Times New Viking <3 the Velvets

Just about any band that veers off rock’s beaten path owes a debt of gratitude to the Velvet Underground. The band’s Lou Reed-led, Andy Warhol-produced The Velvet Underground & Nico and pretty much each boundary-pushing album thereafter conveyed a message: Rock is something to be messed with. It can be a form of art, and, as such, experimentation is a part of the process.

Given that legacy, Columbus’s hometown breakout art-rock icon Times New Viking was the perfect pick to pay homage to the Velvets last Saturday in a Wexner Center concert celebrating the final weekend of the Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms exhibition. It’s probably not overstating to say that Times New Viking (and a host of other bands) wouldn’t exist without the Velvet Underground.

And yet, since TNV’s boundary-pushing comes in the form of fuzzed-out pop songs that rarely make it past the 2 1/2-minute mark, there was a palpable sense of a curiosity and anticipation surrounding this show. How would Times New Viking interpret a seven-minute, dynamic-laden song like “Heroin”? Well, the band proved right away that it doesn’t mind taking a break from short shout-alongs to get all long and droney, and even (no joke) jam. “That’s already longer than most of our sets,” joked drummer/singer Adam Elliott after the first song, “Run Run Run,” off The Velvet Underground & Nico, from which the band drew the bulk of its material.

Times New Viking also had some help from a couple of friends: Mike Hummel--the white-haired elder statesman of the Columbus rock scene who’s perhaps better known as Mike Rep of Mike Rep and the Quotas--added guitar and vocals, and Cincinnati’s C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core contributed squeals, squalls and drones on violin. TNV guitarist Jared Phillips used his usual Strat/Marshall setup, but singer Beth Murphy often took a break from the analog synth to play a bright red guitar. (If you’re counting, that’s three simultaneously strummed guitars at a Times New Viking show.)

The super group’s re-appropriations made for a mostly gratifying Valentine’s Day show. I’ll just get a couple complaints out of the way, the most glaring of which was Hummel’s guitar. It was consistently way too loud, which is a shame since the stuff he was playing added a lot. But he continually drowned out the rest of the band, especially Phillips. And while Yeh squeezed some amazing sounds out of his violin, often making it sound like a digital loop or guitar feedback, his contributions were hit and miss. He sounded great on the beautiful mess of “All Tomorrow’s Parties” and “I Can’t Stand It” but was inaudible on “I’m Waiting for the Man” and just in the way on “Femme Fatale”; I would have liked to hear Murphy’s synth instead on that one.

But the highlights were plentiful. Aided by strobe lights and a screen that showed mostly pixelated video of the Velvet Underground, the band nailed the loud-quiet-loud and fast-slow-fast dynamic of “Heroin,” which Hummel took growly lead vocals on. It was the best of the night. Elliott and Murphy’s tag-team vocals usually worked well, too, with endearingly imperfect harmonies--pretty, in an off-kilter way. And Murphy’s deadpan vocal delivery was a good match for Nico-led songs like “I’ll Be Your Mirror.”

Ending the night with “After Hours” off VU’s self-titled album--probably the only Velvets song that could be considered “cute”--the band invited members of RTFO Bandwagon to come up while Ron House took over vocal duties. Roses were handed out, and the crowd sang along. It was fun, it was goofy, it was a great ending to the night, and proof that even art-rock doesn’t have to take itself too seriously.

Hodge Podge

-- "We are beautiful, we are doomed." That's the title of one of Los Campesinos!' two albums released in 2008, and it's also a fitting description of the band's show with Titus Andronicus at the Wexner Center last Wednesday. Titus Andronicus has no qualms airing their grievances in a tortured, messy way, thrashing around the stage with the punk vigor and reckless abandon that can only come from New Jersey youth. And boy did they look straight outta study hall. Or, probably more accurately, detention. They're definitely too young to be singing "I don't think I've ever been so tired of life," but the fact that they don't realize that made the near-trainwreck all the more fascinating to hear and watch. Los Campesinos! cloaked similar sentiments in more playful melodies, equal parts beauty and doom. I loved the boy-girl vocals, the excessive use of xylophone, the spoken rants, the Welsh accents, and, above all, the exuberance. This is the first band to earn the explanation point at the end of its name.

-- Watching Times New Viking tackle tunes from the Velvet Underground on Saturday night at the Wexner Center was bizarrely entertaining. In one way, it's fitting for art kids like TNV to re-appropriate and pay tribute to art-rock forefathers like the Velvets. But it's also shocking to see TNV play a song for more than two minutes, much less to engage in a droney jam. It made for a (mostly) pretty fun hour, though. Full review in next week's Other Paper.

-- I admittedly wouldn't know about Other Lives if I hadn't received a PR e-mail blast about them. But they're playing a show tonight at the Basement, opening up for the Delta Spirit. It's mopey but pretty stuff, so fans of Hayden, Strand of Oaks and even Coldplay and Elbow should find something to enjoy.

-- Athens, Ohio boys Southeast Engine released one of my favorite albums of 2007, A Wheel Within a Wheel. I think I'm a sucker for alliterative biblical lyrics, but that aside, I also think it's (post?)modern Americana at its best. There's a new album, From the Forest to the Sea, out tomorrow. I'm reserving judgment on that one till I give it a few more listens--review coming Thursday in the Other Paper--but check out Southeast Engine's album release show this Friday at the Treehouse with the Kyle Sowashes, the Coke Dares and Frontier Ruckus.