Ebony Bones and Ninjasonik at Bowery Ballroom 7/29/09

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I had never seen Ebony Bones before, and had only heard about them after Eatsdirt caught them at The Pool Parties last year, but having seen the pictures she captured, I was intrigued.

I love what is termed Eccentric Soul, which I guess is a secret back door marketing term for black music that doesn’t fit into the standard marketing devices. My awareness and appreciation for this is largely to a long time love of the magazine Wax Poetics, which covers Latin and Black music with a crate digger’s ear, but a historian’s ability to dig up information. Using the Internet to track down what they talk about has lead to a ton of interesting and off the wall finds, which have served to broaden my already expansive musical interests and also to further deplete my starved wallet.

So when I see someone like a Janelle Monea, or Outkast, or Gnarls Barkley making great, vibrant music drawing from familiar traditions, I’m drawn to it. Unfortunately with time being pecked to death by the crows of responsibility and obligation, I don’t get much opportunity to seek out all the new music in all the various genres in which I have an interest. This is rather unfortunate, and as such, I am at a loss with regards to many acts.

Ebony Bones is one whose music I had heard but to which I never really listened. It served as background noise put on while surfing other sites whittled down to 64kpbs streamed over Myspace. It’s the audio equivalent of skimming Cliff’s Notes. You’ll catch the barest of basics, enough to get a sense of what’s there, but to try and grasp what’s going on or to speak to someone with a deeper understanding you’ll realize quickly how little you picked up.

Last night, Eatsdirt and myself braved the continuing horrible weather meeting friends to catch Ebony Bones at The Bowery Ballroom. Ninjasonik were a last minute addition to the bill, so I knew that even if recent up and coming band The Drums or Ebony Bones failed to impress, that I would be guaranteed at least one high-energy rambunctious performance. I was also testing out a new camera so I knew that there would be some good shots because Ninjasonik put on a good show.

I’m often have trouble trying to tell people about Ninjasonik without sounding like someone who doesn’t get it or I over explain and sound a bit academic for what many people consider disposable party rap, which to a degree it is, but to use this as a pejorative, is to be dismissive at best and disingenuous at worst. It’s music to make people dance while also speaking from a kind of unique social and cultural experience.

The concerns spoken of are universal concerns of being denigrated anonymously, concerns for originality, sex and consequence concerns, peer concerns, and tales of bon vivant in youth. It’s entirely understandable if people don’t like it, but to attempt to dismiss it due to willful ignorance is unfortunate.

Last night’s show started to a nearly empty room. A few diehards; largely friends of Eatsdirt and me, a few stragglers, and people working. When a band is performing to an empty room, it tends to do one of a few things. It either gets upset and doesn’t perform very well, not really caring about the end result, the “Why Try Harder?” mentality or it goes for broke, because it’s divorced from all consequences anyway, so why not push against convention and do what you want? A sort of apocalyptic nihilism theater. In this venue, it’s the end of the world and now to go out banging.

Last night, Ninjasonik went out banging. The banter was there, Tellie sarcastically quipping that he loved performing to an empty room because it made him feel like a comedian. The music was there (Shoot the Lazer, Negative Thinking about Tight Pants, I Love Art School Girls, Matt and Kim’s Daylight, a Cover/Screamalong/Remix of Bad Brains Attitude). And three songs into it, the girls were there, appearing seemingly out of nowhere one hundred percent dancing and screaming and grinding.

Few things motivate like jiggling tiddies.

They were joined on stage by two people who I didn’t recognize and seemed to be Toasters / Hypemen who added to the show instead of appearing to be hangers on who convinced the band to let them onstage. The show was good for them but if you were antagonistic then it probably wouldn’t have changed your mind. We took a Ninjasonik virgin and she had a blast. Her reactions were almost as entertaining as their antics.

After the set we retreated for Drums, as they were not really my thing. Madchester meets the Cure minus the swagger and poetry. You can download their Summertime EP from rcrdlbl.com.

A few days ago, the Ebony Bones tour van caught fire. Rather dramatically. It destroyed all of their equipment, merch, instruments, and even their passports. At this point in the story, someone would typically say something along the lines of “because the music they make is so hot.” This is why people despise music journalism, so we will dispense with cute puns that make light of shitty situations while also fawning over our topic.

Ebony Bones is a self-taught singer songwriter multi-instrumentalist who is also a Shakespearian actor and BAFTA winning TV Soap Star whose self released singles have twice successively appeared as Singles of the Week on BBC Radio 1. Those of you who didn’t slink off to open your veins can read more about her at her Wikipedia page or you can await the inevitable unenviable comparisons to MIA (women of color doing political and sexual music? This is unprecedented!) after her album Bone of my Bones is released later this year.

Her stage show consists of a drummer, guitarist, two keyboardist/samplers, a tenor saxophonist, and two back up singer/percussionists (though largely their percussion consisted of two instruments a piece). The band files in, a introduction musical segue starts and then the band launches into “We Know All About You”, which is about the encroaching police state which started in the 80s but has exploded post-7/7. The various instruments mesh together to create a great funky undertone and makes police state paranoia danceable.

Having never seen her, nor really heard her, this show was an absolutely amazing experience. The dynamic costumes, the choreographed umbrella and fan dances, the singer led audience dancing, constant movement, the clean almost Speed Garage wall of bass lines, the snippets of lyrical content that make you realize that you’re dancing with wild abandon to songs about economic policy. Bloggers love this shit, so expect to hear a lot about it.

I really can’t say much more beyond do your absolute damndest to get in on the ground floor of this act while you can and NEVER MISS ANOTHER SHOW.

And then Eatsdirt and I had Halal Cart Gyros.