The son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono was due to take the stage any minute, and the venue was still half empty.
The bar remained fairly quiet until well past the posted show time of 8pm, and the crowd was mellower than most Noise Pop shows, bereft of plaid shirts, but full of men with ponytails and unironic facial hair. I sat off to one side, sharing the banister with a young couple in lust and an older gentleman who turned around to make polite conversation with me before asking me what I was writing in my “diary”. It was 8:30 and the opening band was nowhere to be seen.
Eventually, a military jacket clad Sean Lennon took the stage, accompanied by a children’s tape cassette player and drummer Greg Saunier, and they proceeded to make strange and wonderful noises that spanned the musical spectrum from droning distortion to Metallica-like guitar riffs. Lennon began the set with delicate finger picking, morphed by the array of pedals at his feet into a repetitive chaos of crunchy sounds that seemed at odds with Saunier’s free jazz influenced drumming. He frequently crouched on the ground, seemingly oblivious to the crowd, which now filled a good two thirds of the venue. Saunier hammered out even the simplest rhythms with an animal like enthusiasm that overtook his entire body. Despite the infamy of the man behind the guitar, Saunier was clearly calling the shots. The tape player appeared half way through the set, acting as the band’s solo vocalist, regurgitating a religious monologue that was probably older than Mr. Lennon himself. The turquoise and purple stage lights gave the band’s one unbroken song an air of psychedelia, lighting the edges of Lennon’s gold trimmed jacket and mop of curly hair in a halo of tropical colors.
Following Consortium Musicum, If By Yes took took the stage, a frankenstein band comprised of Cornelius and Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band members, led by singer Petra Haden. Dreamy 1950’s pop vocals were backed by charming keyboards, slow wandering guitar solos, and frequent bursts of overly cheerful wind chimes. Lyrics about love and beauty were punctuated by choruses of nonsensical monosyllabic babble and gratuitously picturesque descriptions of summer weather. The singer swayed slowly, embracing herself as she sang about love, beauty, and the beauty of being in love. Lennon took the stage once more, joining in on guitar and banana shakers for a dance number before If By Yes closed their set with their most genuine song of the evening: a long stream of tribal beats and experimental guitars, carried by Haden’s powerful singing. She exhausted her vocal cords completely with echoing chants that eventually devolved into primal orgasmic wails, lost in the crashing of Yuko Araki’s cymbals and the growling of a violin bow on rough electric guitar strings.
By this point the venue was almost entirely full, the crowd comfortably plied with alcohol and the not infrequent lighting of joints. A small woman dressed in a brocade jacket, striped stockings, and a large fur hat crawled through a sea of legs on hands and knees to reach her purse, which was tucked under a bench. She pulled out a crystal and showed the legs she had crawled through how to view the stage through its facets. Soon before the final set, a funerary looking Yoko Ono was hustled through the crowd wearing a wide brimmed black hat and sunglasses, flanked by a posse of similarly dressed women, but no one seemed to notice. Sean Lennon appeared on stage for the third and final time, this time as The Ghost of a Saber Toothed Tiger, his band with girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl.
Lennon and Muhl used their time on stage as a vehicle through which to express their own saccharine romantic whims. Muhl, who began on keyboards, moved to the bass for the remainder of the show, though she couldn’t tell whether or not it was tuned at first. She also sang throughout the set, as many of the songs featured verses of twee banter between the two lovers, and those that didn’t were heavy on harmonies. Kemp Muhl’s voice, sweet and high, evoked an image of twin sets and poodle skirts, contrary to the downtown New York uniform of leggings and vintage concert t-shirt she appeared in. Her vocals were perfectly suited to the band’s short psychedelically poppy songs and Lennon’s own voice, which took on the tone of his famous father’s as he sang lyrics filled with beatles-esque imagery: yellow brick roads, shapes in the clouds, and rainbows in puddles of gasoline. Their songs showed obvious musical similarities to If By Yes’, a matter Lennon acknowledged by commenting on the family-like existence of his and Kemp Muhl’s Chimera Records, which produces a gaggle of variously interrelated musical endeavors put out by the Cornelius/Ono Plastic Band/If By Yes/Lennon/Kemp and Eden collective. Where If By Yes verged on the experimental at times, Ghost of a Saber Toothed Tiger remained loyal to its indie pop sensibilities, abandoning the violin bow distortion for clear acoustic guitar melodies and the occasional addition of a sitar or an adorable neck tie shaped washboard. Whistle duets were also present along with occasional spacey additions on synthesizer and a liberal smattering of wind chimes to keep things cheerful. The band played a quick progression of songs about unrequited love and the pressures of society, replete with whimsical imagery, ending with an acoustic encore performance of “The World Was Made for Men”, a catchy duet that rang in my ears long after the show ended.
I went into the show with few expectations, most of them Beatles-related, and came out with both my John Lennon cravings satisfied and my curiosity piqued. Lennon managed to be a part of all three sets without seeming ostentatious, instead giving the impression of a man who has grown up in infamy, made a few highly publicized records, retreated to the anonymity of studio work, and emerged with his own record label, comfortable enough with himself to simply do what he loves for anyone who will listen. I can’t say I was bowled over by any one of the bands that played that night, but I get the feeling Lennon wouldn’t really mind, and maybe that’s the secret to his enviably placid demeanor.
