003 - Key Notes No. 1: Landlady
My favorite band you've (likely) never heard
Key Notes is a recurring series in which I write
about music I like
I believe there is a genius born within each and every one of us, we being children of GOD for crying out loud. Many go to the grave having never discovered their genius, which is sad, but also understandable, because it’s not exactly the easiest thing to do in this mixed up, muddled up, shook up world. But some are fortunate to realize their genius early in life and find the strength to nourish it, hone it, wield it in wonderful ways to produce new inventions, philosophies, theorems, art, and in one very specific and delicious instance, the Cronut®.
I don’t know when or where or how Adam Schatz discovered his genius — best guess: an elementary school jazz band in or around Newton, MA? — but boy am I thankful he did. I’m equally thankful for my friend Dan who invited me out to Union Pool in Williamsburg one cold night in January 2015 to check out a band started by a guy he knew from having also grown up in Newton (what is with this NEWTON??).
The guy was Adam, and the band was Landlady.
I’ve always felt a profound, spiritual connection to music, it being the language of GOD for crying out loud. Growing up in a household largely bereft of music — save for my parents’ record collection (highlighted by Barry Manilow Live) collecting dust in the attic — I can’t say this connection was immediately inherited.
But under the supervision of my third parent TELEVISION and her generous buffet of afternoon snacks I eagerly gobbled up in the form of MTV’s The Grind and TRL, VH1’s Top 10 Countdown and Pop-Up Video, and BET’s 106 & Park — combined with my formative summer camp encounters with classic rock and jam bands* — I gradually acquired a rather urbane, catholic taste for a suburban, Jewish kid.
Music has provided me with countless moments of pure, unadulterated bliss — from spastically jump-rapping around the den to Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) in middle school to absolutely locking into an Assembly of Dust jam at the Funk Box in college — but the music I heard played by Adam and his band that night at Union Pool, to overuse the parlance of our times, hit different.
I couldn’t describe it then and I still can’t quite characterize it today. Forget trying to genre-type it (indie-jazz-prog-pop-art-rock?); it’s sui generis, endlessly repeatable, delightfully unpredictable, eminently boppable, and simply GOOD. Do you enjoy ethereal melodies that fracture and reassemble and explode again? Start/stop tempo shifts and off-kilter chord changes? Densely-layered crescendos that crash up against the sparsest a cappella? Look, I’m not a music journalist, and I’m not trying to dance about architecture (although I’ve been known to get jiggy with a Neutra house), so just, like, listen for yourself:
All four of Landlady’s full-length releases to date have reserved spots on my 21 Albums for the 21st Century list, should I ever stoop to compile such a banal thing. 2014’s Upright Behavior conjures a certain fondness for me, it being of the era I was introduced to the band, and I might recommend it as your first course should you wish to sample the Adam Schatz musical tasting menu — which, by the by, extends well beyond Landlady to “instrumentalish” jazz and Afrobeat efforts to his associations with Man Man, Japanese Breakfast, and Neko Case (and also this one-off banger which Adam himself as called “possibly the best song I'll ever write”).
But you can’t go wrong starting anywhere or with anything. All the songs on all the records are great. The man is seemingly incapable of composing a dull tune or skippable track. They’re all beautiful and interesting in their own compelling way, and to my ears, accessible for appreciation by anyone with a properly functioning auditory sensibility. And Adam’s own highly evolved ear is how he has managed to continually assemble supporting casts of fellow genius talents to record and perform with him over the decades.
Do I have a favorite song? STUPID QUESTION, DUMBASS.
But seriously folks, it changes from moment to moment. Right now it’s “Nina.” And now it’s “Solid Brass.” But now it’s “Washington State is Important.” Aaaaand now I’m back to “Above My Ground,” which, if you ever have the pleasure of catching live, is accompanied by Adam’s spirit-tingling, show-closing sermon that I first witnessed at that first show Dan took me to. Nearly 10 years later I can still close my eyes and remember that ineffable* feeling of being absorbed into the collective mind, body, and soul meld of the energy field in that Brooklyn backroom — the audience, the band, the music itself — rising with the rushing tide of the genius on full display.
Last night I went with Dan to see Landlady again in Williamsburg, a little further east this time at the stylish newish venue Sleepwalk. Adam debuted his latest and greatest: a 17-track song cycle he has been crafting for the past couple years as a solo exercise. It was sublime. It was spectacular. And I’m told it has already been recorded by the full band and is soon set for release. Color me PUMPED.
I wrote all this because Adam paid me $175,000.
Jk I wrote this out of my appreciation and gratitude for genius.
This time, it was Adam’s.
Next time… IT COULD BE YOURS!
Until that time,
Rogo