The Books | 11.23 | Los Angeles
By Team JamBase Dec 7, 2009 • 12:17 pm PST

The Books :: 11.23.09 :: Masonic Lodge :: Los Angeles, CA
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At the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, an unreleased song with no title illustrated this best. When a hunter uses a duck caller to attract some game, the sound the duck caller makes certainly isn’t art (unless you are defining “art” in the everything-is-art sense). But The Books manage to find a recording of this duck call, sample it in their music and make it musical and thought-provoking in a way that is perfect for somebody who likes to think too much (and this is meant as a compliment). While they sat and performed this playful song onstage – they sat for the entire hour-and-fifteen-minute set, as did the 200-person sold out audience, until after the one and only encore, when The Books said goodbye and the crowd saw them off with a heartwarming standing ovation – video of hunters and geese was projected onto the wall above their heads. That they found this duck call somewhere and incorporated it into their live show while a video of hunters trying to lure ducks flying past played, AND it seemed like the duck calling sound was coming from the ducks flying on-screen rather than from The Books, is some serious re-contextualization. Even if you didn’t think too deeply about it, it was emotionally stirring.
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The Books weren’t afraid to show off their darkly humorous side either. A montage of footage extracted from home videos – which they explained they found at various Salvation Army stores and thrift shops – of penguins falling and kids beating each other up, played throughout. Near the end of the set, a video of all the anagrams of the word “meditation” cracked the crowd up.
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Several thrones fit for kings were set up on the stage, and big, framed ’70s movie posters adorned the walls – Jaws, Chinatown, Star Wars, Raging Bull and Harold and Maude, to name a few. The Books obviously didn’t ask for these posters to be put up – these films are definitive Hollywood expressions, and that is why they were up there – but they were appropriate. They all are mainstream movies, but they all have vision and artistic integrity nonetheless. In other words, they all hold up despite themselves.
The Books make ostensibly boring music that is good to get a massage or fall asleep to. In 2006, they made elevator music for the Ministry of Culture building in Paris, France, and that seems like a match made in bookish heaven. But, they do what they do with a purpose that makes them original, if not pioneers. During the show, you felt like you were a part of something important, bearing witness to something groundbreaking, even if you couldn’t, and still can’t, explain why. I guess the best you can do is say that The Books are really inclusive. All night they seemed to be saying, “Look what can be art. Art can be pretty much anything, if presented imaginatively.”
The Books tour dates available here.
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