Pitchfork

Photos by William Kirk; Above: Janelle Monáe

Marc Hogan's coverage: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday
Amy Phillips' coverage: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday
Jessica Suarez's coverage: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Sebastien Grainger & the Mountains [Pianos; 5 p.m.]


Recently, Sebastien Grainger changed his MySpace page description from "fuck rock" to "fun rock." Like his brand new debut album on Saddle Creek, Grainger's set at the BrooklynVegan day party at Pianos wasn't very sexy, but it sure was a good time. Grainger's new sound utilizes the same driving propulsion as the band that made him famous (Death From Above 1979), but in the service of good ol' boy rawk rather than dance-metal. At Pianos, Grainger and his three-man backing crew (the Mountains) threw a fit of buzzsaw melodies and steam engine beats that got progressively louder as the set progressed. By the time of the anthemic "American Names", the volume was overdriven to the point of distraction.



Sign o' the times: Grainger made fun of an audience member's goatee, then backpedaled: "He's probably not going to buy the album." The guy yelled back, "I already downloaded it!"



Janelle Monáe [Bowery Ballroom; 8:30 p.m.]


How do you solve a problem like Janelle Monáe? Is there a market for a punk&b princess with a multi-part concept album about an alien robot falling in love with a human? The Atlanta-via-Kansas City fireball got her start as part of OutKast's crew (she sings on "Call the Law" and "In Your Dreams" from Idlewild and has a couple tracks on Big Boi's second Purple Ribbon mixtape), and signed with Diddy's Bad Boy empire earlier this year. So she certainly has some heavy hitters behind her. But can her genre-mashing sci-fi vision find an audience?

Janelle Monáe's whirlwind set at the Bowery Ballroom suggested that it just might be a possibility. Backed by a drummer, a DJ, and a guitarist in a wig and formal outfit straight out of the "Hey Ya" video, she delivered Broadway musical moves with hardcore intensity, stage-diving and running around in the crowd. Her dancing, an android version of vaudevillian hotfooting, caused her Mohawk-like hairdo to come undone several times. There were at least three interludes during which she ran off stage to fix her hair while her band vamped.



Nothing about Janelle Monáe's sound fits with any current trends. She blends synth-rock with the kind of retro-futurist oompah OutKast have explored in recent years. Not exactly the hippest, hottest thing. Nonetheless, after the set, the line at the merch table stretched up the Bowery's back stairs.



Little Boots [The Annex; 10 p.m.]


Little Boots' "Stuck on Repeat" is one of my favorite tracks of 2008, an icy synth-pop simmer produced by Hot Chip's Joe Goddard that happily bears more than a little resemblance to Kylie's "Can't Get You Out of My Head", as Marc Hogan has pointed out. So I was stoked to check out Little Boots, aka Blackpool's Victoria Hesketh, live.

It was a bit of a disappointment. Hesketh looks and sounds a hell of a lot like Debbie Harry-- airy voice, disheveled hair ("like the 'before' part in a Pantene commercial," observed former Pitchforker Ryan Dombal)-- but without the star power. She seemed uncomfortable up there, trying a bit too hard to play the part of the diva. It reminded me of Annie's unsuccessful attempts to translate her music to the live setting.

But, as with Annie (or Junior Boys-- see my Iceland Airwaves coverage), I don't value Little Boots' music any less because the person making it isn't a natural on stage. That would be pointlessly rockist. So I'm just going to go listen to "Stuck on Repeat" a few hundred more times and hope that Little Boots gets back in the studio soon enough.