Adam Green
Mon April 11
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside
For someone who has hinged virtually an entire career on an inexhaustible appreciation of sophomoric scatology, Adam Green sure goes to impressive lengths to appear as though he doesn’t give a shit. As one half of early-oughts anomaly the Moldy Peaches, Green and company forged an incredibly brief, intensely polarizing sort of cult fame; a fame that has since served as the momentum behind both of its principals’ (Green, and to a lesser extent, co-vocalist Kimya Dawson) solo careers. Green has volleyed this fleeting fame into an unlikely trio of records, ranging from charmingly clunky four track recordings (Garfield, his debut) to elaborate Bacharachian turd polishing (2003’s surprisingly compelling Friends of Mine). Now with Gemstones*, his recently released, third solo full-length, Green retreats from the ornate string-swelled glory of his sophomore record to prove once and for all that dude couldn’t care less what you think.
Green’s posturing certainly has had its benefits–he’s successfully convinced Rough Trade to foot the bill for what amounts to three incredibly self-indulgent, full-length folk-rock fart jokes of varying quality, and he gets to hang out with similarly droopy-lidded, “don’t-give-a-shit” 20-somethings like the Strokes and the Libertines. And through it all, Green has admittedly produced some pretty great music–though his reliance on adolescent humor and a pharmaceutical fascination frequently threaten to derail the whole mess.
As with Friends Of Mine, Gemstone*‘s major selling point remains Green’s lethargically innate sense of melody–an argument weakened considerably by Green’s increasingly taxing lyrical predilections, not to mention an overwhelming They Might Be Giants ambience throughout the albums arrangements. There are a few Gems (sorry) throughout, but the diamond-to-shit ratio is considerably more slanted than it has been in the past.
Thing is, I-don’t-give-a-shit is a posture one must maintain with a certain care–as its roughly one fatal misstep away from a “well, we don’t give a shit, either” audience response. And Gemstones* floats precariously close.