BY JORDAN MAINZER

It started with the familiar sights: a bucket filled with Miller Lites and a bottle of Jose Cuervo, Robert Pollard’s button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up and baggy pants, the rest of the band in their usual more fitted almost all-black uniform. As they played, Pollard leaned over the stage, belting classics and new songs alike, like he normally would into a crowd. Only this show from Guided By Voices was professionally prerecorded and mixed, played to an empty, socially distant venue, The Brightside, in Dayton, broadcast to the rest of the world, benefiting various venues the band has played. The idea of a GBV show where the crowd members didn’t put their arms around each other during “The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory” or scream to one another during “Game Of Pricks” is absurd and counter-intuitive in theory. But in practice, it worked.

While not quite the three-hour marathons of which the band’s usual tours consist, and containing almost no between-song banter or introductions, GBV’s set on Friday was still 53 songs, 2+ hours of well-paced four P’s (pop, punk, prog, and psych), and the best-selling Noonchorus concert to date. As if to ease us into the idea of a virtual show, the band didn’t immediately come out with rippers, instead playing the usual selection of tracks from the current year (Surrender Your Poppy Field’s “Year of the Hard Hitter” and “Volcano”, and the upcoming Mirrored Aztec’s “Haircut Sphinx” and “To Keep An Area”; there was nothing from MA follow-up Styles We Paid For), and deep cuts, including a jammed-out, tambourine-laden performance of the title track to Pollard solo album Moses on a Snail. About a third of the way through, they dropped not just the classic songs, but the classic live show experiences. Like before at a real show, I heard the opening snare hits to “Motor Away” from a bathroom--this one my own--and rushed to make it back to witness the performance. I laughed at Pollard’s tree pose introducing Doug Gillard-penned classic “I Am A Tree”. I remained grateful that the band’s brought pop masterpiece “Chasing Heather Crazy” back into the fold, while marveling at hearing “Hot Freaks” live for the first time in my life. The Guided By Voices community remains strong, even from a great distance; a few beers deep, my girlfriend and I spontaneously video chatted with a fan we’d never met (and now friend) in the Netherlands, where it was almost 3 AM.

Whereas Guided By Voices tried to recreate as much of the live experience as possible, another 90′s indie rock stalwart embraced the differences between the before times and the COVID times, using the opportunity to give fans a rare glimpse into their creative process. From their cluttered practice space (in between collections of old clocks and Simpsons paraphernalia were layers of cardboard and stacks of paper), Yo La Tengo broadcast two 30-45 minute performances of “formless” music, instrumental jam sessions that often act as the origins of the spaced-out pop songs they’re known for. In addition to releasing We Have Amnesia Sometimes, a five-track recording of similar socially distant sessions from April, Yo La Tengo took control of the moment, raising money for the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute fighting on behalf of democracy and justice, while giving fans a taste of their ability to improvise rhythms and melodies. 

The music during both shows was generally gorgeous. Saturday night started with all three on guitar, alternating between strummed, picked, and scratched rhythms and harmonic drones. There was plenty of randomness; Georgia Hubley twice hitting a cymbal with the end of her guitar was either a coincidental effect of a cramped space or extemporaneous controlled chaos. Both within and between tracks, the band members switched instruments, as the first ended with Hubley pivoting to a keyboard and James McNew to a Moog. The second track was more percussion-heavy, starting with Hubley on drums and McNew on the Moog but quickly moving to rhythmic guitar picking. Hubley and Ira Kaplan played dual percussion, the former using toms, then brushes, and Kaplan toms on a snare and tambourine. Eventually, drums were traded for guitars and then for more loops, drones, and layers, ending full circle with percussive shakes. Sunday afternoon’s stream was more of a groove, starting with all three band members on the keys, producing a whistling drone. As McNew switched to a reverb-heavy guitar, Kaplan was the one this time fully embracing randomness, playing at times with his wrists and knuckles. Eventually, it was McNew’s turn on the drums, as he provided tom rolls on cymbals, snare, and floor tom with a towel draped over it, his head nodding along to Hubley’s pedal guitars and Kaplan’s harmonic keyboard waves. The track ended sparsely with siren-like Moog playing and twangy guitar plucks from McNew; there were multiple times throughout when nobody appeared to be playing anything.

Just as these two bands represented polar opposites of the 90′s lo-fi spectrum, they both approached their live streams in converse, equally successful ways. It’s clear virtual concerts will never be a replacement for in-person live shows. But due to the pandemic and logistical difficulty of putting on safe, socially distant shows, the club continues to be open at home only.

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Just as Patterson Hood has been doing throughout quarantine, the Drive-By Truckers’ Mike Cooley and Jay Gonzalez have been giving their own regular shows on Noonchorus. I’m recommending this Cooley performance tomorrow night at 8 PM due to new Truckers material; The New OK, their second album of 2020 (following January’s The Unraveling), was announced September 30th and released digitally two days later. It was originally supposed to be an EP comprised of leftovers from The Unraveling sessions, but watching the unfolding pandemic and much needed post-George Floyd rebellion sparked the creative juices of the band. Impressively, the album is every bit as good as The Unraveling, if not better. The title track refers to a post-“before times” state of being but cleverly takes a knock at the preferred hand gesture of white supremacists. (“A new hand sign for your twisted ways / It's the new OK.”) In the meantime, we’re treated to rare Matt Patton-delivered songs with “The Unraveling” and a cover of The Ramones’ classic “The KKK Took My Baby Away”. As for songs Cooley might actually perform tonight? The excellent “Sarah’s Flame”, about a certain former governor of Alaska who paved the way for Donald Trump. “She made PC worse to momma then the VD daddy brought home from the rodeo,” sings Cooley over a light acoustic strum and keyboard line, hilarious and sad in his brutal honesty.

BY JORDAN MAINZER

We previewed the Atlanta singer-songwriter’s show at Schubas last June, when she was on tour for her stellar 2019 album Atlanta Millionaires Club. Since that show, Webster’s released a few new tracks. Last August, it was the dreamy, melancholy, sax-heavy “Both All The Time”, as part of the Adult Swim Singles Program. In April, she dropped “In A Good Way”, an effortless combination of old school rock, folk, and R&B that’s one of her best songs to date. (“You make me wanna cry in a good way,” she lovingly sings to her partner.) And then there’s the high and lonesome “Better Distractions”, a quarantine anthem if there ever was one, where even her COVID bubble buddies have better things to do than hang out with her. It’s the release of that last song that Webster’s celebrating tonight with an 8 PM live streamed performance on Noonchorus, from the same studio in which “Better Distractions” and pretty much all of her other songs were recorded. It will also be her first full band show of the year, so check it out!

Photo by Lauren Dukoff

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The beloved psych-folk artist is in the midst of a series of Noonchorus concerts playing songs from a select couple or few albums, all in the order in which the songs were written. Tomorrow night, he features his first album for XL, 2005′s Cripple Crow, as well as 2007′s more divisive, genre-averse Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon. Streaming from the Bob Baker Marionette Theater at 8 PM CST, Banhart will be joined by drummer Gregory Rogove, who first collaborated with Banhart on Smokey, eventually forming the band Megapuss with him and playing on all of Banhart’s music, including July’s EP Vast Ovoid and his recent cover of Grateful Dead’s “Franklin’s Tower”.

BY JORDAN MAINZER

More than your average country rock/Americana band, Drive-By Truckers have been aware of their status as white men in the South and the evil of systemic racism. Tonight at 8 PM CST, the band’s Patterson Hood performs another Noonchorus live stream, Live in the Heathenattic #4: Songs of Anger, Hope + Change. Given the recent rash of murders of black Americans and the subsequent protests all around the country, it doesn’t surprise me that someone like Hood is choosing to continue to speak up and speak out against racism and white supremacy. Money for tonight’s show, which cost $15, goes towards The Black Resilience Fund, which provides resources to black Portlanders; if you miss it, you can still donate and catch the show, which will be up for 48 hours after it airs. And who knows what he’ll play? The band’s most recent album is the very good The Unraveling, though last month, they released audio recordings of all three nights of their Heathens Homecoming 2020 festival on Bandcamp, in addition to a cheeky new song called “Quarantine Together”.