And so we return to this idea of Lambchop’s irrelevance. For the purpose of barroom reductions, Mr. M sounds like a bunch of guys tapping delicately on acoustic instruments from deep within a mausoleum, or the sound of wind blowing gently through the pages of an open book resting on a front-porch rocking chair. But how rare is it that a band asks you to listen to so little, and how much rarer is it that they make it sound like so much?
Cathedral, Manchester March 6, 2012 We find ourselves in Manchester Cathedral, a huge, weathered beauty that may have stood its ground for a thousand years or more. How appropriate a place it is to see Lambchop, a band that resolutely refuse to plough anything but their own distinctive furrow. Lambchop operate on Lambchop time, and the music stands or falls [...]
That would be Lambchop, still one of the most wonderfully strange bands in the universe after close to 20 years. In their hands, life is a cabaret, ol’ chum — and the sensibility is decidedly Down With People. Not that Wagner and company are misanthropic; they’re just keen observers of the barfly side of the human condition, with all its attendant follies and foibles. One song here is called “Nice Without Mercy,” which pretty much sums it up.
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