Girls in Trouble I like

Recently in  The Believer, Judy Berman wrote a piece called “Concerning the Spiritual in Indie Rock” which includes many examples of spirituality cum hip: in Animal Collective, Sufjan Stevens, The Mae Shi, Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Danielson, Ponytail, Dirty Projectors, and Yeasayer. A few of the lyricists are explicitly Christian, some are formerly Christian, and others create spiritual pieces. (No one she cites either draws heavily from religious texts or identifies as Jewish.) She says that as music fans we become worshipers.

Indie rock is (one way) how we contemplate life questions/spiritualist in our secular culture:

These days, mainstream religion feels largely divorced from metaphysics. The language of good and evil has been co-opted in the service of countless holy wars, and Christian leaders spend more time railing against gay marriage than debating the nature of the human soul. Those of us who can’t buy into these crusades must find other marvels to contemplate. As Keating recognizes, art may help to fill a void left by organized religion: Indie rock’s predominantly young, urban, and irreligious audience kneels to worship at the foot of a stage. Bible study is replaced by ritualistic listening and re-listening to tease out the meaning or simply bask in the bliss of favorite albums.

Girls in Trouble, who I saw first at the Bushwick Reading Club (The Bible), uses the Bible to great effect. By taking on the voices of women characters from Old Testament stories who are often mistreated, exiled, and victimized, singer and violinist Alicia Jo Rabins complicates stories of good and evil by filling them with feeling. Alongside her Aaron plays upright bass.

She adopts the voices of Miriam, Jephthah’s daughter, and others. Atop anguished melodies, Rabins’ easily discerned lyrics are pained yet poetic. The simplicity of the story lines and the desert fauna diction blend happily in folk songs sung to God. Though traditionally voiceless, the women and their plight and power is pretty moving.

Rabins introduces each song as a distinct character. “This next song is about how I found myself in the tent of the enemy general in my favorite dress with a knife strapped to my leg.” I tried to remember which story that was. Delilah and Samson? It was like Amish trivia night.

The Bible is epic, sincere, and de rigeur -Rabins blogs about how The Mountain Goats are coming out with a record of Biblical songs.

Listening to Girls in Trouble doesn’t bring you to a state of reverie. It’s not techno or soundscapes or whatever you call The Mae Shi.  It’s personal, tragic, and slow. The spirituality doesn’t come from a whipped up frenzy where “time and space get disrupted” or “band and audience members fuse into an army of true believers, baptized in sweat and whinnying in tongues (Berman).”

Even if I don’t believe in God, hearing Rabins’ embodiment of devotion made me a stunned witness of centuries of study, worship, questioning, and storytelling — the actions that got the original girls in trouble and what ushered the potent songs by the new Girls in Trouble.

Girls in Trouble play again at Pete’s Candy Store on August 27th. Their album comes out on JDub records in October. They live near where we live.

Bushwick Reading Series: Bible

Tuesday night I went to Goodbye Blue Monday for the Bushwick Reading Series, “a [monthly] hour-long orgy of book-related songs.” This month it was the Bible!

Perhaps the New Testament lends itself to visual artists as well as the Torah lends itself to songwriters. At least on Tuesday I think the Old T. won.

The medley of talent lasted 3 hours, covering a range of approaches from gospel to haiku Haggadah. A handful of people admitted they didn’t get past Genesis so they imagined Cain’s guilt or Adam and Eve’s bedtime bickering.

Humor served most songwriters. Sweet Soubrette basically played ukelele to one of my blog posts unknowingly. One line went something like, “It’s hard to read the Bible on the subway. The hipsters look at you like you’re crazy.” Another sweet line: “She bought a Bible because she likes things that are old.” Rachel Devlin was one of the most successfully Jewish, interpreting the laws in Numbers (including Shoftim!) as a power play by a guilty Moses trying to exempt himself of certain crimes, as most people in power are apt to do, including Nixon.

Other acts relied on the tradition of congregational singalongs and clapalongs. Debe Dalton performed “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho,” using the chorus and rewriting the verses, which included the evening’s sole political phrase, “He killed every woman, man, and child just because they were standing on his land. Why did everybody have to die?”

Finally, some described genuine emotions of suffering, sacrifice, and awe. Isaac Gillespie‘s song relayed the “history of coming into consciousness.” His lyrics were simultaneously Genesis 1 and a co-performer singing, albeit incomprehensibly, John 1. The effect was moving and reminiscent of melodies to which Torah is sung. Simple biblical phrases in song convey the basic elements of living–linguistics in this case. “Word was with God. Word was God.” His first song spoke directly about the context of reading the bible: “Don’t let them tell you how it is.”

The last band, Girls in Trouble, took the Torah seriously, obviously having read it more than everyone else combined. They write from the points of view of women characters in the Torah. Their song about Miriam almost had me crying. I’d kind of like to see their rendition of Eden and Eve made tragic, just to contrast it to everyone else’s whimsy. I was transfixed by all 3 songs (Mountain, Miriam, and Hunter). Torah stories were pared down to the elements of nature, longing, and love of God as experienced by fringe characters.  “And if your God should turn from you, wouldn’t you turn too?”  Alicia Jo Rabins and Aaron play standing bass, violin, guitar, and a looping pedal. They played again Thursday and so will get their own blog post in a couple days. Their song Mountain has been stuck in my head all week.

The Bible can make you laugh or cry. Literacy and musical ability have made it possible for laypeople to invent their own interpretations of God’s word and disseminate their lyrics in venues that don’t charge a cover, but rather, give away ribs, beef dogs, and mangoes asking for donation only. Everyone at GBM was nice that night, even when, for reasons unimportant, I became surly. No one sang about the Golden Rule; it was in effect. One guy Joe Crow Ryan did quote Confucius, another voice in an overwhelming environment of inspiration. In my notes it appears, “If the teacup is too hot, don’t eat it.” The message being: take in what suits you.