Listening to Flaming Lips (Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots)

My latest show deserves more than this quick post, but I have an overwhelming need to be prone on my couch with cold cucumbers over my eyes and my feet up. I swear I'm watching myself go gray in real time - kind of like Obama. I need to create a more spa-like daily life situation for myself with a Zen outlook to go along with it. My dear friend L_ labeled this year Two Thousand Zen. If I take that on as my mantra (even though it's already June, and I can therefore only hope to achieve half the Zen I could have had as an early adopter), lay around at night with cucumbers over my eyes, and then pay myself $150 for it, Voila! instant spa.

While my cucumber slices are chilling, I shall share with you my night with Josh Ritter at Town Hall. I went to dinner beforehand with four of the thousand or so "Future Mrs. Josh Ritter"s in attendance that night and listened to some good stories about past shows of his they'd been to, and how little his real-life wife figured into their plans to marry him. Some truly fascinating conversation about urban planning and NYC charter schools, coupled with yummy Greek food, made for a great set-up for the show.

I'd seen Josh open for Swell Season earlier this year and really enjoyed it. He's so easy to listen to. Beautiful voice, melodic songs - nothing challenging or aggressive about any of it. The January show was at Radio City and he clearly was very very happy to be playing. But that was nothing compared to the pure joy he expressed at the Town Hall show.

The man could not stop grinning. He smiled the kind of smile you see on kids' faces after they open the Best Gift Ever on Christmas morning. It was amazing. Can you imagine loving what you do THAT much? That the whole time you're doing it, you cannot stop smiling? I can think of one or two things that make me that happy but I'm not being paid to do them, nor am I doing anything I would consider Art (though I do have shoe shopping down to a certain science).

He tried really hard not to smile during his song about a mummy that comes to life because of love but he couldn't stop himself from the occasional grin. Nor could he maintain the gravitas he started out with during the song about angels of death and bloodshed. Little smiles kept creeping into his eyes, then sliding their way down to his mouth. It was adorable.

I spent the train ride home wondering if Josh smiles that much during the entire song writing process, or if it's performing them that makes him so happy. I got introduced to a musician who goes by the band name East River Pipe recently (not the musician himself -- his music) and what fascinated me most about him is that he doesn't perform. He feels that each song he writes is a work of art. Would you expect to go to a museum, he asks, and watch the artists repaint their pictures over and over? (I would actually really like to see that). He feels that he's done his job, in a sense, in the creation of the song. He feels no need to perform it for an audience.

Based on what I saw at Town Hall that night, I'd conjecture that Josh Ritter would die a little inside every time he couldn't perform one of his songs. Does that make him any less of a True Artist? They both are giving birth. One of them then runs around saying "Look at my baby! See my baby?!" and spreading that joy around. The other is just happy the baby is out and is content with you appreciating it on your own time.

I wonder if Ritter views the performance as part of the song-making process, and if you took the performance part away, would he still have the same desire to write songs? Is the performance (and subsequent positive feedback) and screaming, adoring fan base what keeps him going?

I'm guessing ERP views performance as superfluous, and not really the point at all. That said, he's putting his songs on albums and making them available for worldwide distribution, so part of him must want that same connection with people that Ritter gets on stage, just more privately. Would having to perform his songs to an appreciative fan base make him not want to write anymore? Feeling some of the love he's putting into his songs coming back to him from an audience - would that throw him off his game?

Seems it's just a different means to the same end - to share what's inside with the outside world. Ritter is using a megaphone and East River Pipe is laying the song at our feet and then quietly slipping away.