Danielson & Cryptacize – Live @ Knitting Factory, NYC

“I hear the ambulance towards you.” A woman somewhere on Broadway said this into her cell phone as I made my way to the Knitting Factory. Halloween in New York City was busy; and if you weren’t in costume, those who were let you know what they thought about it. Happily, the Factory’s bands (save opener Ortolon) put forth the costuming effort and the audience only listened.

To admit that I was unprepared for Danielson is to let me off easy, and if there are no objections. . .  From opener “Good News For the Pus Pickers” the – at present, an eight piece – band challenged my prejudice against bandleader Daniel Smith’s child’s howl of a voice; doing so with Smith’s baring, emotive power and the song’s spontaneous arrangements. “Pus Pickers,” for example, was held together by a riff that goes up and down, high to low, up the neck down the neck. (“Join into the ships when your mind is wild,” Smith sang; not calling but prompting the muse(s)) but continually changes melody/key/tempo throughout. Many of the songs employ an intermittent hammering at the bass note one step above the chord the song is resting on. More rigid than Led Zeppelin but thinking along the same lines: something about riffs that don’t slow down but don’t go anywhere either, purposefully reeling in captivating circles. It is a rather lovely and dark and powerful effect.

Of course, many of Danielson’s songs change so quickly and drastically that there is not much resting to be done. In the stillness between the Quiet and the Loud of Fetch the Compass. I am the jerk who claps midsong when everyone else totally knew it wasn’t over yet, jackass, hold your claps till the end, jeez. But that lovely (mildly tarnished) moment aside, Danielson, touring in support of the new Trying Hartz (a ten-year compilation of the band’s material) played the gleeful, rocking band I had not known them to be from home listening. (But lo, how those scales have fallen.)

With two female backing vocalists (including Cryptacize’s Nedelle Torrisi) each song was set-upon by all eight musicians in what should have been a farce but somehow was a tightly controlled and delightful band. (That the songs get memorized by all eight – what with the quick, strange changes in tempos and keys – is a marvel. That they are written is something else again. Danielson’s songs remind me of half-hour rock opuses I wrote in my teenage head but never had the tenacity or recall to write down.) That Smith continually invited audience participation saying, “This one’s a clap along” or “This one’s a clap along, sing along,” only augmented the communal experience. “Rallying the Dominos,” with its call / response, was hilarious and goofily menacing. “The Wheel Made Man” was carried by the piano’s circular arpeggio’s and I almost wished I could take the A train and walk Avenue C.*

“Sold! To the Nice Rich Man!” was perhaps the evening’s most surprising and rewarding delight. Defying the original LP version (guitar & vox) the song, with 16 arms to hold it, was a melodic treasure when Smith brought himself to hoarseness on the chorus’ “The rich man bought our wandering world, our wandering world, our wonderful world”; it became downright diabolical and bedeviling (all these Halloween words) in the form of sing along.

It would not do to fail to mention “Rubbernecker,” which was played – as quick as it is – without scar; and left me contented to have heard a favorite. Smith’s vocal yelp is childish, true, perhaps annoying – patronizing? – but also violent and endearing; and, in the flesh, intriguing and moving. There is the face that makes that sound, I thought; that voice like J Mascis but with glee. “Let us presume the best,” Smith sang.

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If Danielson brought the menace and fright (however joyful) on All Hallow’s Eve, Cryptacize brought the creepy but alluring shadows and fogs of things to come. Torrisi (as vampire) on lead vocals (it is no slight to say I thought of Diane Keaton’s “It Seems Like Old Times” in Annie Hall) and Chris Cohen (as mummy) on guitar, Cryptacize sounded like a group of songwriters influenced by artists I’ve never heard of but who love the art of crafting song. Michael Carreira on drums allowed songs to be disparate, if only because when the drum comes back you know you’ve got a song going. “Cosmic Sing-a-long” was perhaps their prettiest moment. “We’re all in a cosmic sing-a-long/ Till the day is done/ We’re all in a cosmic sing-a-long/ Till the world is done/ Sing along/ Every note is an unfinished song.” And I’m the rubbernecker.

*If it needs a footnote I shouldn’t bother, I know, but that’s a reference to the classic Duke Ellington song “Take the A Train”; and the Lambert, Hendricks & Ross song “Avenue C.” Otherwise it’s pretty inane.

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