The Eels @ Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
Generally speaking, most indie rock artists try not to draw too much attention to the insecurities, struggles and personal histories that drive their work, lest their private lives become better known than their music. Until recently, it was impossible to read a write-up of Chan Marshall without encountering condescending (and arguably sexist) adjectives like “delicate” and just try digging up a piece on Daniel Johnston or Anton Newcombe that doesn’t rely on mental illness for its hook.
You would think that Mark Oliver Everett, aka “E,” the only constant in the ever-changing lineup that comprises the Eels, would be especially sensitive to this — after all, he’s currently under contract to Vagrant Records, a label that’s synonymous with a certain three-letter epithet that also starts with the letter “e”. Despite this fact, E has always been open about the fact that he mines his tragic family history for songwriting material, an act that seems to serve as a form of therapy for the bespectacled frontman.
As if this fact wasn’t already obvious, E chose to further highlight the source of his inspiration through his choice of an opening act for Saturday night’s show at Chinatown’s Sixth and I Historic Synagogue. The show began not with a musical opening act but rather, with a film: the BBC special “Parallel Worlds, Paralell Lives,” a documentary on E’s ongoing struggle to come to terms with his distant relationship with his now deceased father, Hugh Everett III. Everett the senior, a brilliant physicist said to be decades ahead of his time, drank and smoked himself to an early death out of frustration that his advanced theories on quantum mechanics were never understood in his own time. What’s more, he is said to have been a distant father, which has left E — now the last remaining member of his immediate family — to sift through what’s left of a short yet extraordinary life. Now, the Eels are no strangers to less-than-traditional opening acts (one of their previous tours found them preceded by a mime) but this was, admittedly, a bizarre way to open a rock and roll show, by any standards. So what was the point? Misguided artiness? Humor? Self-aggrandizement? Seems to us like it was just good old fashioned honesty.
You see, Mark Oliver Everett has been doing some soul-searching lately. He recently penned a memoir that became a best-seller in the U.K. (it helps that the Eels have managed to transcend “cult band” status over on that side of the pond), Things The Grandchildren Should Know. He also recently released two retrospective collections, chronicling his band’s career highlights, B-sides and imaginative music videos. But that’s not all. As we learned on Saturday night, Everett has also been dwelling on his musical past in front of audiences every night on the band’s latest tour.
If you ask any Eels fan what his or her favorite album is, you’ll invariably be told that it’s either Electro-Shock Blues or Daisies of the Galaxy. The two albums mark Everett’s creative highpoint and together represent one of the best — and most underrated — unified statements of late 90’s indie rock. Where Electro-Shock Blues is oppressively depressing — and rightfully so, having been recorded the year that both Everett’s mother and sister passed away — Daisies is its life-affirming counterpart, the rainbow after the thunderstorm, if you will. While the two albums tend toward emotional extremes, when considered together, they present the listener with a fully-formed portrait of E’s fractured world view. So it’s fitting that E, while sitting in both the literal and figurative spotlight, chose to devote the lion’s share of the night’s set to stripped-down renditions of tracks from those two albums. Given his recalcitrance to play many of these songs in the past, the set felt like an Eels fanboy dream come true.
Taking the stage solo, with only an electric guitar in tow, Everett opened up the night with the breezy vignette, “Grace Kelly Blues.” Afterward, he took to the piano, to play a more somber Daises track, the hushed lament, “It’s A Motherfucker.” Immediately afterward, he pointed out that both of the previous songs had been culled from an album that President Bush had chosen to highlight for its profane language during his bid for election in 2000. DCist readers will recall that Everett sent a personal letter to the President last week, inviting the Commander in Chief and the First Lady to bury the hatchet and attend the show. Surprisingly, Everett received a reply from the White House, in the form of an answering machine message, which he played for the audience. “Unfortunately, due to the short notice, the President and First Lady’s schedule has already been planned,” the White House spokesperson said. “Ah, the old short notice excuse,” E mused before remarking, “I bet Obama would have showed up” to thunderous laughter.
Bringing out newly-minted Eel and multi-instrumentalist Chet Lyster (known in Eels lore as “The Chet”), Everett proceeded to tackle the night’s more complicated arrangements. “Souljacker Part I” sounded awfully thin without drums and bass to back it up, despite the bluesy exchange between the two guitarists. Luckily, “Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor” fared much better, a warped, watery sample serving as the perfect backdrop to Everett’s chronicle of his sister’s final moments. “My name’s Elizabeth,” he sang at the song’s close, the words falling out of his mouth curtly, as if it really hurt to be singing them. “My life is shit and piss.”
While “Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor” filled the room with a palpable tension, E knew how to provide the requisite release: with a quick dose of his absurdist humor, in the form of non-album B-Side “Dog’s Life”. “I’ll take a dog’s life,” he sang merrily on the chorus, “‘Cause I don’t care for this one.” Early track “My Beloved Monster” was similarly bouncy and while the first half of the song found Lyster manning the drum kit, he switched to guitar for a mid-song blast of whammy-bar-driven noise before returning to the drums.
After briefly patting himself on the back for penning a bestselling memoir, E assured the audience that he would not be reading selections from his book. “I can’t think of anything more pretentious,” he said, “so I’m making Chet do it.” The Chet, for his part, was a fantastic narrator, utilizing voices and props while reading some of the funnier selections from E’s book. Unsurprisingly, the audience ate it up. What’s more, the reading intermissions, of which there were a few, served to further flesh out the anecdotes behind some of Everett’s songs.
For example, “Last Stop: This Town” was preceded by a story about the ghost of E’s sister, making it clear that it’s her apparition that’s flying “up over the billboards and the factories of smoke.” Despite the fact that the song was missing the samples and programmed drums that propel it on record, the audience sat in rapt attention as Chet’s tinkling toy piano line and E’s earnest, raspy vocal echoed throughout the sanctuary. On “Flyswatter,” E and Chet traded places at the piano and drums mid-song — without skipping a single drumbeat — so that E could unleash a ferocious solo. They then traded places yet again and it wasn’t the novelty of the act that made it so entertaining, it was the spontaneity with which it was carried out, as if it hadn’t been planned. “Novocaine For the Soul” was similarly percussion-obsessed, with E taking a turn at the kit and transforming the musicbox ditty into a noisy, drum-propelled racket.
The most impressive transformation of the night, however, was that of “Bus Stop Boxer,” a song from the band’s oft-maligned Souljacker LP. While the album cut feels trivial and somewhat impersonal, the haunting live version — consisting of only piano and musical saw — made it quite clear that the Bus stop Boxer, like all of Everett’s characters, has more than a little bit of his creator in him.
Throughout the night, Everett had the sold-out crowd at Sixth & I eating out of the palm of his hand. We sat in hushed awe during his solemn confessionals, laughed uproariously at his jokes and hung on his every word in between songs. This isn’t completely surprising given the Eels' cult-like following and was certainly amplified by the fact that anyone coming out to see the band nearly a decade after its prime and with only one of three original members is particularly devoted. Still, there had to be a reason why so many people felt so strongly about the Eels in the first place and as we found out on Saturday night, there are still plenty of reasons to be an Eels fan. Sometimes, living in the past isn’t such a bad thing.