Built to Spill/Fauxbois/Family Lumber

live in Farmingdale (2010)

Brian Shultz

The floor was sparsely littered with attendees when my cousin and I arrived at the amazingly inconsistent Crazy Donkey in time for Family Lumber's last few songs. (Doors at 6:30 with the show starting at 8 on a Thursday night? C'mon.) I liked the restraint in the band's sound; their singer/guitarist had a bit of Andy Hull-esque timidity to his voice, and there was a bit of Built to Spill looseness and jamminess indebted too. Robbers frontman and apparent good friend Andrew Accardi came out to play some tambourine and dance flagrantly next to their drummer for one song, while the next, two of their guitarists just seemed to start breaking strings left and right. Their frontman smirked and shrugged his shoulders in defeat as their last jam came to a playfully wanky close. Definitely some potential for what they do.

Fauxbois, a co-ed quartet with singer/songwriter Brian Mayer at the helm, followed with a pretty solid half-hour of intermittently atmospheric and occasionally drifting indie rock/pop. Mayer's voice was androgynous as all get out, but it added more of a prettiness to the sound rather than a mysteriousness. And though comparing them to Built to Spill too just makes it seem like this is becoming a lazy crutch for the review, it really did seem to ring true, especially with the loose, off-kilter riffing that would occur. The last song, whose title I didn't catch, had some fantastic harmonizing.

Save the 15-minute jam session during the encore, Built to Spill's set was about as stripped down and straightforward as one might hope. Doug Martsch did his erratic head bobs while humming familiar lyrics like "The stakes of the game seem fine" and "Make it any time"; nothing seemed to break his distant gaze into a crowd that had finally filled the floor to a respectable population density. Guitarist Brett Netson let lit cigarettes hang from between his lips despite New York State's pretty concrete indoor smoking restrictions, and helped provide the minimal banter necessary to remind us we were watching a live band.

But no one really needed the band to be so personable--only to play, and play they did. Short breaks between all songs ensured a tuned and skilled performance, as the band would jump from album to album without a hitch--at one point, "Nowhere Nothin' Fuckup," off their debut, 1993's Ultimate Alternative Wavers, preceded a new jam: "Nowhere Lullaby," off last year's There Is No Enemy. But considering the band's light stylistic arc, it all blended well.

Scoping the set lists on this tour, the band have really been mixing it up; in fact, the night before at Irving Plaza the band had apparently only played two of the same songs (fan favorite "Car" and "Carry the Zero"). I was only heartbroken to see they'd played "Kicked It in the Sun"--easily one of my favorite BTS songs, or at least moments, thanks to that lilting, emotionally crumbling bridge.

Still, this was a widely varied set that never really relied too heavily upon any one album, even though this tour definitely seems like part of the promo cycle for There Is No Enemy (the only track they played off it was the aforementioned "Nowhere Lullaby"). So it was definitely a good way to see the indie rock legends for the first time.

Set list (9:56-11:00):