But then, the Projectors played a spectacular show, one that left me reverent and shocked. I left a convert, thankful that the band's front-row fans didn't give me the shiv.
Looking back, mine was an easy mistake to make: With his collection of difficult, noisy songs stretched over four discs (one of them featuring a grotesque naked man drawn on the cover), band leader Dave Longstreth seemed to be more concerned with art than audience—any audience. His singing style hadn't ever been described as anything kinder than "interesting," and his melodies were clanging.
What I didn’t know then was that the Dirty Projectors had already taken two huge steps in what would prove to be a lasting transformation. First, they borrowed songs—and turned them into something new. By the time the Dirty Projectors put out Rise Above, a collection of Longstreth’s reinterpretation of Black Flags’ classic punk album Damaged, the songs no longer belonged to Henny Rollins or Black Flag or Punk Rock. Second, in what I’m sure will go down as the wisest move of his musical career, Longstreth recruited help: singers Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman. While much has been made of their collaboration (some critics question the women’s loyalty to Longstreth, others cast him as an experimental heretic who corrupted their pop potential), their music is inspired. "Stillness is the Move," the lead single from the band’s new album Bitte Orca, is Longstreth’s gift to Amber, and it is just the kind of vibrant pop song she would be singing if she had chosen a different path.
It was these two critical changes that led the Projectors to their sold-out show at the Troubadour on July 8th. The crowd was frantic over Longstreth's twin vocalists, trying to sing along with Amber on “Stillness” and quietly adoring Angel as she sang "Two Doves," a soft-hearted number that opened their set. Brian McOmber’s drumming was so precise and powerful, Wilco's Glenn Kotche's hands would have blistered at the thought of keeping up. As complex as the breathless back-and-forth musicianship is on the Projectors' last two records, nothing compares to seeing this see-saw built on stage—Longstreth, Coffman, and Deradoorian dying for the notes, the three of them, at times, screaming. McOmber sets the charge, Longstreth and bassist Nat Baldwin tamp the powder down, and Coffman and Deradoorian rise with the resulting explosion.
Out in the crowd their fans gathered, those who had been right about the Projectors from the beginning and those, like me, who just needed a bit more time.
Originally in Los Angeles Magazine at: http://www.lamag.com/do/blog.aspx?dt=07/16/2009
