John Vanderslice plays the good guy with dark material in Brooklyn

June 12, 2009, at the Music Hall of Williamsburg

By Dominick Mastrangelo
Published: June 15th, 2009 | 2:00pm

Widely regarded as one of the nicest guys in rocknroll, John Vanderslice brought his good guy image and noted charm to the Music Hall of Williamsburg on the second night of Brooklyn’s Northside Festival. In support of his new record, Romanian Names (Dead Oceans) — inspired by watching last year’s summer Olympics in China —Vanderslice showed he has shed the conspiracy theories and post-9/11 backdrops of his previous two records.

The contrast is that, despite his upbeat nature and constant between song check-ins with the crowd (Vanderslice repeatedly asked a full Music Hall, "Is everyone okay?" and "Are you all having a good time?" with equal earnestness), his songs are decidedly dark. In addition to Romanian Names’ dark material, Vanderslice kept offerings from his previous two records to a minimum, opting instead for several songs from 2004's Cellar Door (Barsuk).

Where beauty is concerned, it was the lush "Trance Manual" from 2005's Pixel Revolt (Barsuk) that offered a swaying melody and Vanderslice's sharp turn of phrase, "you are the flag of a dangerous nation," a reference to an Iraqi prostitute. The majestic track "Too Much Time" from the new record was also notable for how much it copied the DNA of "Trance Manual.”

For lighter fare, it was Pixel Revolt's "Angela” as the crowd sang along about an escaped pet rabbit, "lovingly crossing the Henderson's front lawn”— the rabbit a metaphor for a strained and failing relationship.

Vanderslice leaned heavily on his backing band and ferociously attacked his guitar on Romanian Name's "Forest Knolls" and Cellar Door's "Pale Horse.” He then went solo to play the title track of the new record, an impossibly short vignette about a Romanian gymnast circa the Cold War/Iron Curtain era who was taken away at the age of three "to learn a craft to make you compete." Coming out of the brief solo set, he led the band through the pretty "Tremble and Tear" with its revelatory refrain "here comes the one, here comes the one, the one, the one. Yeah, she's the one."

Opening for Vanderslice was singer-songwriter Tallest Man On Earth (nee Kristian Matsson) who buzzed about the stage and sang his blistering folk songs. Matsson’s intensity was arresting as he moved from one side of the stage to the other and briefly sat down in a chair only to shoot right back up in a tenth of a second, eyebrows raised high, as if he had just heard some shocking news. The darkness of his relationship-heavy songs was a perfect complement to the headliner.

For more photos from this show visit Venus Zine’s Flickr page

John Vanderslice official site
John Vanderslice MySpace page
Dead Oceans Records