Review Summary: The 90s have never been forgotten within the realm of 00s indie rock, but No Age are of a select few that seem like forgotten idols instead of young rockers standing on the shoulders of their own.
I've been to that place on the album cover. If you've read any coverage on the band, then you know that it's called The Smell and its located in some alley of some hell hole part of LA downtown. It's the cool place to be, the New Yorker and Pitchforker say. I almost died there. I can survive knives, guns, and swift kicks to the nutters but I can't survive a crowded, decaying hole-in-the-wall packed tight with pretentious underage art-fags with their $50 dollar vintage Coca-Cola shirts they got on Melrose. I could almost still breath amongst the female punk trio screaming, I *** you not, "*** bush!" and punching herself until she bleed on the audience (thus making her set go from God awful to legendary, she must've imagined), but once I saw the pile of bricks that 3 stoned dudes were rebuilding as some sort of "interactive art" and the Vegan chili booth (no bar here, folks) I started violently panicking. Every snot nosed, Modest Mouse t-shirt (from 97') wearing 14 year old in L.A. must've been their bumming for a light and talking about how important being there is--despite them willingly staying outside for the remainder of the bands. Like I said, I almost died.
My initial listen of No Age brought back this nightmare and perfectly exemplified everything I hate about that place and it's "scene". It's a bunch of kids from Orange County driving to L.A. on their parent's dime and jerking each other off on how they listen to different records then the folks back home. No Age are making an indulgent ode to their adolescent favorites, and banking on that "doing what we want" will add up to something good. Don't be mistaken: if you stink, you pretend to be poor, and you always talk about "the community" then you are a HIPPIE! I've gone on far too long here stating my case for hating them, but I feel a need to detox since...get this...I now fully love them. I love The Smell, I love the kids, and I love Weirdo Rippers. It is still indulgent beyond belief, but in a way that I never thought it was.
When I saw Liars perform way back in 2006, they fixated their zombified eyes on the ceiling and banged the drum like they were summoning some War God that would end the tour or at least kill everyone waiting for their next gig. I went to SXSW last week and saw Yesayer (boring, boring, and boring)--I saw No Age was next and let out a big sigh. My friend went to buy cigarettes, the media went to snap photos of Atlas Sound, and everyone else went to load up their bong before The Breeders headlined. Surprisingly, It was just me and a crowd full of weirdo Austin 13-16 year olds. I got my first look at the duo of No Age and was shocked. They weren't wearing gross, sweaty white-Ts and looking dumbfoundedly at the audience with displaced looks. All the distortion, all their noise turned out to be their way of having fun, and all the kids seemed to be aware of this except me. "Every Artist Needs a Tragedy" is such a classic, fist pumper to start the album with an almost like "Baba O' Reily" momentum. "Boy Void" is another short burst of greatness, "Everybody's Down" has so much restraint to not go psych when it could be so easy, and the majority of the rest of the tracks are instrumental pieces with washes of guitar feedback, reverb, and magic--almost like Animal Collective's Feels in its sense of non-ambient ambient.
I wasn't blown away by the songs when I saw them live (maybe peaked my interest?), but it was just the vibe you got from Randy's smile, misplaced jokes, and Dean's spastic delivery and crowd interaction. There was something so innocent and SoCal about the experience. It wasn't taking the same old punk route of "look how ***ed up our domestic issues are", but making a Los Campesinos "let's get together and kumbiya" session. This isn't the sound of some disgusting, beer-filled basement, but a wild-eyed sense of youth during a Summer vacation in Cali. The guys don't know what they really want to convey in their music or in their interviews, but when you see them live it all makes sense. You look at the enthusiastic faces of all the sleepy-eyed preteen hipsters and Randy's wide grin, and it recalls a time of my childhood, and I hope most people's childhood. A time when you weren't going to the movies to see your favorite director's new film, not going to a show to see how Sonic Youth sound 20 years later, and not going to New York to visit any select area. It's fascinating but there was actually a time when we were young and we would go to places just to be there.
