AIMEE MANN AT SOPAC: POLITELY AWESOME

"I'm going to play some new songs, so if you want to go to the bathroom, I totally understand." Who else but Aimee Mann would offer that line up without any venom? It's been a few years since her last album, Smilers, so it was good to hear a few new songs.  Her fans may certainly be attached by earlier songs in their catalog (I cite Bachelor No. 2 and Lost In Space as two of my favorite albums ever, and I love her other ones also), but it's not the classic rock crowd, we want to hear where Aimee's at today.  But she's so polite, so self-aware, to offer that caveat before playing new songs (more on them in a second).

Where she's at and where she's always been, is that she's writing about flawed characters, and doing so without judgement. She's always done this so well. And the songs are always so well crafted!  Not that they're "sweet," per se, but if you're not totally paying attention, you may miss how dark they can be.  I think that's one of the things that her fans really like about her.

Another is her charm.  She's always known that there's something a bit ridiculous about performing on stage to a few hundred (or thousand) people and trying to have a conversation. Hence, her deciscion on a tour a few years ago to hire a comedian (Patton Oswalt) to provide between-song banter for her (when she herself is, in fact, quite funny). Last night at the South Orange Performing Arts Center, she joked about everything from her out of tune guitar, to not remembering how to play some of her classics (like "Ghost World") to how we formulate our ideas of what adulthood will bring when we're eight years old, and never modify those ideas. And she pointed out that her brother, possibly forgetting what she does for a living, told her that "no one wants to hear new songs at a show."

Last night she had a different setup than usual: it was just Aimee, with Paul Bryan on bass and keyboards and Jamie Edwards on keyboards, it was a bit more stripped down than her usual shows. She played lots of songs from her recent albums ("Freeway," "31 Today," "That's How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart") as well as bunch of things from Magnolia ("Save Me," "Wise Up," "Build That Wall," her cover of "One"). Those songs still pack incredible emotional punch, but they're also subtle.  On one hand, she isn't a R&B or blues singer who really hits you with her singing.  On the other hand, she's much more interesting than most folk singers or "indie rock" artists.  When she's performing, everything is about the song. In between songs, her personality wins you over.  It's such a great combination.

Her new songs were cool: they are from an upcoming stage adaptation of her Forgotten Arm album. She admitted that the idea of adapting one of her albums for the stage sounded awful, and remarked she'd seen some "rock musicals" that were really awful.  I think the awareness that something could go off the rails will help to keep Aimee from creating a disasterous show. Anyway, the new songs were cool.

The venue was perfect for the show. There were a lot of suburbanites who probably don't get to her NYC shows, and they really appreciated the fact that Aimee came to the 'burbs. It was a theater with seats, unlike the last Aimee show I saw, which I didn't really love (I felt that particular show didn't move that well, and wasn't suited to a club - to be fair, it was probably the first of 15 or so Aimee shows that didn't totally knock me out). It might be a perfect venue for her to test out the Forgotten Arm musical... but wherever that thing plays, I'll be there for previews.  I have faith that however Aimee brings this to life via actors and sets, it will be a cool experience.

AIMEE MANN - "SAVE ME": ONE OF THE GREATEST SONGS EVER?

OK, a bold headline for a little blog post, but this songs just resonates with me. 

Eleven years ago I worked at MTV2. We pretty much just played music videos. In early 2000, we were playing every video of all time, in alphabetical order. It was fun, but at some point, we took breaks from that to play new music, and one of the new videos we focused on was Aimee Mann's "Save Me" from the Magnolia soundtrack. Of course I knew who she was: I'd seen her with 'til Tuesday opening for Tom Petty years earlier, and I'd heard songs from, and read 5 star reviews of, her first two solo albums Whatever and I'm With Stupid. And of course, she guested on "Time Stand Still" by one of my favorite bands, Rush (he said UN-sarcastically). She was an artist who I'd meant to catch up with at some point. This was that point.

The video for "Save Me" stopped me dead in my tracks. I already knew I wanted to see the movie: I loved Paul Thomas Anderson's previous film Boogie Nights, and the way he portrayed flawed characters without judging. And I loved the actors, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly and Phillip Seymour Hoffman who were in both of the films. (Moore and Reilly were in the "Save Me" video, as was co-star [not star, but co-star] Tom Cruise.) But the video would have sold me on the movie no matter what.  Something about Aimee, with that gaze, singing that song next to these sad but not hopeless characters really spoke to me. It's hard to identify why.

The film and Aimee's soundtrack made a big impact on me. I'm not always the most tolerant person in the world, but I try not to be judgemental, and this song somehow reminds me of that.  Aimee's character - her image in this video, her songs in the film - are also a reminder.  She isn't so accepting that she's an enabler. It's just that she's not judging. She's not damning you while you go down, but she's not aiding in your destruction.  If you want to get better, great: she's there to help.  (I realize I'm superimposing my interpretation here, but isn't that what music's about: how you interpret it?)  It's a good way to be, I think, and this song helps me to try and remember to be that way.  How many songs can actually influence your behavior?  Thanks for writing this one, Aimee Mann, and here's hoping you perform it Saturday night at the South Orange Performaning Arts Center!

Here's the video:

TOMORROW ON THE CATHOLIC CHANNEL: THE SONGS OF AIMEE MANN

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, once a month I go on SIRIUS XM's The Catholic Channel's Busted Halo Show on SIRIUS channel 159 and XM channel 117.  Tune in at 7:20 pm ET (for a free online trial subscription, go to www.sirius.com/freetrial). Thursday nights are "Faith and Culture Thursdays," and we usually discuss the music of a specific artist, and tomorrow night we'll be talking about one of my favorite artists of all time, Aimee Mann.

Ms. Mann might find it odd that her music is being discussed in that forum, but I feel that her songs have a really strong moral code. She comes off as a very strong and together person, but she seems to be surrounded by very flawed characters with a variety of problems.  Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia, which I watched over the weekend preparing for the Busted Halo show, was inspired by a line in Aimee Mann's song "Deathly." In so many songs, she sings about these characters.  You don't get the impression that these people can take advantage of her, she doesn't seem like an "enabler." But she doesn't reject anyone either, and she doesn't judge them. Rather, she seems to give hard advice, the advice that only someone with compassion would bother to give.  That's why I guess I felt she fit in on the show. It's difficult to forgive.  It's easier to just hold a grudge.  But to try and understand other people's problems and why they are the way they are, that's something we should all be able to do, and something religion should help us to do.

There are a lot of parts of Magnolia that stick out to me.  But one big one is towards the end where John C. Reilly's character, pretending he is being interviewed for a "COPS" type show, says, "Sometimes people need a little help. Sometimes people need to be forgiven. And sometimes they need to go to jail." There's a lot of humanity and realism in that statement. Sometimes you can help people if you try.  And sometimes you can't help them. That is sort of at the core of Magnolia, and in a lot of ways, it is at the core of many of Aimee Mann's songs.

Agree?  Disagree?  Tune in tomorrow and call in with your opinions.

AIMEE MANN AND MAGNOLIA

It's hard to believe that Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia came out ten years ago. I remember being curious about it because I loved his prior film, Boogie Nights, and this one featured some of the same great actors, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy and the lovely Julianne Moore. And Tom Cruise was in it as a member of an ensemble cast. But the video for Aimee Mann's "Save Me" which included most of the cast really got my interest - at the time I was working at MTV2, and we played that video often.

Anderson knew Aimee because her husband, Michael Penn, scored Boogie Nights and also made a cameo in it (as the guy who owned the studio that Marky Mark and John C. Reilly cut their album in). At the time, she was going through well-documented issues with her label, Interscope, who was enjoying great success with music by the likes of Eminem and Fred Durst. They weren't sure how to market her,  and didn't hear a single on her new set of songs.  One of those songs, "Deathly," included the line "Now that I've met you, would you object to never seeing each other again?" Paul Thomas Anderson heard that line, which inspired one character named Claudia, and he started writing the rest of the film from there. He wrote about this in the liner notes to the Magnolia soundtrack.

The film also provided Aimee's music a better vehicle than Interscope ever could, not only did it find her audience, but it gave her a bigger audience than ever, and helped her launch the next phase of her career as a truly independent artist (she owns her own label, SuperEgo Records). In some ways, her story is a bit Magnolia-like.  Going through crap with at least three major labels for years led to greater popularity as an independent artist.

I was one of the people who became a fan due to Magnolia. I liked some of her old songs, but I wasn't a huge fan, and this film and soundtrack changed that. Her music figured pretty heavily into the film, not just "Deathly" and "Save Me" but also "Momentum" and "Wise Up," which was used in a scene where different characters sang along with it (I remember lots of the Cruise fans in the theater weren't going along with the premise).  I loved that the songs described people who you might say were "damaged," but did so without really judging them  - which is kind of what Anderson did in the film.  Over the last decade, I've listened to her music as much as anyone else's and I'm always struck by that.  She doesn't seem like someone you could take advantage or, she's not an "enabler," in psychological terms. She doesn't suffer fools lightly (particularly if they work at major record labels!).  But she also doesn't judge, and sort of has hope for characters/people no matter what their flaws are. I find that noble, and often try to be more like that. I'm going to be talking about Aimee Thursday night on The Catholic Channel.  I haven't selected which songs yet, but I'm sure at least one will be from Magnolia.

Here's the video for "Save Me":