I had the chance to enter Chad VanGaalen’s world when I saw him perform at Filter’s Culture Collide last year in LA, and I got intrigued right away. He had left some effect on me, as his ‘Diaper Island’ songs got stuck in my brain for some time, which is not always the case, by far. No, there’s something enduring about his original tunes, just listen to the easiest one, the lovely earworm ‘Sara’, and you will not need anymore explanation, however I remember having the hardest time writing about his music, because nothing else is that easy with the Calgarian Chad Vangaalen.
He was opening for Mogwai at the Fonda on Saturday night, and I was happy at the idea to see him again, although I thought he was brave to be opening for these monster-sound builders, in front of lot of people who had probably not even heard of him. Tall and thin on stage, surrounded by three musicians, he precisely started with his fierce and short ‘Do Not Fear’, whose unusual rhythm on record makes me think about something Beck could have written with Thurston Moore; may be, but still there is a peculiar tone to the song, quite difficult to pinpoint, strange and familiar at the same time.
They played several songs from ‘Diaper Island’, a series of creative, complex, layered melodies, and ‘Peace on the Rise’ also had these Sonic Youth’s echoes, with weird deconstructions and nevertheless a catchy melody. I am not sure how he manages to build these fetching songs, while using such unusual weirdness and what seems to be a distinct tuning, but he does!
‘Heavy Stones’ was part mellow, part high-pitch quavering vocals, managing to be both soothing and uniquely sounding. Of course, they played the sweet ballad ‘Sara’ which started with some whistling, and I also recognized the slow ‘Wandering Spirits’ taking unexpected detours and ‘Burning Photographs’ later in the show, a fast angry post-punk dialogue between shouted gusty vocals and almost de-tuned guitars. They did a few others I didn’t know, and when it was foot-tapping, it was not happy foot-tapping, rather tormented foot-tapping with loud thundering chords and Chad straining his voice as if he was shouting in the middle of a forest.
Mid-set, he told us that he and the band were ‘pretty drunk’ the night before in San Francisco and they had forgotten their guitars at the show, but were basically saved by the Mogwai guys, who had remembered about these guitars… They looked like such regular guys though! Not at all like party guys going to such extreme, but then again nothing is that obvious with VanGaalen.
