GroovyStylie!

The atmosphere prior to Thao With The Get Down Stay Down’s November 18th set at Plush was electric. Tucson is the sort of place where crowds frequently shrink by the time the headliners go on. But no one was leaving before the talented Thao Nguyen and her bandmates Adam and Wills Thompson hit the stage. “I’ve been waiting for this forever!” shouted one woman as she launched into a pre-prandial pogo. “I can’t believe how excited I am,” offered another. Clearly, this wasn’t going to be the musical equivalent of a wine-tasting. The audience wasn’t there to sample, but to gorge.

The ease with which people can learn about new music these days and the perpetually fragmenting “public” to which such accessibility leads has radically transformed the experience of up-and-coming musicians on tour. Whereas the primary goal was once to simply make a good impression, artists must now minister as well to the expectations of audience members who already know the words to every song. Even a band’s first tour can feel like a repeat performance.  While the sense of camaraderie generated by such familiarity can be a powerful source of sustenance, it also increases the pressure to please. Disappointing those who consider themselves “friends”, even in the low-intensity Facebook meaning of the word, is different from failing to impress strangers.

That pressure can undo even the most talented performers. And it might seem that Thao Nguyen, who has to sing and play complicated guitar parts , would be especially prone to its effects. There’s a brilliantly unstructured quality to her band’s two Kill Rock Stars albums, the sort of tossed-off sound that is much harder to reproduce live than more overtly polished records. Somehow, though, despite the more limited aural palette available in a concert setting, Thao and her bandmates managed to outdo their albums.

Was this a case of addition by subtraction? In part, perhaps. Still, the main reason why the band not only met their eager fan base’s expectations at Plush, but easily exceeded them is that Thao Nguyen has the sort of presence that no amount of practice can teach. She’s got the proverbial “it” made famous by Clara Bow. Yet although she is an attractive woman who sings songs, especially on the band’s last album Know Better Learn Faster that circle around the topic of romance, her appeal is not really sex appeal.

Or maybe it’s that she transposes what we think of as sex appeal into a register where it pushes buttons that have become sticky with disuse. One of the highlights of the concert was the song “When We Swam,” which features the injunction, “Bring your hips to me.” The fact that she’s a woman singing that line gives it enough of a twist – hips, after all, being a part of the body stereotypically identified with female sexuality – that it complicates listeners’ sense of power relations. Thao reinforced this effect live by mock insisting that her male bandmates do a silly hip-swinging dance. It was light-hearted moment, but one that still conveyed a serious point.

Another way in which the Plush show enhanced the band’s songs was to bring out textures in Thao’s singing and guitar-playing that their two albums downplay. Consistency of sound is a sensible goal, especially for an artist trying to make a name for herself, but the chameleon-like quality of her twin modes of expression is a strength that deserves to be more sharply delineated on future releases. The fact that she can channel Patti Smith, Kristin Hersh, Cat Power and sometimes even Lou Reed  — in her breathy semi-speaking delivery — is remarkably impressive, as is fretwork that glides seamlessly from skiffle to samba, all routed through the same roots rock filter that The Smiths’ Johnny Marr popularized. When you have that special quality that Thao exudes in abundance, revealing your influences only underscores the novelty of the finished product.    –Charlie Bertsch <cbertsch@gmail.com>

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down – When We Swam MP3