The Void
Rhymes
with 'Karen'
THERE IT WAS , captured in a close-up, on The Tonight Show
with Jay Leno. Gazing, glaring. Staring from between two fingers
gloved in white mesh.
Taryn Manning's right eye.
That eye – right eye, not left eye – is the centerpiece (peeking
out from beneath an index finger and above a middle finger) of a signature
Manning gesture; you can see it on the cover of her band Boomkat's debut
Dreamworks CD, the mind-boggling and mind-bogglingly titled Boomkatalog.One.
It's meant to be a trendsetting gesture. "I went to a party last
night and was told, 'Not only are you an actress and a singer, but you're
a trendsetter. Do you realize that?' " Manning recently said to
the San Francisco Chronicle's Aidin Vaziri.
Apparently Manning does realize that. In a recent issue of Jane
magazine, she wonders if Drew Barrymore might have copied another one
of her style masterstrokes: a little star drawn on her right cheekbone.
On The Tonight Show, Manning was singing Boomkat's first wanna-be
hit, "The Wreckoning." Unfortunately, there were some problems
that only Pro Tools can fix – her voice was so out of tune there
was no in tune to gauge it against. Still, she had the confidence of
a movie star, or of someone very close to a movie star; after all, she's
played Kirsten Dunst's best friend in crazy/beautiful, Britney
Spears's best friend in Crossroads, and Eminem's ex-girlfriend
in 8 Mile.
Billed as a brother-sister duo, Boomkat are more Donny and Marie
than White Stripes, which is fine. Though on one occasion ("What
U Do 2 Me") it provides an almost endearingly dorky, lo-fi Pet
Shop Girl version of Britney's teen pop, Boomkatalog.One mostly
mimics a number of people who probably shouldn't be mimicked, such as
Garbage ("The Wreckoning"), Sarah McLachlan ("Daydreamin'
"), and Lamb ("Look at All the People" 's drum 'n' bass-lite
sound and all of Manning's affected nasality, though I'm sure she intends
to be a pure original). The result is music for suburban kids with early
curfews. "Don't lose who you are / 'Cause that's who you are,"
Manning sings. Um, yeah, sure.
It's mostly mortifying and all so disposable, and yet I'm semi-hypnotized
– drawn in by that V-sign-around-the-right-eye gesture and the
only-in-L.A. choices of attire. Boomkatalog.One's CD sleeve features
Manning modeling an especially hideous pair of acid-wash jeans and pairing
some striped leg warmers with high heels. The latter stroke of apparel
genius seems unparalleled, but I was reminded of an early-'80s
duo with similarly wrong fashion sense – some less popular best
friends of Boy George who wore Lifesavers-colored leg warmers and enormous
hats while singing songs so grating they were, well, unforgettable in
the slightest, scariest sense.
Ladies and gentlemen, that, perhaps, is the true destiny of Boomkat:
they're the Haysi Fantayzee of the 21st century. (Johnny Ray Huston)
Conan Neutron's life cycle of a band
The 10-show test
Much like the Rocky Mountain ground squirrel, network television shows,
and hipster fashion trends, a band has a life cycle.
After the painful gestation of learning to play together, writing those
first songs, and giving increasingly less awkward performances, the
next milestone is best known as the 10-show test.
Generally a band that plays 10 shows with the same lineup, direction,
and sound, without losing a member or succumbing to "creative differences,"
will be sticking around for a while. It shows that all of the members
have at least a modicum of commitment to each other and the music, and
that hopefully there is enough chemistry between the players at the
creative and performance levels that they will be able to take the next
step and become a "local band."
