Concert review: tUnE-yArDs at Rough Trade NYC

I love it when I go to a show with no expectations and come away wowed. That's what happened Wednesday night when I saw tUnE-yArDs at Rough Trade NYC in Williamsburg. In all honesty, I hadn't listened to a lot of tUnE-yArDs before, and the studio stuff I heard I was kind of meh on. I knew Merrill Garbus, the brains behind tUnE-yArDs, has faced criticism in some quarters for cultural appropriation but isn't that what music is all about? We wouldn't have had had the Rolling Stones or the British Invasion had English kids in the 1960s not appropriated the music of another culture, namely African-American rhythm and blues. And some of my favorite artists -- from the Beastie Boys to Damon Albarn -- could be accused of doing the same thing. So I'm not one for cultural criticism in this case.

Musically, tUnE-yArDs reminds me of a cross between M.I.A. and Graceland-era Paul Simon, if you can imagine that. Garbus relies on a lot of sampling and looping, so I wondered how that was going to work live. Turns out, it was very cool. Garbus would just drum a few bars, record what she drummed on her loop pedal, and build her backing beats on the spot. And that itself was entertaining to watch, as if it was all part of the show and not just sausage-making.

Someone at the show recorded a couple of tunes and posted them to YouTube. The audio is rough in spots, but you can clearly watch Garbus doing her loop sampling before launching into "Bizness".

And on this clip, it's a more straightforward performance of her current single "Water Fountain", in which I think you can really hear those M.I.A. and Paul Simon influences.

One more thought: Rough Trade NYC is a great place to see a show. It's small, intimate and it sounds great. And there's good beer on tap -- locally brewed Six Point for $7, which is what you'd pay in an actual bar. Plus the record store is open until 11pm, so you can shop between the opening act and the headliner. I can't say enough about the place!