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Cat Power, 40 Watt, 11/18/06

by The Bridge
11/29/2006

So here's a tired little joke you've heard, most likely with "sex" in the first blank: "___ is like pizza; even when it's bad, it's still pretty good." Which has always annoyed me a bit, because, for one thing, it isn't even true. Pizza can be good cold, if it was a quality pie to begin with, and okay pizza is okay. The thing with pizza is, even when it's bad, it's still a good idea.

Which is how it is with one Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power. You only had to listen to her early records (and have a taste for minimalist, whiskey-wonked folkish tunes that sound as though they are being slowly flushed) to realize that this was true. Her early performances, though - ah. Well, have you read a music rag in the last ten years? It's an old story at this point. Onstage, Marshall was awkwardness and self-loathing personified, delivering one mesmerizing train wreck after another. Years ago, when I saw her for the first time (touring a few months after releasing Moon Pix, her first truly solid album), I was prepared to love her no matter what. I hyped the show endlessly to whomever would listen and arrived early, breath bated, ready to adore. And yeah, it was rough. She seemed to have a rather apologetic form of Tourette's, muttering "sorry" repeatedly and rapidly like it was a coda to each song - none of which she actually finished. She smacked herself in the face, tugged her hair, squirmed in her seat, mumbled lyrics down the collar of her shirt, inaudible. "I'm really sorry about her drug problem," a friend remarked - one of the many to whom I had sang her praises.

So, onstage, Cat Power simply didn't have much. But she was still a good idea, so I still forked over ten to twenty every chance I got, despite continued negative reinforcement.

So, when the hype began about Chan's new show, my ears were perked. It's a new lady, they say. Chan Marshall has recovered the groove we never knew she had. Cat emPowerment. Not to be missed. Which brings us to November eighteenth at the 40 Watt, where a fairly full house came out to see if it was true.

So let's get this out of the way first: the show was very, very good. Her much-ballyhooed backing band of salty session players from the Way Back school is as good as you've heard, a soulful and solid bunch featuring Mabon "Teenie" Hodges (of Al Green collaboration fame) on guitar, amongst a large - eight or nine or so - group of folks, many of them notables on the soul/R&B scene. Despite Hodges - who is terrific, and who takes the lead at one point for a fine, buoyant performance of his own "Since You've Been Gone" - I have to give the keyboard/organ player M.V.P. honors for the night. He has a way of carrying his spotlight moments on the keys that lifts eyebrows while maintaining a sort of gentlemanly deference to his fellow musicians; and, with his vaguely bug-eyed, watchful gaze, he is clearly the guy holding Chan's ship together.

Now let's get this out of the way: the assumption that she's only on because of the new backing band. It is going to be said. There is so much go-girl buzz for Cat Power right now, a backlash is inevitable, and the easiest way for some crusty scenester critic dude to pop Chan's party balloon is to say that she's built a wall of real musicians to protect her.

Granted, the band is, as I have already said, damned good, and they establish their chops straightaway, opening with an upbeat intrumental number that highlights most of the hired guns briefly and efficiently. And when Marshall slinks onstage, their is an unmistakable energy exchange between girl and band - you can feel them rooting for her, like a bunch of fond parents watching their wallflower daughter at a dance recital.

But Marshall is no weak link, and, with a little help, true, from her friends, her live show is finally reflecting that. Despite all the reports that she's a "changed woman," or whatever, there is a lot of Cat Power now that feels quite familiar. She's still awkward, given to strange, twitchy gestures, spastic stage patter, and moments of uncertainty-particularly when her band members leave her, midway through the show, to run through some older solo stuff. But.

She's doing the chicken dance-frequently. She's smiling and waving and fans. She's singing the actual chorus of the Stones' "Satisfaction" (a song she covered on her Covers album as a moaning study of desparation, all sleepy acoustic strumming and full-moon yowling and absolutely no mention of the word for which the song is named) while swaying her hips, shaking her books, and grinning.

And she's AUDIBLE. This is the biggest coup, for my ears. Chan Marshall has one of those voices - the kind you are required by law to italicize. Husky, billowing, cawing and cooing, as it slides into every shadow on the chromatic scale you realize that Billie Holiday didn't know jack about heartbreak. In her previous shows, Marshall sang like a guilt-ridden perp confessing her crimes to the court, dodging the mic like it was an accusing finger. Tonight's performance has her vocals higher up in the mix than I have ever heard them, and far from being shy of herself, Marshall seems to be reveling in the power her voice has in any given song. She plays constantly with dynamics, approaching the mic from varying, strange angles and positions, now close, now far, now hushed and breathy, now wailing, bluesy and showboating. When she performs "Where is My Love" - a strikingly fey number whose Disney-sugared strings and overtly sleeve-stuck heart would have Bjork feeling at home - it's a revelation, and it's hers, as she lets herself soar, out loud and raw. "The Moon" brings another bit of frisson, growing from an achingly earthbound ode to the unttainable (by distance or death) to what sounds like a self-referential mantra, as she and her backup girls chant "Everyone thinks that they own you... more than you do."

It quickly becomes clear that the effects of Marshall's new material and her new band are hard to separate, either from each other or her. They're all quite attached to each other and the songs, it seems, and the mutual fondness lifts already well-styled moments to spot-on perfection: their unity is impeccable. The chill, street blues vibe spills over in her older material, as well. "Diamond Eyes," in particular, is gorgeously transformed. The original version was always a stand out, with its narcotically driving drumbeat and grim-reaper-lullaby lyrics. To this Chan and her peeps have added a funkily forboding layer of brass and the end-of-the-world power of her backup ladies' pipes. The result is a death wish you can dance to, and it's great.

The show's energy peaks as the band returns and Marshall leads them through a cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" that makes it clear the tune was written for her. Afterwards, she hits a few more solo numbers, and while performing sans Memphis buddies is still her weak spot, she seems to be getting better at it almost literally by the minute. There are moments where her trademark insecurity just seems a bit of artifice, a well-placed garnish of vulernability as opposed to that which stops the show. Indeed, Miz Marshall seems to be having too much fun to stop, playing three or four more tunes after promising "just one more." And like proud parents, we in the audience smile with pride as our girl grows up, right before our eyes.