Los Angeles Times - 01.08.2019

L ATIMES.COM/CALENDAR THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2019E3

POP & HISS

latimes.com/pophiss

SATURDAY

Hard Summer music fest

feat. Kid Cudi, Alison

Wonderland, more

Auto Club Speedway

9300 Cherry Ave., Fontana

$109-$359, 1 p.m. (also Sun.)

FRIDAY

George Clinton &

Parliament Funkadelic,

Fishbone, more

The Greek Theatre

2700 N. Vermont Ave.

$29-$150, 8 p.m.

THURSDAY

Julia Holter, Ana Roxanne

Teragram Ballroom

1234 W. 7th St.

$20, 8 p.m.

SUNDAY

Lord Huron,

Shakey Graves

Hollywood Bowl

2301 N. Highland Ave.

$26-$281, 7 p.m.

MONDAY

Elvis Costello &

the Imposters, Blondie

The Greek Theatre

2700 N. Vermont Ave.

$29-$175, 7 p.m.

5 NIGHTS

OUT

A curated calendar of live

music not to be missed

Clairo

“Immunity”

(The Fader Label)

On YouTube this week,

beneath the video for

Clairo’s song “Pretty Girl,”

an ad presented viewers

with a link to buy tickets for

the singer’s concert Thurs-

day night at Madison

Square Garden in New York.

Little about the proudly

homemade clip, which

Clairo posted in August 2017,

suggests she’d be playing

arenas 24 months later. Shot

in her dimly lighted bed-

room using the built-in cam-

era on her laptop, “Pretty

Girl” is about as scrappy as it

gets, with Clairo mouthing

the song’s arch but tender

lyrics — “I could be a pretty

girl / Shut up when you want

me to,” she sings over a

rinky-dink drum-machine

groove — as white earbud

headphones poke out from

beneath her unwashed hair.

It’s the kind of thing that

would’ve attracted a de-

voted cult following as re-

cently as five years ago. In

our fast-moving era, though,

“Pretty Girl” went viral,

racking up tens of millions of

views and setting Clairo on a

path toward the type of DIY

pop stardom achieved by

the only slightly more pol-

ished likes of Billie Eilishand

Lil Nas X. Now, at 20, she’s on

the road opening for R&B

hitmaker Khalid ahead of

Friday’s release of her eager-

ly awaited debut album.

The singer, born Claire

Cottrill, delivers on that

early promise on “Immuni-

ty,” which widens her sound

without sacrificing the inti-

macy or the charm of “Pretty

Girl.” Co-produced by Clairo

and Rostam Batmanglij —

the former Vampire Week-

end member known for his

collaborations with Solange,

Frank Ocean and Haim —

the album features more

hand-played elements than

did the synth-y “Pretty Girl”

or “Flamin Hot Cheetos,”

another old single with mil-

lions of streams on YouTube

and SoundCloud; Danielle

Haim plays drums on sev-

eral tracks, while Batman-

glij contributes guitar, bass

and mellotron, among many

other instruments.

“Alewife,” titled after a

train stop near Clairo’s

teenage home outside Bos-

ton, is a methodically paced

ballad with ringing piano

and strummed acoustic gui-

tar. “Impossible” picks up

the tempo slightly and adds

a churchy organ played by

Peter Cottontale, one of

Chance the Rapper’s right-

hand men; “Bags” has a

crunchy ’90s-indie-rock vibe

à la Liz Phair circa “Whip-

Smart.”

For “Closer to You” and

“Sofia,” Clairo revisits the

knowingly chintzy electro-

pop textures she started out

using. But her singing has

developed impressively;

she’s got a way of dropping in

R&B runs at the precise mo-

ments when the smallness of

her voice has left you unpre-

pared for them.

As with many songwrit-

ers in her Gen Z cohort — in-

cluding Soccer Mommy,

Phoebe Bridgers and L.A.’s

Cuco, a one-time duet part-

ner of hers who just put out

his own excellent debut,

“Para Mí” — Clairo’s the-

matic obsession is love: its

pleasures, its torments, its

tendency to stymie the woke

idealist’s dream of an equita-

ble society.

“I wouldn’t ask you to

take care of me,” she sings,

before adding, “Don’t you

know that life is rarely ever

fair.”

In April, Clairo told Out

magazinethat she’s not sure

how to define her sexuality

but that she knows “it’s not

straight.” And there’s such

range to the love songs on

“Immunity” that her roman-

tic preoccupation never

seems like a limitation; she

sings about old-fashioned

desires and about learning

to understand new ones —

and about what it means to

experience both.

As she demonstrated in

the “Pretty Girl” video,

which functions as a kind of

real-time critique of itself,

Clairo’s specialty is putting

across two ideas at once.

“You want to feel something /

But I don’t feel nothing,” she

sings, “Trying so hard to get

over you.”

That’s just one of the In-

stagram-caption-worthy

lyrics on “Immunity.” In

“White Flag” she name-

drops My Bloody Valentine’s

classic alt-rock album in re-

membering, “I was 15 when I

first felt loneliness / Cut my

hair, only listened to ‘Love-

less’ ”; “Bags” has her asking

a crush, “Can you figure me

out?”

“Alewife” is darker; it re-

counts a friend’s interven-

tion in what might’ve been a

suicide attempt. Yet Clairo

finishes the song with a

bleakly comic flourish: “You

know I’ll be all right / Eighth

grade was never that tight.”

There’s a slight defensive

streak to several tracks that

could well be the result of

suspicions about Clairo’s

success so far. After “Pretty

Girl” took off, some ob-

servers pointed with disdain

to the fact that her father

has worked as a high-level

marketing executive for

Coca-Cola and Converse —

youth-oriented brands

whose dark arts of persua-

sion, the thinking went,

likely informed her seem-

ingly off-the-cuff presenta-

tion.

But Clairo’s not trying to

fool anybody on “Immunity.”

She wants to connect, and

she knows what that can do

to a person.

Concert residencies usually bring

to mind one of two things: veteran-

megastar spectacles on the Las Vegas

Strip or young upstarts filling week-

night voids at local venues.

Less typical is someone like ga-

rage-punk polymath Ty Segall, who

last week kicked off a residency at

downtown L.A.’s Teragram Ballroom,

running Fridays through Sept. 27.

Joined by his current touring en-

semble, Freedom Band, the 32-year-

old Segall will perform two albums in

full each night, spotlighting his forth-

coming 12th studio album, “First

Taste” (due out Aug. 2 via Drag City),

plus a rotating selection of fan favor-

ites and more personal deep cuts.

Over his prolific, decade-long ca-

reer, Segall has proved to be a torch-

bearer of California rock, veering from

surf garage to frenetic hardcore to

desert-hewn psychedelia, in a lane all

his own. Between his relentless tour-

ing and prodigious recording output

—as both a solo artist and in collabo-

ration with such acts as White Fence

and Mikal Cronin — keeping up with

his music has become something of

an in-joke among fans.

The Teragram sets, which clock in

around two hours, elevate his often

ramshackle rock show with theatrical

flourishes such as thematic lighting

schemes and a giant mask center-

piece dubbed “Salad Head.”

We caught up with Segall at his

home in Topanga Canyon to discuss

the pros and cons of staying put, his

love of masks, and the experience of

relearning nearly 80 songs.

You’ve played multi-night stints in

L.A. and other cities before. What

led you to want to do a more ex-

tended run?

Selfishly, I wanted to do a resi-

dency in L.A. as a way to stay home

for the summer, and that led to want-

ing to do different albums and really

go crazy. I hadn’t ever played so-and-

so album in its entirety, so it seemed

like a good excuse. The Teragram is

also my favorite place to play in town.

It’s like our second home. So that was

a no-brainer.

What has been your process to pre-

pare?

We practiced for 2½ months

straight and learned all the albums.

’Cause it’s almost 80 songs. And a

quarter of the songs have never been

played live, ever. So it’s super fun to

tweak. Like, a second chance to

change the songs, maybe fix some-

thing you don’t really like about

them, or reinterpret them.

Given your extensive catalog, how

did you end up choosing the albums

you did for the run?

Half the choice is a selfish one for

me, wanting to play what I’d want to

play. And then the other half is think-

ing about what my fans would want

to hear. “Goodbye Bread” and “Emo-

tional Mugger” are just some of my

personal favorite albums that I’ve

made, and they’re not by any means

the most popular ones. “Melted” and

“Manipulator” — those seem to be

the fan favorites. So we shaped it to

be a little bit of both.

Are there any acts who have done or

are doing something similar that

influenced your approach to a resi-

dency?

I’d like to think I’m hugely influ-

enced by Elvis’ Las Vegas residency

vibe. [Laughs] No, I don’t know.

Honestly, we were all like, this is too

crazy to work. There’s no way we

could pull this off. But Teragram was

really supportive, and we thought,

well, if they think we can do it, then

let’s give it a shot.

Do you think this is a model that

other acts could adapt? What are

some of the challenges?

The obvious challenge is that it’s

in one city. You have to get almost

7,000 people to come see you play in

one city. But it’s over 2½ months. And

there are a lot of people who have

bought tickets for multiple shows.

It’s an experiment.

Creatively, how do you approach

this?

We want it to be special. We didn’t

want to just show up with our gear

and walk on with jeans and just play

the songs. Especially with the new

album, I wanted it to be drastically

different-looking than when we play

the old albums — up-lit versus down-

lit, red versus blue, a heavier mood. I

wanted there to be multiple parts of

the set, and have it be pretty obvious.

Then the giant head mask — Salad

Head — he’s the new mascot of the

whole summer experience.

I have a long-going obsession with

the idea of a mask and performance,

and one’s ability to make a persona,

make a character. A lot of my records

have different faces on them, and a

lot of the albums have different per-

sonas or characters. So Salad Head

is another one but in a large-scale

representation.

What have you learned about your-

self by coming back to those songs?

I’ve become far more prog as a

musician over the years. A lot of my

songs now don’t stick to the verse-

chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus

structure. I was in a little bit of a box

for a couple of years there. But I was

like 21 and emotionally just a child.

My priorities were completely differ-

ent. On “Melted,” for example,

they’re raging party songs, but there

are some existential vibes in there.

“Goodbye Bread” is where I got

heavy, lyrically and vibe-wise....We’re

all just different times.

SINGER-songwriter Ty Segall, 32, says he’ll be playing fan favorites as well as some of his personal picks.

Rick KernWireImage

A homebody?

Ty Segall’s residency at the Teragram takes him

off the road with the time to craft special set lists

By Andrea Domanick

ALBUM REVIEW

CLAIROco-produced her debut album with former

Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij.

Jason WiseGetty Images for Live Nation

Clairo elevates

her brand of

bedroom pop

Ty Segall and

Freedom Band

What:Ty Segall and Freedom Band

performing “First Taste” and

“Melted.”

Where: Teragram Ballroom, 1234 W.

7th St.

When: 9 p.m. Friday

Tickets:$30

MIKAEL WOOD

POP MUSIC CRITIC