Rufus Wainwright: Out Of The Game (review)

Rufus Wainwright

Out Of The Game

(Decca)

Reviewing the new Mark Ronson-produced Wainwright album, I was deeply concerned that I would be faced with a “Mark Ronson featuring Rufus Wainwright” situation. Not that this decade’s hottest producer is all that bad – his work with the Business Intl was killer – but Rufus’s major talent is in dramatic subtlety, while Ronson usually chucks a load of horns and synths on everything, resulting in a more bombastic product. With that in mind, Out Of The Game was touted as a “return to pop” ahead of release. However Wainwright’s last “pop” album, 2007’s Release The Stars, explored some of the most un-pop themes you could get, so it’s with some hesitation (and excitement) that I invest in what Wainwright is calling pop these days. 

Although Rufus is 38 years of age, he has made a much older man’s album this time around. There are no handsome princes on the horizon coming to sweep him away, or nights spent trawling New York’s dive bars with his phone on vibrate. Instead, the now married singer is on the other side of the picket fence, baby in arms, and his “game” is essentially over. On the title track, his older, wiser self berates his younger self for being so tacky and shameless; “Look at you, sucker/Does your mama know what you’re doing?” Wainwright grew up very fast, and it seems in hindsight he is lamenting the early loss of his own innocence. 

From reflecting on his youth, Rufus’s focus goes to the very distant future on Montauk. The track is an open letter to Viva, the child he fathered with Lorca Cohen (Leonard’s daughter), where he hints at a fear of future rejection by her for being raised in an ‘alternative family’, however, it could just as easily reflect the thoughts of anybody on the verge of first-time parenthood. Becoming a father means the game isn’t so much over for Rufus – it has simply become a different game and he is scared that he won’t be able to play it. The singer worries that he has little useful advice to offer in terms of how to get by shy of ‘it’s better to have laid in the gutter than lived in fear of life.' Autobiographical Rufus is always charming, but it’s his political stuff that’s often the strongest in terms of expression.

Jericho - a kind of sequel to 2007’s Going to a Town – makes a soft attack on religious oppression in the Middle East. Whereas Going to a Town saw Wainwright openly washing his hands of America, on Jericho he evokes a broken relationship cliché to make his point; “I keep thinking you’re gonna change/I keep thinking you’re gonna rise…” . Best of all, however, is Candles, with its most trademarked of Rufus-isms; highlighting those insignificant details in a remarkable situation which we rarely voice, but that seem to stick in mind somehow. Also Candles boasts a full Wainwright family sing-a-long, including sister Martha and their estranged father, Loudon, and is quite clearly a tribute to the late Kate McGarrigle - complete with a bagpipe solo, choir and absolutely no Mark Ronson-ey horns farting all over the place - as is the case on Rashida and Welcome To The Ball.

Although Ronson does manage to squeeze in some of his own trademarks here and there, Out Of The Game is actually quite musically restrained for both producer and artist. What made Release The Stars for example such an outstanding album was the level of risk Wainwright took, and although Out Of The Game has many glorious moments, it is in fact the pop album it was proposed to be. In other words, musically quite safe, and even a little dull in parts which is a side to Rufus we’ve seldom seen before. Further more, he doesn’t challenge himself vocally as much as on 2010’s Songs For Lulu, but then fans will love the familiarity of songs like Respectable Dive and Perfect Man, either of which would have sounded quite at home on Want One or Want Two. Whatever shortcomings there may be here though, a pop album by Rufus Wainwright is still a shed load better than a so-called epic masterpiece by many other contemporary singer/songwriters who’d struggle to grasp the idea of the game, let alone know how far they are in or out of it.

lEIGh5

 

Rufus Wainwright: Out Of The Game (official video featuring Helena Bonham Carter.)

Martha Wainwright interview (2010)

DAUGHTER OF GLORY

Talking to a member of the Wainwright family about music, one can't help but feel like a student in the presence of a particularly well-informed teacher. This brood of freakishly talented Canadians were seemingly born to keep a musical bloodline going as though it were royal title being upheld at all costs. Yet the family's eldest daughter, Martha Wainwright embodies a performer somewhat less burdened by titles and more intent on getting by on her own steam. Part traveling troubadour and part bluesy mama, Martha and her close-knit band, which includes husband Brad Alberta, are en route to Australia this February, along with a brand new bearer of the famous Wainwright genes. "This tour has changed dramatically since we were last in Australia because we bring baby along now." Martha beams, "It's all very un-rock'n'roll, my show!"

Wainwright's near-annual visits to Australia over the last five years are largely down to a childhood fascination with the place. She happily recalls the thrill of her mother's return from touring here - as part of the famed McGarrigle Sisters – and the tacky souvenirs only one so young could covet. "I remember when I was little, my mother would bring home these cute koala bears you'd clip on the end of your pencil and these painted boomerangs, which was so exciting for me." Martha laughs, "I never knew where Australia was, but I think I did draw the conclusion that there was an Asian connection because she would always go to Hong Kong at the same time as Australia. Later on when I was a teenager I traveled around a bit and would meet Australians in Europe or the US, just backpacking and they always seemed to me like they were from this magical faraway land that I'd only known about from my bizarre collection of gifts."

Martha has arguably become the most loved branch of the impressive Wainwright family tree in Australia. Even her mother never knew the level of admiration her daughter has achieved here, and so, after Kate McGarrigle's death at the start of the 2010, a particular memory for Martha is held dear. "You know the last time my mum was in Australia it was for the Leonard Cohen tribute show at the Sydney Opera House with Rufus and myself and we were together, just the whole time." She adds, "It's kind of cool to think we got to share the same experience in this far-off place my mum had visited when I was just a kid." Many fans would be quick to identify the subject of Wainwright's notorious blues rant from her 2005 self-titled album, Bloody Mother Fuckin' Asshole as being her father, Loudon, but notably absent from both Martha's and Rufus's work is an undeniable ode to Kate. Many fleeting references do appear, however and Martha stoically offers a fine tribute in words befitting any song.

"As an artist she was a very talented and growing up around somebody who already had the basics well and truly down was a great start for me to becoming a singer." She reflects, "But more so, as a female watching her growing up in Westmount, which was a nice neighbourhood, was very inspiring because mum was probably the only single mother, and certainly the only working artist. Through her I understood early on that identity is not about traditional gender roles and also that somebody can be a free spirit and still keep their shit together." Although Martha's first experience of being on stage was through drama class, she wasn't to resist the path each of her parents, and older brother Rufus, took for long. Martha sang and played in Rufus's band while gradually building her own songbook from the wings. It seemed as if a music career was beyond anyone's escape if they were born under the Wainwright name. Risking a burn, I propose that the right of the child is to rebel and oppose the will of the adult, but Martha claims, she was by no means bored by her parent's and their grown-up world of folk-music.

"Kate was not overly ambitious career wise, so music still has this joyful, pleasant feeling attached to it for us  as kids as opposed to just seeing it as a job our mother did." She explains, "If she had been a lot more withdrawn from us and motivated to further her career instead, I think we might have ended up resenting music in a way." With only a few exceptions, Martha Wainwright's songs, are mostly thoughtful, witty affairs but 2009 album, Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, a Paris (a tribute to Edith Piaf) demonstrated a darker side to Martha, and offered fans a peak into her obsession with a quite tragic figure in music history. Following Kate's passing, Martha's cabaret-style tribute shows for Edith Piaf, have an added gravitas and, the singer explains, an unexpected comfort.
 

"I think that singing some of these Piaf songs over the last year is very helpful in dealing with pain and suffering. A lot of them are quite tragic in a way, and so that expression feels right to me and gives me some context for my own loss. As an artist it's hard to know how to put into words exactly how I feel right now about Kate's passing because in many ways I'm speechless about it. I'm still in shock and so I can't write about how I feel because I want it to be right and honest. In a way I feel quite paralysed." Martha's re-interpreting of Piaf's work was never just a between-albums-muck-around-project. It has come from a life-long fascination with the star of Parisian cabaret. She elaborates. "Both my brother and I always have been interested in older music from the '20s, '30s and '40s...You know standards, and so I was listening to Piaf as a kid. I was comfortable singing in her style because to me, growing up with that, I understood her and her music already so well. Plus we spoke French fluently at home, and so there was never a language barrier either." Martha's Piaf fixation, not unlike Rufus's keen interest in Judy Garland, was naturally enough exaggerated by the fact that these artists were born out of extreme conditions and died by the very same. Wainwright explains further.

"When I found out she used to sing on the street that intrigued me even more as a young person. I always thought she'd come from café society, you know, but in fact it was more about bar society." The playground of the bohemians in Paris was of course the dive bars and brothels, where many talented but poverty stricken artists gathered to sing/paint/write/fuck for their suppers. Martha adds. "My image of Piaf was the ultimate, exciting Parisian performer, but her life was so tragic and sad." She adds. "Having said that, in my shows when I'm doing the Piaf songs, I'm not trying to conjure her up – I'm not acting her out on stage - I'm really just trying to passably sing some her amazing songs." As her brother's Songs For Lulu concert recitals - which commanded audiences to remain completely silent throughout - are reaching their conclusion, I ask Martha what her impressions of Rufus's own tribute to Shakespeare, death, despair - and their mother – were.
 

"Well, I toured with him for a month in the US and so I got to see him perform that show every night." She says proudly, "I found that because I didn't applaud, my own reaction was stronger and more palpable." Martha pauses, "it was more internalised and therefore the feeling I think was far greater. When you go to a concert usually there's a release and some letting go of feelings, and that's great as well, but I think it's nice to just observe sometimes and not intervene or participate. Obviously it was different experience for me because it's my brother, but I actually loved not applauding at the end of each song without feeling like it was somehow an insult to him!"

lEIGh5

Rufus Wainwright performs All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu live (review)

Venue: The Palais, Melbourne. 24/10/10

In the time it takes many artists to work out what they want to do/say with their music to leave a decent mark, Rufus Wainwright crammed practically a lifetime's work. His un-relenting recording/tour schedule over the last decade, it has been suggested, is the result of the ethic bestowed upon him by his doting mother, Kate McGarrigle. At 14 Wainwright first performed with his legendary (in folk circles) mother and her sister Anna as part of the family's regular jaunts around Canada and America. These concerts, incorporating lengthy sing-a-longs to everything from Kate and Anna McGarrigle originals to depression-era anthems, helped build young Rufus into a confident 'old-hand' with an appreciation of his musical history. The importance of his mother's influence can't be underplayed when appreciating Wainwright as a performer in his own right, and so her death at the start of this year has obviously impacted greatly on his current stage show.

Rufus's solo return to Australia – his first visit since January 2008 – comes straight off the back of the Wainwright-penned opera, Prima Donna, which also seems to have had an influence on his concert presentation. The first indication that this was not going be your regular-type live show was the request for absolute silence during the first act – the current album All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu in complete form – and no applause between songs or until Mr Wainwright has completely left the stage. Sounds easy enough in theory, but over the course of the show a bizarre tension builds in the capacity crowd. The room suddenly falls silent as the curtain raises and we are faced with an almost completely blackened stage bar one spotlight above a baby grand piano positioned on the far right. A few gasps can be heard as a barely visible figure slowly emerges from the left and pads slowly and silently across the stage. In the darkness, a long flowing black garment with a shoulder bustle takes shape as our eyes adjust to the low light; then with cat-like grace, Rufus lowers himself onto the piano stool and elegantly and tilts his face towards the spotlight. He freezes with hands poised above the keyboard and the whole place draws its breath as one.

Before a note is even played, the sombre mood is set for this recital and all that's left to do is maintain the composure Rufus has requested of his us. He performs Who Are You New York? – the album's opener – and stops only briefly between songs until the final track, Zebulon. For the most part, we sit in a kind of outward silence as our minds fill with imagery and impressions of what we are witnessing. The most rewarding part of sustained silence, in any case, is an exaggerated awareness and with All Days Are Nights being such a personal and difficult album – both technically and conceptually – the emotions start to run high. The fruity, Judy Garland-singing Rufus we knew so recently, appears now as the cloaked apparition of some deceased opera singer, doomed to perform for muted, passive theatregoers. Of course transforming himself this way is all part of the recovery process of losing his mother, but it's also an exercise in restraint and the want for his audience, to not only see the live concert experience as a way to forget about trivialities but perhaps to re-think what we call trivial and what we take for granted.

Even Wainwright's positioning on stage seems significant after a while as the backdrop gradually fills up with mournful, heavily made-up eyes blankly staring out into the auditorium. He's made himself into a spectral, barely visible figure and turned the gaze onto us, effectively reversing the standard performer/audience roles. The melancholy tunes, many of which are derived from Shakespeare sonnets, are some of Wainwright's most demanding, from a listener's point of view, as well for him to perform. He has created with Songs For Lulu an exhaustive regime of classical pieces basically designed to torture the artist's concentration level and force audiences onto the edge of their seats. I would like to say he made it look easy, but Rufus demonstrates through this act the extremely high standard he sets himself – again a by-product of his mother's influence at a young age. And then there's that voice – Wainwright's instantly identifiable nasal/croak which - when described, sounds far better to the ears than on paper - riding over the octave scale in implausible fluidity. Also it's rare for him to dig into its lowest register, but tonight many a long guttural note punctuates the air in between those operatic highs.

At the end of act one, Rufus exits just as he entered – a shuffling ghostly figure, oblivious to the packed room barely restraining themselves from applauding until he is completely gone from view. The curtain falls and Wainwright's devotees erupt with gratitude, relieved to finally break their imposed silence. The next act is a much more relaxed, 'hits-and-favourites' set – with the comfort of welcomed applause and friendly banter thrown in. When Wainwright re-emerges, he's clad in orange tights and a pink scarf, while the crying eyes have been replaced with a deep, red sunset sky. He fairly skips onto the stage grinning and all memory of the first act has been unceremoniously eradicated. However the audience are not so quick to be distracted and now await Rufus's word on whether to applaud after some awkward silences between songs and comical stories of his adventures in Australia. Stunned as we were, I note that one benefit from act one's vocal workout is the ease at which Rufus sings his more familiar pieces. It was his best Hallelujah, his loveliest Art Teacher and his finest Poses, all thanks to Lulu and her demands on his voice.

This tour will no doubt become his most heavily criticised work – after all it was an extremely self-indulgent move, but fuck it, give me that kind of drama and theatrical pomp over wilting wallflowers or sulky indie boys any day. Wainwright has always been about the biggest wow and cockiest strut, so it stands to reason that this sad time in his life has bought out a no less extreme side to him. It may take him a long time from now to feel it himself, but from a watcher's view point, the man is totally and utterly fearless.

lEIGh5


PALAIS SET LIST: 24/10/10

ACT I:

WHO ARE YOU NEW YORK?

SAD WITH WHAT I HAVE

MARTHA

GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND GIVE IT TO ME NOW

TRUE LOVES

SONNET #43

SONNET #20

SONNET #10

THE DREAM

WHAT WOULD I EVER DO WITH A ROSE

LES FEUX D'ARTIFICE T'APPELLENT
ZEBULON

ACT II:

BEAUTY MARK

NOBODY'S OFF THE HOOK

MATINEE IDOL

MEMPHIS SKYLINE

ART TEACHER

COMPLAINTE DE LA BUTTE

HALLELUJAH

VIBRATE

DINNER AT EIGHT

CIGARETTES AND CHOCOLATE MILK

POSES

GOING TO A TOWN

THE WALKING SONG