2, 4, 6, 8, 10! (GO! TEAM @ the Paradise, 11/01/05)

the mighty Ninja rocks tha house

I saw the Go! Team on Tuesday. To say my expectations were high would be a quite an understatement. Let's just say i was looking forward to this show more than any since, uh, since, well actually i was really psyched for the Diagable Planets reunion, and that was just a few months ago. So, uh, let's just say that i could. not. wait. And was i disappointed? Hell no.

After the Grates finished a great, ah hem, set (more on that later), the crowd gradually pressed closer and closer to the stage. Anticipation rose and the crush of bodies seemed to generate electricity. Or Chi. Or, hell some kinda energy. And then . . . pow! Ninja danced out and the band launched into an even more revved-up version of Panther Dash than the rave-up on the album. And it was a great way to kick things off, with its raucous surf guitar, '70s Quinn Martin TV theme song/northern soul horns and mid-60s r&b/British invasion harmonica. On the album it sounds like Man or Astro Man? and the Fleshtones circa Roman Gods battling on stage and trying to one up each other as they exchange choruses (w/ Peter Zaremba really hopped-up on speed). But this live version had Ninja taking the lead and laying down her trademark, double dutch playground rhymes.

Which is par for the course for the Go! Team. The band has created a wholly original mash-up sound that mixes live and electronic samples of everything from early '60s girl group pop, orig. Motown and northern soul, garage, r&b, '70s funk and TV action show themes, My Bloody Valentine-like noise, lush and cheesy '60s pop, old school hip hop raps and scratches, playground rhymes and cheerleading drills, and a wee bit of twee. For starters. The band's composition is equally diverse, w/ an even boy/girl split. (for the record, you've got drummer Chi Fukami Taylor, guitarist Sam Dook, bassist Jamie Bell, keyboardist/guitarist Silke Steidinge, rapper/singer/dancer Ninja, and leader Ian Parton (the elder @ 32) on harmonica, guitar, keys, sampler, etc).

Ninja's moves, energy, raps and occasional soulful vocals were simply amazing. And she did a good job of engaging the crowd between songs and exhorting everyone to dance and chant along during Huddle Formation and Bottle Rocket. Did we dance. Hell yeah. Did we chant along. Damn straight. Was everyone smiling, laughin' and cheering. Sho 'nuff. And the few tracks done as straight instrumentals (like on the album) were also thrilling, despite the exuberant Ninja taking a breather off stage or quitetly standing off to the side banging a tamborine stick. And Chi emerged from her kit to do a frgaile and endearing vocal on the Twee Hold Yr Terror Close.

So here's a sample of the Go! Team, including the much better U.K. ver. of Bottle Rocket (if you haven't followed the story, the U.S. release was delayed because of sample clearance/licensing problems, necessitating the rerecording of a couple tracks. During the show, Ninja asked the crowd if we'd purchased the new U.S. release or if we had the "illegal version").

ladyflash (U.S. ver.)* -- Thunder Lightning Strike (2005)

bottle rocket (U.K. ver.)* -- " . . . " (2004)

The band finished the encore w/ the amazing Ladyflash, their most impressive work. Here's what i wrote about Ladyflash in one of this blog's first posts:

it's a glorious, hazy summer day in NYC, 1982. You're sitting on a park bench watching b-boys break dance to Grandmaster Flash & Kurtis Blow while b-girls jump rope and rap old school playground rhymes. A 60's girl group tune wafts from a passing cab while 70's TV theme show funk blares from an apartment window, battling it out with Archie Bell & the Drells pumping from an orange hatchback parked nearby. The sun warms your face. You doze off and it all comes together in a dream orchestrated by a DJ spinning and cutting dreamy bossa nova soundtrack loops and My Bloody Valentine . . .

And AMG said of Ladyflash: "Find a better song than this from 2004 and you are lying. Well, maybe 'Huddle Formation,' a more straightforward song with the same double dutch vocals, only this time married to bracing New Order playing the hits of Phil Spector in a wind tunnel musical backing. But again any song would do, the banjo-driven epic ballad "Everyone's a V.I.P. to Someone," the funkier than Ike & Tina 'Bottle Rocket,' the theme to the best day of your life 'Friendship Update.'"

The AMG review is so good its worth quoting again to polish of this post:

[Thunder Lightning Strike is] pin the tail on the donkey where everywhere you stick the pin gets you a prize. The Go! Team is widescreen in a pan-and-scan world, a sparkling rejoinder to purists and spoilsports everywhere and more fun than recess on the last day of school. Cinematic, fantastic, and essential to all who want their music larger than life and rambunctious, Thunder, Lightning, Strike is the kind of record that makes you glad to be alive. What could be better than that?

indeed.

p.s. Like i said, the Brisbane's Grates were great. Kinda like Yeah Yeah Yeah's lite (and that's not meant as an insult). The band's singer -- the effervescent Patience -- made Ninja seem almost subdued by comparison. Patience's nearly constant dancing was like a spastic combo of old school punk pogo and Reese Witherspoon's ebullient, hallway celebration dance in Election that set Matthew Broderick off. Here's a track:

sukkafish* The Ouch. The Touch Ep (2005)

p.p.s. sorry about the 8 day silence. bitch of a week @ work. but Go! Team / Grates show was a white hot bright spot.
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