I Don’t Have Time For Your Blog

The Decemberists played here in Los Angeles last night. It was one of the best shows I’ve been to all year. They played with lots of energy and skill, and Colin Meloy’s self-consciously intellectual lyrics just flowed over the audience like a McSweeney’s reading you could dance to.

I saw a familiar actress at the show — I won’t name names, but let’s just say she was in “Spider-Man” and “Spider-Man 2″ — looking emaciated and frightening. One bad turn of her heel and it looked as if her leg would snap like a twig. I hope she gets better from whatever she’s got.

One small, strange thing I noticed about the way Colin sang.

Whenever he sang an open vowel like “ah” or “uu”, his tongue would pop out of his mouth, not a little but a fair amount, like you would at the dentists only straight out instead of curled down. It added sort of a raspy “ylll” to the sound that was very distinctive — distinctive but familiar.

The first artist I thought of once I’d seen this was, of course, Joe Cocker in his famous Woodstock performance of “A Little Help From My Friends”. You could hardly miss that thing snaking out of Joe’s mouth during the “Do you need anybody? / Could it be anybody?” call-and-responses.

But the guy who probably precedes them all on “that sound” is probably Van Morrison. The Cocker-Springsteen vocal style in general — the mutter that swings up to a growl and a scream and back again — probably owes its lineage to him.

Now Colin’s vocal is much clearer, but I think there’s still a connection: his open vowels are voiced by lips tightly curled around teeth. It’s slightly nasal, more of a hum than a shout.

Try it, I guess, the next time you sing “Happy Birthday” or something — just shove that tongue up and out towards the center point of your mouth during the “aaa” of “happy” and the “ur” of “birthday”. See if anyone notices.

I forgot to mention the two women armed — double fisted — with cans of whipped cream who approached me as I relaxed by the curb during Decompression.

“Would you like us to squirt in your mouth?” they asked.

Why… yes. Yes, I would.

Four nozzles approached and committed a brief but sudden act of whipped creamery.

“Pffnk ymw,” I added, as they skipped on to find other willing participants.

There’s something that doesn’t happen every day. Thank you, Guerilla Reddi-Whippers, wherever you are.

So last night I took the subway down to LA Decompression, which is a regional Burning Man Event. I had a great (first!) time at Burning Man this year, and thought it would be a nice way to reconnect.

I was not disappointed. It was tiny, of course — little can compare to the vastness of Black Rock City — but it had the right flavor, a friendly crowd dressed to the nines.

Fashion note: I didn’t really understand what playawear was before I went to Burning Man. I mean, sure, you can look at pictures on the web, but it’s hard to get the Zen of it until you’re in it.

There are two major fashion groups at Burning Man:

• Goth/Industrial/Post-apocalyptic
• Fab-u-lous!

Somewhere in there lurks a few minor subgroups like Raver stuck in time and Hallowe’en gone wrong. Oh, and the always popular Portly naked man.

Anyway, it was a fun event — nothing on the scale of Burning Man proper, but a morsel, an amuse bouche, if you will.

I also got to see Drop Black Sky there, which is a band my friend Lisette has been tirelessly promoting for quite a while and God only knows why I never went to one of their shows before, because their stuff is great and you can listen to their whole EP on their website.