There’s a palpable buzz in the air at MOM Livehouse before California indie veterans Deerhoof take to the stage. I’m going in blind, purely on the strength of the recommendations of friends. “You have to go to see Deerhoof”, they said. “There’s no chance you won’t love it.” As they’ve taken their work down from Spotify, the evil streaming platform I sadly still use, and they have a bafflingly large and varied back catalogue, I don’t listen to them beforehand. In short, I have no idea what to expect.
The band take to the stage and stumble through a brief self-introduction in Cantonese, before plunging into a rusty Captain Beefheart-style groove, all slide guitar and tumbling drums. It’s like diving in at the deep end of the swimming pool, and I’m momentarily lost in the water, unsure of which way is up. The music gives way to melodic, indie sections, before taking sudden left turns back into noise. The whole band speed up and slow down erratically, but always moving as one unit as if they’re breathing together.
I’m confused at first, but before long the music has me under its sway; it’s messy, rainbow-coloured, like paint running in all directions. It has an amorphous but fluid direction and frenetic, ever-changing structures. The thread of the music wanders here and there, sometimes nearly lost in unexpected about-turns but never fully obscured. Sudden explosions of raw chaos are counterbalanced by cute melodies. It demands to be taken absolutely on its own terms.
The four members are positioned in a line along the front of the stage. Guitarist Ed Rodriguez, in a purple ruffled shirt and mid-length frizzy hair, looking like Jack White moonlighting as a psychedelic pirate. Satomi Matsuzaki on bass and vocals, in an emerald dress and scarlet red shoes. Founding member and drummer Greg Saunier with a red-and-blue collared shirt, flowers on his jeans and long brown hair, the archetypal San Francisco hippie. And John Dieterich on guitar, with neat beard and plain grey T-shirt, looking for all the world like a regular guy.
They sometimes take breaks to talk; Saunier gets up from the tiny drum kit and ambles over to the microphone to give halting, philosophical and absurdist monologues. At one point he introduces a song as about stealing plants; he himself would never commit such a heinous crime, but songwriting gives us unfettered access to the realm of imagination, and allows to imagine a scenario in which we might steal plants. OK. Another song: “Imagine there’s a hell, and all your friends and family are trapped there. You need to go down, break open the gates and free them. That’s what this song is about.” Amazingly, the music sounds just like the description.
Individually they’re all master musicians; drummer Saunier in particular is mind-boggling. His non-traditional drumming draws from Keith Moon but he evokes Animal from The Muppets just as much, hair flying in all directions, face scowling and gurning. His cartoonish expressions follow every nuance of the drums, which he plays with full dynamic range from scratches and whispers to violent thuds and clangs. He even plays with his hands and manipulates the skin of his sole tom with his fingers to play melodies on different pitches.
But it’s as a single entity these musicians really shine; they’ve played together for so long that they know each other’s minds like their back of their hands, and they play as one entity, a psychic octopus flinging its tentacles with abandon and deadly accuracy. The music sounds chaotic at first blush but it reveals itself to be tightly written – guitar and vocals often play in unison and instruments intertwine in tight spirals of odd time signatures. The band goes from sprawling drum solos to tense, whip-sharp grooves at the drop of a hat. Interwoven guitars squeal sharply like flocks of startled birds.
Comparisons spring to mind: Frank Zappa, but punk? The Red Krayola? Captain Beefheart? (many bands cite Beefheart as an influence; most are too timid to follow him too far into the spiky, avant-garde wilderness). But all inevitably fall short – this is its own thing, operating successfully in its own world, following its own bizarre but internally consistent logic. It works best when you stop thinking and just feel it.
About halfway through the set, the band members start swapping instruments. Guitarist Dieterich sits in the drum chair as Saunier sings a short psychedelic waltz. Then he takes over bass duties, freeing Matsuzaki to engage in cryptic dancing. She jigs like a woodland creature as Rodriguez plays renaissance figures in 10/8 on the guitar. She hops with hands forming bunny ears above her head as she screams “BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY” to crowd now hyped up beyond belief. As great a bass player she is, she’s free to cavort about the stage without the encumbrance of the instrument, inciting the crowd into a frenzy.
Strange sounds blast by; one song alternates heavy King Crimson-style unison riffing with sweet singsongs to breakneck effect. Another interpolates the Knight Rider theme with ‘Electric Avenue’. They end on a long feedback jam that finishes on a long, sustain buzz, followed by ‘Thank you!’ and an abrupt cut.
The stage setup is simple: nothing but stark coloured lights. All the drama in the performance is in the band members’ faces, movements, and the music itself. The band remind me of children engaging in creativity in its purest state; creating happy chaos for the sheer joy of it. By the end of the show, the whole audience is nodding to each other, with dazed looks on their faces, as if to say “This is amazing, right? Are you getting this too?”.
Deerhoof’s music is far outside the box of what’s commercially viable; they’ve built a dedicated audience through word of mouth, decades of dedicated work, and by simply being good at what they do. They’re freaks, proud to fly their freak flag rather than conform. This authenticity is what’s most valuable in their music – in being themselves so uncompromisingly, they remind us it’s OK to be human and to be weird, to really experience the world around us and to participate in creation with glee.
Photography｜Moolai
