Silver Jews/Monotonix at ULU

Silver Jews/Monotonix at ULU

21 July, 2008
by: Sween

I hate ULU, it's like a cardboard box that has been pissed on. It doesn't have to be this way. Alright, maybe I said in an earlier review that it is "simple - effective." But I was only being nice.

So it's a pleasure to watch Monotonix absolutely wreck the joint. They play loud, fast, beer-spraying, thrusting rock n roll like heroes from another cosmos with no social mores. Attempting a one-man crowd surf, transporting the drums, mounting the balcony twice…there are tight trousers, a bared arse, and violent demands that it's "TIME FOR TEA!!" And all this showmanship spurts from the fuzzy sex punk that drives the antics. The bouncers hate the twenty minute mayhem…the crowd fucking love it.

"I've got it all timed out…old and new. Each old song will be followed by a new song…like that." Dipped-toe control, endearingly cautious, is what Dave Berman favours for Silver Jews' performance tonight. Not a surprise for a band formerly notorious for refusing to tour, despite the weeping and wailing of an international fan base of obsessives. And yet somehow, you don't expect caution from a guy who has been way too proximal to darkness in his life, and from his ups and downs has somehow dragged and drawn this band, out into the open, playing arduous songs that are replete with feeling without ever being over-cooked. They evoke a natural sense of well-being through the triumph over the ever-present adversity of that base indestructible melancholy that pervades us all; be it by his pitiless words, or a humble steely chord; or the moments when he sings directly to his wife's smiling face.

Music of this personality and disclosure deserves to be received with equal daring spirit in which it is given; and it was, with several heartfelt ovations throughout the night; a charmed Berman responding with sweet words – "you guys give a fuck. Thank you."

They happily play older material alongside the new, which is their purest, most unique yet (as is said after every new Jews album); never straying into obscurity, but never bowing to blatancy. Berman's lyrics epitomise the approach – seemingly random verse incorporating concrete observations with moments of inscrutably universal poignancy.

They play a lengthy set, and that pissed-on cardboard box lights up with sentiment from a gratefully enchanted crowd. It is heartening to share the most spiritual music to come out of America in the last ten years.

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Sween