Mitski (7/20/2016); Jay Som and Japanese Breakfast
In conclusion of my last post:Jay Som
If I can say I’m most impressed by a single singer from this night, it might be she. Jay Som is a 22 year old singer emerging from San Francisco on her first major circuit.She’s a bit wide eyed and still somewhat apologetic for her songwriting, a quality not unfamiliar to her downtrodden genre yet one that her traveling contemporaries have seemed to have graduated from, which could be a good thing since she is sure to learn a few things from this traveling experience. Her similarities to the following two acts are undeniable, however that doesn’t mean she’s headed down the exact same path as either of the two following acts. With a clear bent towards lo-fi, she manages to boast a growing, distorted guitar sound on the recordings of her latest releases, but on stage it’s just her and her guitar.... and it’s cool.I don’t think I’ve ever seen such confident guitar work for such a simple delivery. She creates an air of comfortable intimacy that feels appropriate for the first act of three on an early evening while people are just walking in to the venue, but it makes the observer feel sorry for the ones who will not get to see this singer perform for at least the rest of the year before her first LP comes out in 2017.And before I go on too long gushing about this newly signed singer-songwriter, I’ll just say that she’s a talented guitarist, a lovely singer, a developing writer, and a natural entertainer. She was able to interact and joke with the small crowd that seemed to form a campfire circle around the stage without direction, and even if she seemed a bit timid in between her songs, she never showed a sign of that amidst any of her songs. I, and the rest of this humble radio station, will be looking forward to her 2017 release. Japanese Breakfast
If there was a power-house act of the night, this was it.On the heels of the first official solo release of singer/guitarist Michelle Zauner, Japanese Breakfast seems to be starting to make a splash of their own. If the last act seemed a bit shy, Zauner was the epitome of confidence. Though their record doesn’t scream “power-pop” on every track, she is perfectly ready to make the transition on a dime. Zauner made her presence on the stage known on the song “Jane Cum” where she really turned up the volume with her voice after a series of dream-pop, danceable tracks that the crowd seemed to thoroughly enjoy. In case anyone in the crowd was not paying attention for the first few songs, after this everyone surely was. She was also the authority on dad-jokes for the night, coining the summer tour with Mitsk and Jay Som as the “Women Who Wok [sic. Wock]” tour given that all three are Japanese-American female acts.But that’s not to say this act is some sort of one trick, light hearted pony. The record has a clear sense of pain on it and she was able to bring that emotion to the stage with “Triple 7,” which speaks to the versatility of Zauner’s writing and vocal delivery abilities. Perhaps the greatest memory I will have of this set is when Zauner decided to step into the crowd in the midst of a song that not everyone seemed to know the lyrics to, and walk around a bit. She is not the tallest human in the world so this concert goer was notable to make out exactly what happened, all I know is that there was a clear sense of confusion as to how to act while next to Michelle during this song. Whether she was trying to make some kind of a point about artist/crowd interaction, she was expecting people to sing along with her, or something else entirely, Zauner did not let this become a sour note in the show and continued the set as if this strange experience was exactly what she was going for, and who am I to suppose any different? MITSKI
Now to the main act of the night and to the soul reason I elbowed my way into this show (though I was pleasantly surprised by the openers, as I hope you can tell), Mitski Miyawaki.While there is an obvious boldness to her records since she is often described as “punk” as well as “singer-songwriter” by many writers, a concert goer might not have had this idea whatsoever after her first three or four songs.After opening with “Texas Reznikoff,” Mitski went on to play a handful of Bury Me at Makeout Creek crowd favorites to develop a nice sing-song atmosphere, and even though it was just her and her drummer on stage, this kind of slow song set was not the kind of show that I was expecting. Where was the the angst? The sexual frustration? The issues of personal identification embedded in fuzzed-out electric guitar punches that erupt on every other track in Mitski’s records? I mean it wasn’t a poor showing and her more conventional love songs are some of my favorite moments on her records, but I knew her voice could also be used as a weapon to level a crowd into a heap of goosebumps, but twenty minutes into her set there was no indication of this happening. I’m not going to say that she looked uncomfortable on stage, but there was a quality of self-doubt between songs with her humble, if not hesitant, “thanks yous” between songs, but she didn’t seem to be the headlining act of two powerful singers before her and seemed more like the reluctant artist who’s claimed that she is doing a job and making a living the only way she knows how…And then it happened.The first turn of the set was an interesting one, turning the sickening electronic-pop track “How Deep is Your Love?” on its head into an anti-dance song that had the familiar, desperate, heavily one-sided love quality that all Mitski songs know how to convey.(it’s worth noting here that people did still dance to this song, and while I will never be one to judge how an individual enjoys their music live, this writer cannot help but think that perhaps some people were missing the point here, or maybe I was, who knows)Then she played the song that I was waiting for. The one that pushed the night from a sing-songy comfort into a dark, tumbling series of tracks that cut loose the requirement of comfort and unleashed a dark boldness that shook the venue. It was the grand crescendo of “I Don’t Smoke” that formed a storm cloud over the audience and started to pour through the next series of four or five songs. It finally became apparent that her sound was greater than the two instruments on stage and though there was none of her famous yelling into the guitar microphone during this set, the hall was filled with the emotions and sonic qualities that one hopes to hear when seeing a dynamic live performer.The apex of the set hit when she yelped a handful of “Fuck You’s” over the track “Drunk Walk Home” before her drummer left the stage and she reeled the audience back with a few more intimate folk songs, this time sounding far more confident and sincere when thanking the crowd and presenting herself through both dialogue and lyrics. Then, just like that, it was over. The crowd clapped and chanted for her return but the venue had to clear the fans out to make room for another act beginning within the hour. So, in less than 45 minutes, Mitski was able to connect with a packed house, floor them, reconnect, and leave them wanting more - surely no small artistic accomplishment.Of course, the whole set lead me to question whether this was a well-rehearsed act, from skittish to an eruption of twisted frustration and back to a calm and collected professional poet. Is Mitski so aware of herself as an artist that she could simply flip the switch between punk idol and lonely introspectiveness? Or is it that every time she takes the stage she is still questioning whether or not her poems and works justify her fandom and center-of-the-stage reputation until the crowd convinces her that she is indeed deserving of her sold-out tour. Maybe the next time she’s around town she’ll give Pizza FM a chance to ask these questions and provide some insight into her live sets. And maybe not, what gives us a right to have access to such personal information? Does Mitski fancy herself as the cutesy, Japanese-American, love song singer that many of her younger male fans fawn over or does she prefer that the sexually explicit, at times violent, qualities are the ones that define her music (somehow I highly doubt and personally reject that the former is the case). All we can expect is to listen and learn from each of her releases and stage shows… and, as any good fan does, speculate as to the life and times of the artist before us.