Sunset Rubdown/Frog Eyes: The Orange Carpet—Cornell College
May 14, 2006
By Sean Moeller

Before Frog Eyes played its last song this night, lead singer Carey Mercer took the time to thank openers Sunset Rubdown by saying, through a mischievous chuckle, “You guys are getting pretty good.”

Though it was mighty gracious, it probably wasn’t needed as his own keyboardist, Spencer Krug, is the man behind Sunset Rubdown and the new album, “Shut Up I Am Dreaming,” that’s already been confirmed as a strong contender for the record of the year in the minds of all those in favor of making such lists as the apple drops. Speaking for myself, it’s a piece of work that reminds me of a story I read about Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro the other day, in a newspaper I normally skim (USA Today). The article explained how there’s a chance that only six horses will even enter The Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown series, because other trainers/owners (the horses, again, are given no say) are intimidated by the dominance and mark of the undefeated three-year-old ass-kicker. They’d rather hold their entries out than to be embarrassed on the dirt. What I’m thinking is, maybe some bands need to reevaluate whether an ‘06 release date is a wise move if they’re going for the throat, shooting for the glory and self-love that comes from being the maker of the finest goddamn record album of the year as determined by 8-out-of-10 blogs or indie magazines of good public standing. It could just be a lost cause or a trouncing at the track. Enough with the digression, you say, but “Shut Up I Am Dreaming” – especially after seeing the live performance that Krug, drummer/guitarist Jordan Robson Cramer, keyboardist/vocalist Camilla Wynne Ingr and drummer/guitarist Michael Doerksen perpetrated – is my Barbaro. I would even recommend that Krug, Mercer and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar push the release date of their Swan Lake project (scheduled to be out in October on Jagjaguwar) into 2007. Give it the chance it so rightly deserves.

Sunday hadn’t even set yet when Sunset Rubdown took the temporary stage in the Cornell College Commons Building, a “venue” known as The Orange Carpet, cleverly referential to the color and makeup of the floor covering. College students with two weeks of class remaining hung off of the three flights of stair well, tracked through the side walkways with cardboard cups of Starbucks coffee and lecture notes in-hand. They walked by in running shorts, off to the gymnasium for a sweat. Fucking meanwhile, the most talked about band this side of Wolfmother, Gnarls Barkley or what have you was launching into “Stadiums and Shrines II” or something like-mindedly yearning and episodic of the twists and turns of mysterious fates. Quiet and respectful, the good-sized crowd was reminded of the odd, daylight hour that the show was taking place at when Krug said, “So, it’s 10 after seven. Coffee (holding up his joe).”

A story about a Mother’s Day buffet couldn’t even bruise this 10-song set, which at times took on the feel of an Irish jig (“The Took A Vote And Said No”) and others felt like a sequence from a Tim Burton feature, where the stilted animations were doing something in a dimly lit environment and bad news was in the air. It’s theme music for Edward Scissorhands getting so riled up and nervous that he accidentally shears his shirt sleeves or someone’s bangs. You get some circus with your stories about kids pilfered of their ears and eyes, waterfalls waiting inside wells and swimming. Krug sat at his Yamahas – often with his one leg tucked underneath himself, with a miniature kick drum to his left, knocking furiously at both. He was defined, appropriately enough, both when he sang, “Chaos is yours and it’s mine” and when he sang, “Oh baby, mother me,” a line from the stunning “Us Ones In Between.” This band can leave you with a dry mouth.

There was enough time to let the songs do the talking and for Mercer to establish himself as the consummate front man, destroying the soles of his Converse all-stars, shedding weight before our eyes with his jittery, agitated shivering and taking songs to their boiling point. Presumably, since the show was taking place at a college, Mercer would just tell the students what they were, saying, “You fucking nerds” or “You fucking dorks” to laughs before charging into a mix of songs from the recently re-is sued “The Bloody Hand” and “The Folded Palm,” “The Golden River” and new songs that found the energy to multi-task by stretching tight as a hamstring and then opening up like a balloon had just had a pin taking to it. Mercer goes crimson-faced and then goes as gentle as a bunny, the appropriate allocation for a torpedo. He’s evil energy, channeled into songs that are gloriously boisterous and brash and pretty.

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