Meloy Was Meant for the Stage

During a special solo performance at TT the Bear’s last Tuesday, Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy revealed himself as the king of the high-school theater nerds.

“We’re going to move away from the gypsy material,” the singer-songwriter playfully told the sold-out audience after his first song, “and move into the autobiographical material.”

The crowd collectively giggled, and began to bubble with anticipation for the next tune. His first one had, indeed, been about a gypsy girl—“Shiny,” from the Decemberists’ debut EP—and now the mass of music-loving intellectuals were probably, on the whole, expecting their hero to launch into a number with lyrics culled directly from real-life experiences. So it was little surprise that an even larger collective giggle erupted when the next song turned out to be the beautiful, but sublimely fictional, “My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist.”

Like that coyly intelligent actor back in high school who was great to have around at parties because he knew how to get a rise out of everyone without having to be crude or drunk, Meloy had lovingly placed the audience in the palm of his hand and, with a little half-smile to himself, squeezed out a gleeful chortle.

THE ACTOR’S METHOD

That playful tone wasn’t the only thing that made him shine through as a theatrical presence. Perhaps the most thrillingly strange aspect of Tuesday’s concert, and of most of Meloy’s recorded work with the Decemberists, is how utterly and astonishingly genuine he sounds when he croons out those elegant strings of lies about Manchurian secret agents and deceased chimney-sweeps. In a sense, he’s a member of a rare and dying breed of musicians—those who can act. Those who can create a character wholly different from themselves, whose experiences may be completely foreign and exotic, and then still manage to find some kind of universal emotional truth with which to imbue that character on stage. There are hundreds upon hundreds of musicians out there who can scream through blatantly personal songs about girls they dated or political issues that anger them, but precious few can truly illustrate a life that they themselves never led. Perhaps Meloy himself put it best in his “Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect”—performed near the end of the set—when the narrator of that song, like Meloy himself, becomes lost in intricate fantasies of being a soldier in a perfumed Polish town, an accomplished builder of balustrades, and a womanizing Spanish puppeteer, but seems most comfortable when conveying his real emotions by describing these unrealities in song.

So, what’s the truth beneath these delicious falsehoods? Well, at a very basic level, Meloy is a bespectacled young thirtysomething from Helena, Montana with a degree in creative writing and a uniquely nasal singing voice. In 2001, while living in Portland, he and a handful of similarly-minded individuals formed a band called the Decemberists, named after the group of Russian insurgents who unsuccessfully tried to stage a coup against Tsar Nicholas I in 1825. That brand of exotic, obscure, and only-half-serious historical reference has come to define the work of the band, from their 2002 Five Songs EP (which, in trademark cheeky Decemberists fashion, was comprised of six songs), through their two breakthrough LPs, Castaways and Cutouts and Her Majesty the Decemberists, both released in 2003, and into their most recent release, 2004’s single-song 20-minute epic of an EP, The Tain.

Their songs are folksy, but have a lot of muscle, and rely heavily on Meloy’s uncanny ability for wordy lyrics and high-flying melody. Meloy’s talents seem to be the principal explanation for the sudden fame of the group within indie rock circles and beyond. The band still maintains a relatively low profile, so don’t feel guilty if you’ve never heard of them.

What do they sound like? Well, Meloy’s songwriting does echo the sound of bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, Belle & Sebastian, and Robyn Hitchcock, who affix pop sensibilities on intricate, narrative lyrics. But perhaps musical reference points aren’t the best way to describe what makes Meloy’s songs so indelible. More than anything else, Meloy is like a musical version of writer/publisher Dave Eggers and much of the McSweeney’s coterie, effortlessly blending wry tongue-in-cheek humor with genuinely-felt storytelling.

THE SHOW’S THE THING

But don’t assume that Meloy is content to approach his performance with intellectual distance. When he gets on stage, Meloy knows how to work a crowd.

Throughout Tuesday night’s set, Meloy was a consummate actor, giving his audience two gifts: his little musical fictions and his love of connecting with people. In fact, virtually every gap between songs was filled with some kind of creative and casual banter—while tuning his guitar, he admitted that he felt “obligated to talk, because all you people paid good money for a show,” and he fulfilled this perceived obligation with a constant flow of anecdotes, observations, and reminiscences. Meloy is also a firm believer in audience participation. Early in the set, he urged the crowd to stomp their feet in rhythm—teasingly reminding them to “stay in tempo”—and he slowly eased into the lurchingly rhythmic and joyful “Los Angeles, I’m Yours.”

More than a few beaming smiles could be seen from the audience. While introducing a B-side from the forthcoming Picaresque LP, due out on March 22, Meloy mentioned that the recording will feature an improvised tap-dance solo during the bridge. Two young women from the audience yelled out an offer to perform a tap-dance during the live performance, and Meloy smilingly agreed.

In the indie-rock press, much has been made of Meloy’s choice to cover songs by former Smiths frontman Morrissey during this solo tour. Meloy is nowhere near the ostentatious firebrand that Morrissey is, but he’s picked up the Moz’s mischievous sense of humor, penchant for unreliable lyrical narrators, and lack of inhibition when it comes to appearing sensitive or effeminate.

However, one should never forget that Meloy is no frail waif of a performer. To close the main set, Meloy picked up his giant twelve-string and played through an extended version of the epic, 10-minute-long Castaways and Cutouts finale, “California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade.” During the transcendent bridge that transitions between the song’s two parts, Colin sat himself down on the stage and turned his eyes downward to his guitar, strumming one single riff over and over, eventually shifting it around until he came to a new variation, then shifting it even more and incorporating the hook from R.E.M.’s classic “Seven Chinese Brothers.” Then he swirled the section around into a roaring and wholly original climax before rising again to quietly declare the song’s anthemic call to arms: “We’re lining up the light-loafers / And the bored bench-warmers / Castaways and cutouts… / Come join the youth and beauty brigade”.

Sure, maybe the whole sitting-on-the-floor thing was a bit pretentious and artsy, but isn’t that what theater is all about—risking humiliation in the hope that you can make your life as a “castaway” as beautiful and vibrant as it can be? And to help your audience achieve that same kind of liberation? If so, then Colin Meloy revealed himself to be among the greatest musical actors of his generation.