Get smitten: The Dodos

The two glist'nin guys and pints of sweat pouring from the stage should tell you something without having to hear a lick or beat: San Francisco's The Dodos are one of the hardest working - and most compelling - live acts around. I caught these guys opening for post-punk prom kings Les Savy Fav at the Great American Music Hall the other night and discovered why I keep seeing their name sprinkled among cognoscente indie music blog topics du jour. It's a symbiosis made in heaven: fanciful vocalist/acoustic-electric hard strummer/looper extraordinaire Meric Long and relentless drummer/mustache master Logan Kroeber. Their sound is hard to classify, but imagine a fairy tale folk pop hard rock mashup. The Dodos' hypnotizing, utterly rocking intensity is mighty worthy of bearing witness, even for those who wouldn't normally profess to liking bands that lay on the top hipster lists. Bay Area heads can check 'em out for free May 14 at Amoeba in San Francisco. In the meantime, watch The Dodos' live "Jodi":

Scarlett Johansson: Keep your day job.

Nothing against Ms. Johansson - she's an OK actress; unarguably pleasant to look at; and mighty ambitious (not to mention displaying extremely good taste) with her stab at the untouchable Tom Waits canon for her debut album. But homegirl's voice comes off like a flat, femme-bot Sinead O'Connor. I'll say no more and let you judge her first single, "Falling Down," for yourself:

Show review: Les Savy Fav @ Great American Music Hall 4/27/08

Here's a tip for the two wannabe Democratic presidential candidates looking to swing the voter pendulum back in their directions: To win over the masses at your next campaign stops, remove the political sticks up your asses and follow the lead of Les Savy Fav singer Tim Harrington. Step 1: Arrive onstage decked out in the attire and speech tendencies characteristic of the city you're in to create instantaneous relatabiliy, and never break character. For Les Savy Fav's headlining spot Sunday at the Great American Music Hall, Harrington waltzed onstage sporting a tie-dyed tee (so positively Haight Street) about 5 inches too short from concealing his well honed beer gut. He'd proceed to flit his '60s-era tan suede fringe jacket over the heads of the front row, beckoning the audience to "come out the other side" in a feigned stoner stupor. Harrington carried on the drugged-out, San Francisco hippie circa '67 act the entire show, to the point of searching the floor of the crowd for a "missing dime bag." Needless to say, but here I am saying it, the guy made everyone laugh. What's that saying again? Laughter is the best policy? The way to an audience's heart is through their funny bone? For reals, though - be the good humor man (or woman) and win over the masses. Step 2: True democratic tactics require stepping beyond the podium and into the crowd itself. By the third song, Harrington lugged his microphone and portly body (think a fatter, balder and beardier version of comedian Zach Galifianakis) into the audience, shouting into the faces of his rabid horde of post-punk disciples and inciting them to bark back. Through the set he'd navigate all the way to the rear of the venue and then fight his way back onstage, only to jump off again to locate a small table and drag it into the heart of the crowd, where he hopped up to finish a song. Imagine Harrington, the sun, with hundreds of sweaty planets merrily succumbing to his gravitational pull. Now was Harrington gunning for a democracy, or a socialist state of live performance? He'd share his beer with the hair adorning the front row, his spit-water with the first five rows, his snot rockets with the stage. And his antics came full circle during the final song when, almost stripped bare in a black, skintight bodysuit with a hint of lime green underoos peeking through, he crawled into the crowd, lay down to be cradled in the laps of two fans and called upon the entire audience to follow suit in a bit of Sunday rest. Before you knew right from left and up from down, scores of flannel-shirt- and wife-beater-clad worshipers fell onto their knees and asses around Harrington, a rock 'n' roll sit-in for the modern age. Step 3: Hey hey. My my. Rock 'n' roll will ... get people EXCITED. Now you, Mr. and Ms. Politician, should attempt this by rousing crowds with viable strategies to jerk this country out of its shithole. Not being familiar with much of Les Savy Fav's songs before this show, I expected a hard-edged post-punk sound, e.g. Sonic Youth-ish, driven by the band's two guitarists, but surprise surprise, they were even punkier than that. Hardcore stringbean (too skinny to be beefcakes) boy-people quickly shoved their way up front at the beginning of the set (fuck you, guy who elbowed me in the collarbone) and screamed along devotedly throughout. Les Savy Fav's got groove, too, danceable indie stuff. Step 4: If all else fails and winning the presidency is but a distant dream, have a backup plan. When touring the world with a critically-acclaimed rock band isn't enough, keep your day job: Harrington still works as a graphic designer for VH1. I wonder if he dons the black mugger's ski mask he wore onstage in his corporate office, too.' Les Savy Fav "The Sweat Descends" live from McCarren Park Pool, Brooklyn, NY, July '06:

Word abuse: spare

All aboard! Time for another whirl on the music cliche train.

Our next stop will be "spare," often paired with "arrangement," a coupling ordinarily used in folk and punk writeups to describe a minimalist approach to instrumentation.

In Medieval Latin, the following examples would be referred to as vocabularius vomitus:

"The group built their sound by combining harmony, spare arrangements."

"Most of his inspirations dwell in the '70s, favoring spare arrangements and elegant string flourishes."

"But those descriptions imply that The Coroner's Gambit is pleasant singer/songwriter craft-- all spare arrangements and lilting whims."

"And the spare arrangements, most of which feature Mishka's acoustic guitar, have a nicely evocative downhome feel to them."

"Anyway, the cooing chorus and spare arrangement leave you feeling content."

Ooh, how those spare arrangements get to me! They leave me feeling just ... so ... content.

If only I could say the same for spare vocabularies.

Ladies and gentleman of the Bay Area, please make your final selection

San Francisco will become a veritable Bermuda Triangle for live *good* rock music tonight, for reals though - check out this list of headliners: Caribou @ The Independent Death Cab For Cutie @ The Fillmore Enablers @ Hemlock Tavern Man Man @ Great American Music Hall Midnight Juggernauts @ Mezzanine (free!) The Raconteurs @ Bimbo's The Verve @ The Warfield And if you were slackin' when tickets went on sale and can't score one on Craigslist or outside the venue, there's always the Tee Vee: Radiohead will perform "House of Cards" on Conan, sorta live (beaming from the U.K.).