FACES ON FILM + Elizabeth Powell + The Corduroys @ Main Hall

By Alex Huynh -  Losing My Edge - 01/11/2007

*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

Coming in from the cold into a Main Hall that has held more bodies, I prepare myself for an evening where I wasn't exactly looking to be conquered. Hands belonging to familiar faces are shook and as soon as I dramatically turn around -- the only way to turn around -- with my drink in hand, The Corduroys came into my consciousness and what hit back was some nice sloppy, shambling 90's-style indie rock. I was at the tail end of their set, but what I had paid attention to did hit some chords. Nice little shimmering sound amidst the slick dirge and some catchy tunes to boot, it was surely more than I had any right to expect. I thought bands only played quirky dance punk these days. I picked up their free CD-R at the door -- OK, I took four -- and the sloppiness was sadly missing from those recordings (collected under an EP they call Love What You're Left With), replaced by dreamy indie pop. It was still nice, but nice doesn't get me off, dirty does. Still, I'll go with memories from the past rather than experiences from the present, so I'll remember their set as being Good.

Almost rather informally, Elizabeth Powell began a set that refreshingly didn't have that performer-audience wall since, well, there wouldn't be much in terms of number on either side of that wall. I had good memories of her set opening up for Evan Dando almost a year ago at the very same place, so I was bracing myself for another powerful and cathartic experience. Though it was more loose than the last time, her performance still hit the right notes. She was joined by a stand-up bass and an acoustic guitar (after she put away her own guitar), and just like that, they were now The Dirty Draws. Covers came in the form of Neil Young's "Harvest Moon", "Nothing Up My Sleeve" by Wilco and some Iron & Wine song, and it was fun -- if you think feeling like you're at the end of your rope is 'fun' -- but the songs themselves almost didn't matter as long as you were being mesmerized by her vocals. The combination of gin warming over inside and chills down the spine made for quite the rush.

Last were Faces On Film and they played like headliners. OK, that meant nothing, let me try again, perhaps using the Peter Travers technique of strategically placing words together that could be used for movie poster quotes. Their first number reminded me of The Walkmen in terms of vocal delivery (y'know, how Hamilton Leithauser enunciates words clearly and slowly in a rising cadence on the slower tempo songs) and also how the music punctures sharply through a washed-out sound. The songwriting didn't do much for me and neither did the sound in all honesty, but somehow the vibe did. There was another one where it felt like the jamming end of Pavement's "Fillmore Jive", but with more emotional detachment coinciding more with the end of the world rather than the end of the rock 'n roll era. This was actually fun -- if your idea of 'fun' is blah blah blah -- but once they started introducing songs that were more, um, song-like into their set, the gin was gone and my spine was room temperature. Given the predicament, I went back out into the cold.

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