh). This had promise, but it was more of the same, with Ariel pacing an ever-widening area while the guys helped him close out the set.
Ultimately, it boils down to this: Pink may know enough about his equipment to record, but he doesn't have a handle on it live, nor does he care to keep an audience engaged. There may be glimmers of genius on his albums, but really, he's just a guy who would rather make music on his own than be forced to interact with others, and for that reason, his live performance was an endurance test.
Photo courtesy of Jon McMillon.
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Audrey gets first entry into the 2006 "Best Seattlest Headline of the Year" contest with this one, I think.