Morphin' man

Beck is better than the real thing

by Jon Garelick

I'm not trying to get to the artifice, I'm trying to get to what it is.

-- Beck, Rolling Stone, April 17, 1997

Beck's performance at Brandeis's Gosman Center last Friday was both the epitome of artifice and the heartbeat of "what it is." "Do you want to call this a party?!" he asked the crowd." "Do you want to call this a get-together?! Do you want to call this a jamboree?!" He paused to reflect. "I want to start something up," he said. "I want to start the orgy!"

At Brandeis, Beck the misterioso pop craftsman was Beck the consummate entertainer. His albums are a hodge-podge of styles -- rap, R&B, C&W, hardcore punk, folk blues, lounge exotica -- melded into a style that's as familiar as it is strange. The left-field sonic effect has become Beck's hallmark, as it has with his spiritual brothers the Beastie Boys. He employs Sun Ra keyboards, sitars and tablas, a touch of spy-movie flutes -- but what he ends up with are the unifying verities of pop: hooks and grooves, words you sing aloud even when you aren't sure what they mean. At Brandeis, the performer was as endearing as the discs.

Skeptics can argue that Beck's pop alchemy doesn't run very deep; it's all a put-on, a too-clever postmodernist joke, all so ironic that it hurts. You sure could have argued that from the opening of the Brandeis show. After a scratch-turntable intro and a fanfare from the band, Beck entered wearing his powder-blue polyester suit and strutting his stuff with a cane. Here he was, the baby-faced, lithesome blond 26-year-old white boy as the Duke of fucking Earl.

Not that the music itself was ever a question. The band cooked from that first virtuoso turntable display through the opening "Devil's Haircut" to the "High 5" encore 90 minutes later. The DJ wore a black cowboy hat and bandit's bandanna pulled up over his nose, the guitarist was dressed like a lounge sleaze. Beck identified the players only by pseudonyms (DJ Swamp, Smokey Hormel, etc.), but the mix of guitars/bass/drums/turntable effects/keyboards mastered every lick of the albums with authority. Fuzz-guitar grooves, triggered effects, and, uh, backing tapes? Whatever, ignore that man behind the curtain!

Beck addressed the crowd throughout the night with high-blown cool rhetoric. When after a few numbers the stage was getting pelted with sneakers, he suggested that rather than throw a shirt or shoe, the audience "donate it to your local shelter for the homeless . . . We are well taken care of in the clothing and shoe department, as you can see." And when the crush in the general-admission basketball arena verged on the dangerous, he said, "Gentlemen, please be careful of these ladies down in front." It was Ellington addressing the mosh pit. But then, swallowing the mike like Ad-Rock, Beck added, "In other words, BACK THE FUCK UP!"

The hokum reached its height with "Debra," a soul ballad that had Beck reaching for a Curtis-Mayfield-via-Prince falsetto, which led him to testify breathily: "I'm a full-fledged man, and I'm not afraid to cry." The band played it perfectly, and Beck sang well. But at a soul show the women would have been screaming. The teenage white girls at Brandeis had screamed too, but mostly for "The New Pollution." For "Debra" Beck got appreciative laughter. So that's all the tune was -- a joke on how white folk just can't give it up? It didn't help that Beck cried crocodile tears into his intro for the next tune.

The turning point sincerity-wise came in the transition from his acoustic set. He finished a few numbers with a country-folk harmonica blast of "One Foot in the Grave." And for those few minutes, Beck was just a musician at work, alone on stage, blasting deep-bellied call-and-response from his harp, howling his surrealist blues lyrics about the Devil comin' and stealin' the steak off his grill. When the band returned, the absurdities of "Jack-Ass" rang with sweet love-song logic. Parody had disappeared with those harmonica blasts.

The performance rode on that emotional momentum. On "Where It's At," Beck performed the old showman's trick of explaining a cue for audience participation. The trick is, you bring the show to a near halt while simultaneously ratcheting the anticipation to an excruciating, hilarious height. It worked: Beck pumped the crowd up with high hops ("Where it's at!"), then cleared the faint-hearted from pit with the slow mosh and guitar-noise distortion of "Mutherfuker." Appearing for the encore in a black-and-rhinestone cowboy suit, he pumped the crowd again with "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)," taking very seriously the audience response of "Ooo. La-la. Sassoon." Introducing the band, Beck had said, "I am the artist currently known as Beck . . . and you are all my folks!" It was hard not to love the guy. What it is, dude.