Men in Trees

I watched the first two episodes of this show, and I just don't understand. Long story short: a relationship coach from the big city finds out that her fiance's a cheat, freaks out, and decides to stay in the small Alaskan town she's visiting.

It's so set up that it doesn't even make any sense. And it's a shame, because I really like seeing a place on TV that's not New York or suburbia. Alaska, especially a small town, would be lovely (even if it's really just the outskirts of Vancouver BC). There are also a couple of cast members who I really like---the young Patrick (Derek Richardson) who works at the inn/hotel where the ridiculous "coach" Marin Frist (Anne Heche) stays, and the immediately-appearing New Love Interest for Marin, Jack (James Tupper).

The best thing about the show, apart from the scenery, is probably the name, but even the humor in that is crushed by a heavy-handed tie-in to Frist's ridiculous relationship coaching. She equated relationship signs to actual road signs. Ha ha ha! So funny, so apt! But not really. Apparently the writers find such childish "symbolism" meaningful themselves, since they stick their fair share of stupid trite metaphors into Marin's life. But literally. Lights go on when she makes a momentous decision ("the power is back," she says, calling even more attention to the sad cliche), she falls through thin ice---the setup for that is absurd in itself: we're supposed to buy that as she's trying to find a light for a cigarette, she thinks a man 25 feet away in the pitch dark of night is yelling "Stop!" because he wants her to stop smoking. He probably wouldn't even be able to see the damn cigarette. But she has to fall through the thin ice so she can end up warming herself with the tender care of this new man, you see.

They do use some really good songs, but they use them for all the wrong reasons, so they don't even deserve credit for it and I'm not going to give them any.

There are definitely more problems than show here. I'll just go through the ones I remember best.

Anne Heche and her character are both extremely irritating. Her character is whiny, mean, judgmental, embarrassingly prejudiced, and she's also far too old to just now realize that she's stupid, which is what's happening. Her readers also should have known, but instead one of them is so obsessed with the cliche declarations that she follows Marin to this nowhereland and moves in. And how old is Anne Heche, anyway? She's way too old for this role. She also appears to be going bald. In a rather Queen Elizabeth way. She's a cold, pointy, dough-colored thing, and her eyes express about as much emotion as one of those X-Files creatures infected with the black oil.

There's all sorts of ridiculous plot devices that are way too farfetched. These start with the premise of the show, that a New York author and so-called "expert on relationships" would fly to a teeny tiny Alaskan town (with buses to Vancouver, Canada only once a week) to make an appearance for 30 men. (Tops. And these men who show up at the meeting-hall haven't read any of her books anyway---they don't know or understand any of her lame catchphrases.) The writers try to pawn off this bizarre trip on the fact that she's also doing a show at a bookstore in Seattle. Oh, yeah, because Seattle's right there in Alaska! Aww, it's on the border anyway. Practically. Sure.

Other examples of ridiculous crap they try:

You can't leave wrapped Luna Bar (whatever kind it was, those are my favorite so I'll give 'em a nod) out in a hotel room in Alaska? No, apparently you can't, or raccoons will invade. They also follow you down the street day after day, and stand up, gesticulating and chittering meaningfully, when you glance back at them. These conversational raccoon days are those after the one when they Alanis Morrisette-ironically steal your wedding dress and run off with it. Which brings us to. . .

In a town that only gets cigarettes delivered once a month, somehow this woman's wedding dress arrives unexpectedly from New York about a day after she breaks off her engagement. What the hell is that? As if a fine New York wedding boutique (clearly the implication here) would send someone's wedding dress to a random town in Alaska simply because the bride was supposed to be there for one night, on a job. Even if they thought she was really going to call off the wedding, what would be the point of sending the dress there? No one, not even the woman herself, knew she was going to stay at that point. The dressmakers also pinned on a friendly and helpful note saying "Sorry about the wedding! You owe $8,400." What?! There's absolutely no way in hell that would ever happen.

In the second episode, Marin supposedly blows out the town's electricity by using a blow dryer. Apparently, it's common knowledge that you can't use a blow dryer in this town (nice stable electrical system they got there!), even though we know she's been there for a freakin' week already and it's obvious that she's been using that blow dryer the whole time. What's worse is she says "I'm glad I didn't use my curling iron!" when it's clear she did that also. The hooker who lives---oh, that's right, did I mention that? Yes, the hooker who lives in the hotel room next to hers clearly blow-dries her hair also, so I don't know who they think they're fooling acting as though it blows out the power. They could have had her using several appliances at once or something else mildly believable. If they were going for that whole "believable" thing, that is.

And back to the hooker. A gorgeous woman, somehow planted there in this town where the ratio of men to women is 10 to 1, wishing "someone could love me for me!" Uh, yeah, right. As if it would be hard for her to find someone! Because of course she's not only gorgeous, she's sensitive, sweet, and has that good old-fashioned hooker heart o' gold.

There's another gorgeous girl who works at the local bar. Oddly, every woman in this town is pretty damned gorgeous, even if the sheriff lady is hiding it a bit. Hm, sheriff lady, does that sound familiar? Yes, and there's also the extremely wealthy "inventor of moist towelettes"---Jerry from ER, who I guess will be dying next week in the ER season premiere---who runs the neighborhood bar and knows all about Pouilly Fuisse (although he doesn't stock the bar with bitters or triple sec. Hm. Then again, I don't know why she was looking for triple sec in a negroni, vodka or no.) Patrick the bellhop/concierge also works at the local radio station, announcing each day's little quirky comings and goings. I guess all Alaskan towns kind of have the same ingredients, maybe mixed around a little. Minus an astronaut and plus ten years of technology, perhaps.

I wish this could be a new take on Northern Exposure. I'd have that, because who cares about being derivative if something's good enough? It would be an homage. But instead this is some contrived Sex and the City knockoff set in a fake remote Alaskan outpost---complete with (in this case, hackneyed) voiceovers. I guess if it worked for Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives, and then they stuck 'em into Grey's Anatomy and that did well. . . They don't work here, though. Neither do the fake Carrie-curls they keep putting in the flat chicken hairs on Anne Heche's balding head.

The whole idea of a relationships author "studying men" in this miniscule Alaskan town doesn't make any sense either. You don't study people living in their own little microcosm unless what you are studying is the microcosm, and the first thing viewers---and even dimwit Marin---realize here is that this place is a world unto itself. And unfortunately, she keeps applying the same sort of boring, self-evident summaries to everything that happens. Even though everything that happens doesn't fit what's generally boring and self-evident in the regular, non-written-for-TV world. The hooker has kept on working in "hospitality", even though she claims to want out of the life and would certainly have the means in that town. The lovely bartender "wants to see what else is out there" and so has separated from her intelligent, kind, and wealthy husband. ("Oh, so the women are the men here," the enlightened relationship expert declares.) The men in general are all soulful, sensitive, smart fellows who just want a woman to love. What?! Yes, in this fantasyland, certainly the "relationship coach" will be able to write a book about men and how to understand them. All the five women in fictional Elmo, Alaska will find it useful.

Coffee People

When I first got to Portland, it was very much a coffee town.

This was before the world was a coffee world. In New York, we did frequent cafes, but we ordered things by their full names: caffe macchiato, latte macchiato, cioccolata calda. Cafe au lait if you wanted to go simple but milky. We went to real sit-down cafes with marble floors, wrought-iron chairs and large windows; Edgar and Lalo and Monaco. Most of the romance of those places is gone now, because of what happened with coffee since those early days of the coffee revolution.

But back in the early '90s, when I found Portland a real coffee town, I was only slightly surprised. It was very cool to be able to go down and get amazing coffee drinks from the college campus cafe, and even before I started college, I remember the scent of coffee hanging in the cool moisture of the city air. There were frenchie cafes, late-night coffee hangouts, and countless tiny shops with groovy little drinks of their own. There were even chains from the hometown Pacific Northwest---but locals were already starting to avoid and badmouth Starbucks. It was a huge chain (over 250 stores at that point!), it was the bully, it wasn't the coffee for the cool, free-spirited folk.
This turned out to be pretty funny. Here in Portland if you had to choose a chain, you'd go for Coffee People or maybe Seattle's Best, but as the popularity of store-made coffee drinks grew in other parts of the country, most people were relying on Starbucks as their introduction. I never did like Starbucks, so it usually meant that when I went back east, while my family grew excited by the arrivals of Starbucks stores, I sat there without any coffee. Although I did enjoy the old-fashioned diner coffee you could still get back there (it's changing now, and I hope that doesn't stick). But that's a different beast altogether!
Coffee People was also among the very first to start the trend of reusable mugs rather than countless paper cups. Their "Road Tour" mugs were all over town. My '96 and '98 cups are sitting in separate places here in my living room right now, waiting to get collected and dumped in the dishwasher. The whole philosophy of the company seemed a little bit hippie, but at the same time there was something not very hippie about coffee, and not so hippie about a growing chain of stores, even if there were fewer than 15 to Starbucks more than 200. So Coffee People always had a soft spot in my heart. It was the coffee chain I really liked and believed in and hoped would grow. Thinitiallylly hoped they would grow also, but in 1999, the original owners sold the company to Diedrich Coffee, a small Californian company, and I thought that was sad. But they were still there with the same stores, the same employees, and even those same Road Tour mugs. People still gathered there and bought coffees and their crazy concoction milkshakes. One location still flourished on a corner directly across from a Starbucks. I've never even entered that Starbucks. But then that NW 23rd Coffee People, their first store in Portland, was gone. And today the whole company is gone, another one gobbled up by the greedy, soul-sucking bastards at Starbucks. I wish I'd kept up getting those mugs. I sort of thought it wasn't a big deal missing years here and there. I guess they still have kiosks open at the airport, and you can still get Coffee People items online, but I'm really not sure how it would all work when in all other ways, the company is gone. Maybe they'll rebuild from those tiny remnants!
I don't understand why no one has ever been able to rival Starbucks after they got going. There have been many coffee companies that had far better coffee than Starbucks. But they were steamrolled, eaten. It's really rather sad that most people can only have access to Starbucks coffee. Obviously, there are still local coffee places in most cities and towns, but chances are if you are looking to grab a quick coffee somewhere, you're more likely to find a Starbucks than anything else. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop it, apparently.

Except maybe don't get your coffee there. In the past year, I've had coffee from Starbucks maybe 5 times---and that was because I was in New York in winter, making my way through ice and snow for late-night coffee in a cafe-free neighborhood. It was generally pretty foul---one time I even had to have it remade, because it was intolerably so---and in general I'd rather have gotten my coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. But to be honest, I don't usually drink a lot of coffee drinks. I like coffee, but I feel like it's a mulling kind of drink, a cafe kind of drink, not something you pick up in a rush just because. Or something you'd drink in a fake McDonald's of a cafe like Starbucks offers. So even though I live above a Starbucks, I don't go in. I used to frequent another Seattle-born chain, Tully's, but they, too, were chased out of Portland. (A damn shame, because they had delicious sandwiches, great bagels, and bakery items--they'd absorbed a local bakery that was foundering.)
If I want a coffee drink, I'll walk a block to Via Delizia or that cute little place up on 17th. Because, yes, Portland is still a coffee town, and here you are less likely to have to resort to Starbucks. In my neighborhood, I can still find a Peet's, a World Cup, and a Boyd Coffee Company, in addition to a handful of local bitties. But still, there are two Starbucks. And there will be no more Coffee People. We can all hope that perhaps someday in the future, when the coffee obsession has really settled in, other coffee places will have just as much chance as Starbucks, and won't get crushed by their massive corporate hand. Until then, I hope people won't forget that there was once a nifty little Oregonian chain with great coffee and no backtalk.

The Rock Star, Supernova aka A Colossal Waste of Time

Toby looks like a freak! What's with that outfit? Way too high of a neck. It doesn't flatter his face at all.

Magni has fulfilled my wish to hear "Fire" again. Maybe he heard me talking about it yesterday. There was less fire from him in it than in the original performance, though. I think even though he's this close, he's thinking he won't make it.

And Toby's in the bottom two also? I don't understand this. I think some idiots got into the voting pool, because if Lukas or Dilana end up as the singer of Supernova, there's going to be problems. Especially because the band will choose Lukas out of those two, and he sucks almost as badly as having a singer who was had his throat beaten flat with a pipe.

This is another "as it happens" (at least on my TV) posting. I'm thinking they're going to eliminate Magni, but I can't understand how they have to eliminate one of these two. It's really horrible.
And there he goes.

The point they bring up about the fronting ability makes me have a bit of hope that they realize that Lukas would be an abominable choice. And yikes! That montage does an even better job of showing it.

I actually think Dilana would be an interesting and rather awesome choice. The band would be fairly unparalleled, too. There aren't any bands like this fronted by women. But what the hell is wrong with her, choosing "Zombie" as her last-ditch song? That's not what the band is going to sound like, and it doesn't show anything they should really see. Bleh. I change my mind. She's clearly an idiot, in spite of the fact that her voice can sound incredible. And you can't have an idiot fronting a band. Well, maybe you can. . .

I skipped a description of Lukas's performance of "Bittersweet Symphony" because I just can't repeat myself about him anymore. See up there, somewhere. Look for the word nightmare. Maybe that was in older posts.

Well, I guess they will have an idiot fronting the band, because they got rid of Toby. He really has the most future potential, but I do understand that it probably isn't the kind of sound they were looking for with the band. So I guess it will be Dilana.

But it's not. This is unbelievable. It has to be a set-up, but I don't see what the reason would be. To only have a band that makes one album, a band that tanks?
I guess so. What a laugh. After all this, they choose someone who acts like a deranged elf and sings like he is literally vomiting on the audience.

Well, I for one am certainly glad I spent my time watching this dumbass show.
I knew that this was a ridiculous notion, I knew I was likely never going to enjoy any band that came of it, but I wanted to give it a chance to be fun. But nothing is really fun if it ends up being such an abysmal disappointment. I refuse to believe that anyone could possibly enjoy the singing this man usually provides. It must be part of Canada's plot, or something.

So, the clumsy spastic hiccuping lizardy turtle-throated egg-gargle-yodeler won. Rock on. Bugger off.

Penultimate Fantasy Airship

At this point, it seems to me that Toby is going to win. I would have thought that he was a little too poppy and fun for the band, but I guess they don't think that.
His "Karma Police" was a little overdone and not natural for him. It sounds great when he relaxes and is all himself (as it was near the end), but when he's effecting a Thom Yorke style (as he did in the start), it doesn't come off well.
I also have to say that although I like his song, the "oh-oh-oh"s are getting me a little tired with it sometimes---and this is only having heard it a handful of times. Something about it tonight reminded me of Gay Dad, also. I liked them, but apparently nobody else did. Darn, I really liked them. Whatever happened with them?

They showed an audience member laughing during Lukas's performance. I know not everyone might have that reaction, and might not have it throughout, but there is definitely that element there. He's weird and ridiculous at times. And it's not in a good way. He really reminds me of a little crested lizard running round the stage in panic.
His rendition of his original song tonight was almost painful. The stripping-down revealed the fact that there are only about 4 lines of lyrics, and the melody is so boring that he had to resort to his nasty tongue-in-the-throat voice (which I guess he considers interesting). Disgusting. I'd never vote for him in a million years.

Dilana did a beautiful job with "Roxanne". She also looked really nice softened down a little bit. I like her Marianne Faithfull-ness. But then she goes and sings her original song again, and in spite of her explanation that "it's a freedom song," it sounds like an angry song: "I could have killed you in your sleep/bringing me conspiracies to haunt me" True, it says "that's history," but those feelings are put forth as having existed once, and those lyrics are the ones that come out with the power and emotion. The explanation sounded more like defensive excuses made because she read people's opinions online. She also sings that song in a more nasal, nasty voice. It's just not appealing. The effects is that she's trying to sound scary. And why?
But she did a much better job than Lukas.

Jesus, Magni certainly got his soul back in him tonight! It looked like someone shot him up with a liter of adrenaline. The choice to do Deep Purple's "Hush" was perfect: he's really the only performer from this whole show who has shown a deep classic rock talent. His "Fire" from weeks ago keeps sticking in my mind.
I still don't really find the lyrics in his original song that skilled, and forgetting its title tonight wasn't the best thing, but it still ranks in second place (first place is Toby's) for me. It could certainly be on the radio, whereas Lukas's sounds like something your 15-year-old neighbor wrote and plays over and over again because he thinks it brilliantly conveys the heartbreak of his soul. "You make my head spin"---ohhhh, fraught with meaning.

I can't believe Magni was at number four at the end. Come on. Lukas is a nightmare! He's so childish! It's awful.

The Helio Sequence

Tonight I saw Portland's best band, The Helio Sequence. It's been a long time since I've seen them, but oh, how gloriously happy it made me. I haven't felt so pleased in a really long time. I can't even remember when! It was almost as magical as seeing them back in the day, shining out from that dark cave of Ohm. But I didn't realize how long ago back in the day was until I got to the show! Holy cripes, have they changed. But Brandon Summers is still a glowing, effervescent god. Still reminds me of Steve Marriott, though less so without his bowl of hair flopping around. And Benjamin Weikel is still freaking out Animal-style on the drums, mouth agape in the most endearingly exuberant way.

I don't know what it is, but with just the two of them, they fill a massive ballroom with sound that literally feels golden, like optimism and energy and hope bouncing into your cells. It's gotten a little less hyperactive as they've grown a bit older, but that may even be a good thing, because it makes it seem like their state of mind is almost accessible, and not something that has to be absorbed through osmosis if you're not a zippy 19-year-old.

Okay, so why has it been so long since I've seen them? After their 2001 album (their second), they didn't release anything for a while. I was freaked out to see Benjamin Weikel drumming with Modest Mouse at SXSW, because I thought it meant the end of Helio Sequence. I spent most of the set saying "I can't believe it!" I don't even know when that was. Was it 2004? It was the year Mission of Burma played. (Mental note to self about Mission of Burma poster on the wall in bathroom: see if it's sold out or what.) Anyway, when they finally did release a third album (love and distance), it was in summer 2004, and I was pretty busy with personal turmoil at that point. Flooding, car accident, illness, death. I think I vaguely remember hearing about and intending to get the album. I think I've been semi-conscious in a sense since then, certainly not as in tune as I always was before, so I have been oblivious to most things and haven't seen any adverts that they were around. But they are! I'm so glad. And they even promised that they plan to release a new album soon, although I missed some information there because the idiot beside me was screeching out a whistle that sounded like feedback.

I'll take the opportunity to briefly address such behavior here. If you're at a show to see someone, people, it is rude and stupid to whistle or cheer when they are talking. Wait until they are not speaking, dork. Likewise, if you go to show and find out that ooo, the floor bounces, this does not mean you have to go around bouncing the floor. If that's your bag, come back after the show and bounce on the floor. The rest of us are there to see the show, not to see you giggling and squealing and rocking the floor like it's a ship. Another tip: if you are seeing a pleasant, etheral pop band or something like that, don't make your little devil horns and thrust your hand in the air. And don't go looking for a mosh! Jeez, I didn't even think people still did that. What the hell show do you think you're at? What are you doing? Also, if you are going to dance like a crazy person, dance to the music that's playing. Otherwise it's perfectly clear to everyone that you're just one of those drunk guys with the bachelor party that wandered in by chance.
And now back to The Helio Sequence.

Reading an interview with Brandon Summers in the weekly after the show, I realized with some strange sadness that he recalls a Portland long gone, one I was totally immersed in and enamored with. It seems like longer than the decade it has been since those days. Portland used to be pretty damn cool. And now the weekly is actually printing sidebar definitions of once bread-and-butter bands. It's kind of sick. I didn't realize it had really gotten so . . . whatever it is. I kind of thought I was imagining it or I was unfairly biased. Apparently, he doesn't mind the change, and I guess I have to admit he said he likes Portland as-is. The aforementioned 2004 album, love and distance even has a song ("Everyone Knows Everyone") that eerily (to me) but cheerfully (to them) describes the freaky comforting quicksand that is Portland.

The Helio Sequence would be one thing I'd miss if I'm ever able to get out of here. I'm going to be hypervigilant about any of their performances in the future, because with this kind of pleasure, I can't afford to miss a single one.


p.s. Three points goes to anyone who can accurately connect the weird, unexpected dots that made this entry on The Helio Sequence fit with this blog's usual themes.

How to Fix a Fiery Toaster

Well, not really. But wouldn't that be handy?

No, instead it's a comment on the elimination show, because I had to.

I'll be the first to say that I thought Lukas did a much better job with his original song tonight, and I'm glad he sang it as his last-ditch effort. It definitely protected his place as one of the final four.

I didn't really understand what Dilana was doing, and I thought her version of "I Want You to Want Me" was pretty messy. It seemed like she came up with that . . . hmm, doesn't seem quite like an arrangement. Well, it seemed like she chose to change it up a little as she was singing it, and it wasn't timed well with the band or anything. The scream at the end didn't fit and was utterly superfluous.

Except for the fact it called attention to her voice, and it was clear that her voice is more what the band would want than Storm's is. So I guess the scream was a good move.

It's pretty easy to see why Storm finally went, because of the five, she's the one who sounds like a rock singer the least. And to be perfectly honest, they were never likely to pick a woman, and Storm has a pretty regular female voice. Dilana is unusual, so there's a slight possibility she could make it.

But taking everything together, I don't think she will. A male singer is just more of a fit with these guys.
So I was pretty disappointed with Magni's performance tonight. I don't know what's going on with him, but there's no excitement left in him, and his energy looks forced. It took him at least half of the song to get pumped up enough to really start performing, almost as if he wasn't focusing on what he had to do. I'm starting to think he's not reliably consistent enough to front the band, and I rather regretted sending a few votes his way last night.

My current pick is still Toby. I don't think he really fits, but I don't feel like any of them really do, and I like him best. As for who the band will pick, I think it's between him and Lukas.

One Week Left

Well, this evening was rather surprising.

Dilana is way off my list. She's too affected by outside elements. She's still tripping on stuff that happened weeks ago, feeling like she's getting shafted or something. You say you screwed up the lyrics on "Psycho Killer" last week? Well, people have been screwing up famous lyrics right and left on this show, and half the 15-year-olds in that audience aren't going to know anyway, and half the audience at home thought it was some kind of zany choice! Saying you screwed up the lyrics was probably more of a screwup than actually screwing them. Up. Got it? So shut up already.

And I have to say I think it's a pretty stupid idea to write a song about how the internet fans are so terribly judgmental and cutting when you're still on a show where they're voting on the contestants. "It was about people on the internet who vote for us, you know, the fans. It was basically a 'fuck you' kind of song." Ah, brilliant. And no, that wasn't the song she sang as her original, although it had a similar theme. Which is a little unsettling, because it sounds like she's got a whole bunch of paranoid, "I'm being judged!" songs. Kind of weird.

I also really want to know how you can be over 30, supposedly into music, and not know "Behind Blue Eyes"? She sang it decently. But shockingly, she lost some of her usual growl (which by this time I thought was permanent), and she actually sounded a little plain, poppy, and cheesy. All the good stuff in the performance came from the strength of the song, nothing to do with her. With anyone who can sing it, that song will come off sounding beautiful.

There is something about Dilana that I really like, and I would like to hear a woman with her voice on the radio, singing genuine rock. But I don't know if it's the pressure that's making her seem like kind of a flipout or what, but she's just not appearing stable. She also doesn't seem to have a really creative mind, as Gilby pointed out. The lyrics to her original song were pretty plain and boring. What was up with the torn calf muscle thing? How could she get up and move around like that? Whatever.

I thought Magni's version of "Back in the USSR" was awful. Lifeless and rather pointless. I don't know what was wrong with him. It sounded like he was imitating Elvis, and totally lazy about it! He walked around like a famous singer who was asked to come do a quick song somewhere and didn't really have to care about how he did it.

Magni's original song had a good tune, if a bit repetitive and loopy. The lyrics were a little too introspective (not explaining enough) and too basic. There was nothing really special in there, lyrically. And several things didn't quite make sense. Maybe it sounds better in Icelandic. Great belt buckle, though.

For a change, Storm was really rockin'. "Suffragette City" was a little stiff and throaty, but she interacted expertly with Dave Navarro, and had a good energy. Her original song was good, too. Not great, especially considering the very brief, pretty obvious lyrics, but it sounded decent. Nice vocal changes in the beginning. She also really drove it hard and sang with a lot of heart.

I'm not sure how I feel about Lukas Rossi's "Living on A Prayer." It certainly started out beautifully. I'm glad he didn't sing it the way it was originally recorded, but after he hit the chorus he kept doing that weird gross thing with his throat. It sounded so amazing until he did that, and then it sounded like a vibrating lizard yodeler. He continued to do that in his original, too, which made it hard to understand the lyrics. I don't know what he's doing half the time. He's not really singing---it sounds like he's trying to sound like a Canadian monster or something, slavering and spitting. The lyrics I did hear were mostly "you make my head spin" over and over again, which I guess was the chorus, but it seemed like the whole song was chorus. I think it pretty much sucked. Sometimes I think of a line that sounds cool to me, and I'll walk around singing it, but that doesn't make it a song.

I understand that Lukas was trying to say something personal, and he appeared to feel something there, but it wasn't getting across in his lyrics at all, so the song sounded weird. Way too much pointing, also. Pointing is not a dance move. Pointing means you're trying to gesture meaningfully, and it's hard to do when you're not describing something in a way that provides any clue to what you're talking about.

Toby's performance of the Killers' "Mr. Brightside" was fairly rote. He made it very, very poppy, and didn't add much of his own spin or depth. It seemed like he was a little anxious to get to his original song. But once he did---wow. A relief! He blew everyone else away with his clever hook and well-chosen lyrics. The song was miles above everyone else's in word choice and arrangement, complexity (especially integrating the phrasing of the lyrics with the melody), and actual communication of ideas. It was fun, had spirit, and made sense. It really fascinated me. It was a weird melange of early '80s sounds, then late '80s rock, with some grunge thrown in and a little splash of punk (some punk that's been evolving, though, not early or hardcore). I really think it sounded quite different than anything you'd currently hear on the radio---funny how that yardstick is sort of losing its relevance, I guess I mean "see on MTV" or "download"---and that makes me really want to hear it more. Even if it is a confluence of lots of other sounds and not something wholly new.

The only thing that worries me about Toby is the rote delivery of the Killers song is something I've seen in him before. I feel like he could have the tendency to toss things out a bit if he's not wholly invested and feeling everything all the way---which, in a competition like this, he should be feeling with each performance, no matter what the song. A desire to make it through no matter what, coupled with a knowledge of music, should be pumping through him each time he sings. And it's clear that he gave more to his original than to the cover tonight. What would happen with a song another band member wrote, then? I don't know. Magni is able to consistently deliver powerful, almost-always intense vocals, and even if he's not always burning with passion, his voice doesn't change tone when he's singing something he's not into. It just sounds like something spiritually or emotionally deeper is lacking. Whereas Toby's voice literally gets thinner.

But Toby's won my vote tonight. I may stick in a couple of votes for Magni as well, because maybe if he wasn't translating, or had a better way of translating, his song would come off better. And I just like him. And he's running a close second when I take in the whole run of the show. And I did the same thing last week, only in reverse, so I figure it's fair.

From the standings at the end tonight, it looked like people agreed with me about Toby, putting him at #1. And why was Storm down at #4 when she had the second-best performance tonight? Because it's a process, and from seeing her throughout this whole show, one night's good show is not enough to balance out the fact that she really doesn't deliver the right product, and doesn't deliver consistently at all. I guess the memories of past performance was also the reason Lukas was at #2. Even though he's sometimes like a gothy mewl-growling agonized turtle, when he hits it and sings normally, he can be really good. I understand that can be impressive, but really, it's about 2% of the time. The rest of the time he's gargle-growling though a closed mouth.

And to break it down further, Lukas has terrible style. It's so old, pat, cliche. I think he may just be too young to be comfortable with himself, so he's got all the silly trappings of goth-punk youth going on. That was cool when it was new, or even when it was in its first 15 years, but now it's pretty damned tired.