What Was So Scary Once Is Now A Little Bit Quaint

Portion Control Scissor Sisters @ Mercury Lounge 7/27/2005
Laura / Can’t Decide / Hybrid / Tits On The Radio / Cher Baby / Paul McCartney / Magnifique / Other Side / Take Your Mama / Everybody Wants The Same Thing / Mary / Comfortably Numb (w/ Carlos Alomar on lead guitar) / Filthy/Gorgeous // Music Is The Victim

Scissor Sisters “Everybody Wants The Same Thing (Live @ Live 8)” – Have no fear, Scissor Sisters fans – their next album is going to be fabulous. All six of the new songs performed last night were instantly catchy and lovable, especially the jaunty banjo romp “Can’t Decide” and “Everybody Wants The Same Thing,” which received the most rapturous audience response to an unreleased song that I’ve ever witnessed. It was vaguely disconcerting to see the Sisters in such a tiny room after being at their huge homecoming show at the Hammerstein Ballroom last December. All of the songs, especially the new ones, seem designed for big rooms and massive outdoor shows, and their personalities are so much larger than life that it was almost surreal to be so close to them. Before the show, Jake Shears was standing about three feet away from me in pretty normal clothing, which seemed about as weird to me as if someone who I saw every day suddenly started dressing like…well, Jake Shears! (Fun fact: Jake announced that his father made the leather pants that he was wearing. That’s one supportive dad!) (Click here for the official Scissor Sisters website.)

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah @ Mercury Lounge 7/27/2005
Graceful Retreat / Is This Love / Cigarettes / Yellow Teeth / Over And Over Again (Lost And Found) / In This Home On Ice / Details On The War / Satan / Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood [This is taken from the setlist that was on the stage – the unreleased songs may have longer titles, and the order could possibly be different from what was actually played.]

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah “Is This Love?” – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah didn’t seem quite right coming between the stylish, high energy disco pop sets by Maxi Geil and the Scissor Sisters, but outside of that context, they played a fine if not particularly memorable set of songs that recalled at various points David Byrne, Jonathan Richman, Violent Femmes, and all manner of indie pop from Elephant Six to 80s New Zealand to present-day Pacific Northwest but mainly sounded like the Arcade Fire crossbred with The Shins. (Not such a shock that they would catch on so quickly given that math, right?) At their best, they have a knack for quietly likeable pop ideal for mix tapes and riding around in cars on sunny afternoons, so it’s hard to question their sudden success since that’s half of what the indie audience is looking for to begin with. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Maxi Geil & Playcolt @ Mercury Lounge 7/27/2005
Here Comes Maxi / Teenage Extreme / That’s How The Story Goes / Paying For Something New / Sunday Morning / Artist’s Lament / The Love I Lose / Makin’ Love In The Sunshine / Please Remember Me

Maxi Geil & Playcolt “Makin’ Love In The Sunshine” – This set started off a bit wobbly, but Maxi and the band fell into place about halfway through “That’s How The Story Goes” and kept it up though the set until the climactic disco showstopper “Makin’ Love In The Sunshine,” which has quickly become my new favorite song in their catalog. Unfortunately for the band, the superenthusiastic crew of buff gay dudes who danced nonstop through the Scissor Sisters show and the DJ set immediately before it had not showed up yet. I’m sure those guys would’ve been way into this set.

But oh man, “Makin’ Love In The Sunshine” – seriously, if this song doesn’t make you all love them, I just don’t know what is wrong with you. How do you resist this? How do you not love a song with a verse like this:

This kind of love is like Das Kapital
I often quote it, know who wrote it, never read it all.
This kind of love is like the Red Brigade
What was so scary once is now a little bit quaint.
This kind of love is like the SLA
It took a debutante to make me want to move its way.
This kind of love is like a guillotine
I just lost my head to a cause greater than me.

This track is going to be out on a limited edition vinyl picture disc with “That’s How The Story Goes” sometime in the next couple months. Keep an eye on the Maxi Geil site if you want to buy a copy. (Click here to visit the Maxi Geil website)