The Church of Briontology

You been doing all this dope producing
You got a chance to show them what time it is

Jon Brion isn’t famous in the sense that most people would recognize him on the street, or even in the sense that many people would recognize his name. Indeed, the most common reaction I got when I told people that I was going to see him play last night at the Canal Room was, “Who?” But Jon Brion is famous in the sense that he has (among other things) produced and/or collaborated with some Really Big Names (Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Rufus Wainwright, Kanye West) and composed the soundtracks for Punch-Drunk Love and I ♥ Huckabees. He also released a solo record in 2000 (buy it, you’ll thank me).

Last night at the Canal Room, Jon Brion made it clear to a very attentive, very polite audience that he is a genius, a pop savant who plays music for the sheer joy of it. His 90+ minute set was a blend of his own material and an homage to the history of rock and pop music. I am badly under-educated in the annals of pop history, so I missed a lot of his references, but I heard Prince’s Controversey (sung into some sort of Korg vocal manipulator), Love Will Keep Us Together, and God Only Knows (the lyrics and harmonies to which, apparently, were known to everyone but me last night).

Brion was on stage by himself, but, on several occasions, accompanied himself on huge rock-out numbers. Here’s how it works: he sits down at the drum kit, plays for a minute or two, then loops that continuously. He walks (or, more accurately, trips, as he’s so enthusiastic to get the next tracks down that he doesn’t bother to check his walkway for pesky cables and guitars) to the piano, and starts playing again over the drum loop. After recording a few tracks there, he stands up, walks to the front of the stage, picks up his guitar and lays down a bass track (or two or three). Then the fun begins(!), as he jams away on the guitar and vocal parts. He doesn’t really look the part of a rock star, but he’s having so much fun that nobody cares.

The fun that he has on stage is deeply infectious. Watch him sitting at the piano and smiling to himself as he realizes that, “Hey, Captain and Tenille would go great right here” and you’re hooked. Everything is improvised, but as soon as he’s got something in his head he seems to know exactly where he’s going to go. I can’t help but wonder if he’s like that when producing in the studio, working with such zeal that he barely finishes a guitar part before beginning a fresh take of a background vocal.

With limited time at the end of his set, Brion asked for requests for the last song of the night. He played Trouble, one of his originals, then answered the request for Bowie by saying, “OK, Bowie, that could be fun. I’ll lay down a bunch of tracks. It’ll take awhile, but it’s basically the coolest record ever, so it’ll be a little nod to that.” And he played “Heroes”. As he was screaming, “And I, I will be king/And you, you will be queen” at the end, it was even cooler than the coolest record ever, and I was a convert to the Church of Briontology.

October 27, 2005 - 02:55 PM

| Music