POP MUSIC

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Thurston Moore

"I don't shut up, I grow up. And when I look at you, I throw up."

You might remember that classic playground taunt from the '80s coming-of-age flick "Stand by Me," but it's also an apt description of Thurston Moore's performance at Rock & Roll Hotel Saturday night. Almost 30 years after forming legendary rock outfit Sonic Youth, the 49-year-old singer-guitarist is still making a racket, unfurling cuts from his new solo disc, "Trees Outside the Academy."

And then there's the "throw up" part: Moore discreetly puked on his guitar during "Off Work" -- a grungy new instrumental reminiscent of Sonic Youth's 1992 alterna-hit "100%." Thankfully, the illness was only momentary and the poor guy laughed it off, dedicating his next tune, "Fri/End," to "my friends" at a certain local eatery where he'd dined earlier that day.

Moore may have been strumming an acoustic guitar, but things got plenty noisy thanks to a backing troupe that featured Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, No Neck Blues Band bassist Matt Heyner, violinist Samara Lubelski and guitarist Chris Brokaw. The four players added grit, but without overpowering those evocative melodies that perpetually reside beneath Sonic Youth's distortion-happy outer crust.

The set's highlight came early with "The Shape Is in a Trance," as Moore's guitar work evoked both classic Sonic Youth and the weathered melancholy of Neil Young. Forgive the expression, Thurston, but that jam is totally sick.

-- Chris Richards

Animal Collective

Skeletons wearing ballet outfits decorated the stage, bearded crowd members swayed to spacey, dreamlike pulses. It wasn't Grateful Dead night, but Animal Collective's show at the sold-out 9:30 club Friday did aim to transport the crowd via light, sound and hallucinatory interpretations of its best-known songs. And on that score -- and several others -- it hit the bull's-eye.

Performing as a trio, the Collective sounded more seasoned than during past D.C. gigs, pausing between songs and directly addressing the audience. A propulsive, whirling wave of electronics, samples and beats was still their main concern, though, and they used it to distend or truncate songs, seemingly on a whim.

But versions of "Fireworks" and "Who Could Win a Rabbit" were following a pattern. The constant gyrations of sampler twiddlers Panda Bear (a.k.a. Noah Lennox) and Geologist (Brian Weitz) and main vocalist Avey Tare (David Portner) gave away as much. The trick was that the pattern -- an intoxicating steam train of freaky folk, junky AM one-hit wonders, New Zealand legends Tall Dwarfs and (most importantly) the Beach Boys -- was insistent and irresistible.

And even if songs like "Derek" are essentially twisted pop radio-hits, watching them rendered by three scruffy dudes boogieing in front of a bank of strobe lights gave them a rough-hewn charm that made the hipsters nod sagely. Ultimately, the Collective's stellar set worked because it delightfully rewrote an old adage: it wasn't the singer or the song, but the sensation.

-- Patrick Foster

John McLaughlin

Fusion's back. And back with a vengeance, if John McLaughlin has anything to say about it. The jazz-rock pioneer has grayed a bit since the days when fusion was sort of hip (no, really -- it was!), but at 65 he's still one of the most gifted guitarists on the planet and a force to be reckoned with. And he's determined that fusion will not die -- at least, not on his watch.

That was clear on Friday night, when McLaughlin and his new band, the Fourth Dimension, put on a driving, supercharged show at Lisner Auditorium. This is McLaughlin's first fusion tour in nearly a decade, but he proved he's lost virtually none of the jaw-dropping virtuosity that marked his work with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the 1970s and Miles Davis before that. The playing blazed, the riffs soared and the effect was of an unstoppable juggernaut -- out to crush nonbelievers beneath its wheels.

And for the first hour, it was pure exhilaration. McLaughlin has put together a ferociously talented band, including Gary Husband on keyboards, Mark Mondesir on drums and the young Frenchman Hadrien Feraud on bass. Husband kicked in some spectacularly off-the-map synth playing, generating warbling flutes, wailing guitars and instruments not yet dreamed of, while Mondesir provided solid, low-key percussion. But the real news of the evening was the 23-year-old Feraud, whose supple, inventive and blindingly fast playing nearly stole the show from McLaughlin himself (no easy feat).

Yet for all its brilliance, the band finally fell victim to its own unrelenting power. McLaughlin seemed out to overwhelm rather than seduce, and it was only rarely -- as in the moving ballad he played as an encore -- that his lyrical side came to the surface. A shame. McLaughlin's depths may not be as flashy as his pyrotechnics, but they're far more interesting.

-- Stephen Brookes