Joan of Arc

What makes Tim Kinsella and his rotating stable of collaborators interesting is that they’ve spent over a decade “experimenting” dissonantly enough to invite ire and disbelief without wandering too far astray from the two guitars, bass, and drums setup. While tempo might lag, or subtle electronics may be used, the music is always going to verge on math-rock without losing its hooks; the lyrics are going to be vulnerable yet baiting, and the vocals are going to yodel through an expressive, eternal puberty.

Joan of Arc and related bands—Owls, Cap’n Jazz, Make Believe, and Owen, just to name a few of the most successful and most overlapping personnel-wise—thus enjoy an odd cult following. Few bands still persist from the ’90s Jade Tree scene, not to mention a prickly one so quintessentially Midwestern in their familial and regional attachment to Chicago. Accordingly, their Mercury Lounge show on February 1st was full of aging rock nerds, wide-eyed anarchists, and nostalgic Midwestern transplants like myself. The jazzy Chicagoan eclecticism that Joan of Arc specialize in these days was front-loaded into the first few songs, as was a terrific lengthy instrumental that opened. Bouncing from guitar interplay to sixteenth note hi-hat groove at the mark of a well-placed pause, the performance primarily showcased Victor Villarreal’s and Tim Kinsella’s guitars, ending up as a kind of post-punk Stonesian interplay.

Live, older Joan of Arc songs benefit from the focus on groove, pinned down by Bobby Burg’s simple, unfailing bass and Theo Katsaounis’ confident tackling of the often odd time signatures. “Everything All At Once,” initially a drum-less, acoustic highlight of its’ 2006 eponymous album, becomes an upbeat, full-band rocker on the Many Times I’ve Mistaken (2007) single, and is funkier and more focused live than either recording. Villarreal’s tirelessness, usually plugged into complicated leads, proves well-suited for dance-ready repetition, especially on top of Katsaounis’ deep-in-the-pocket drumming. The somewhat popular notion that late-period Joan of Arc is boring or pretentious has never really made sense to me, and seeing them live, with their most personable songs shuffled together, the idea seemed completely ridiculous.

Part of that, too, is thanks to Kinsella’s terrific stage presence, quick-witted but never self-conscious. In no way does one get the feeling that he’s putting on an act—rather, he comes across as simultaneously guarded and ebullient, eager to engage the crowd specifically, though just as ready to quizzically dismiss any boneheaded comments. It’s a real attachment, bonding over the fact that he and us are painfully aware how stupid most of the things human beings say. When, on the lulling, near-acoustic Krautrock of Live In Chicago, 1999’s “Who’s Afraid Of Elizabeth Taylor,” he sang about wanting to make a movie in France despite not knowing French, the banter helped the lyric seem just an extension of neurotic, intelligent conversation. He’s aware of the silliness and paradox within the lyric, and the way he owns his own peccadilloes is what makes him so relatable.

In concert, it’s just a pleasure to observe his nervous listings of weird tour happenings, self-edited at the first sign of audience discontent, or his exuberant dance moves when liberated from the guitar. Perhaps owing to the presence of Villarreal, Kinsella’s bandmate in Cap’n Jazz and Owls, and not always a member of Joan of Arc, the band played three tracks off of Owls’ sole 2001 album. That self-titled release was without a doubt the poppiest moment in Kinsella’s oeuvre, an Albini-produced reunion of the original Cap’n Jazz lineup, and those three songs brought out the biggest response of the night. Joan of Arc tracks like “Shown and Told,” from 2008’s Boo! Human, may be designed to have more to chew on, with their sad, zen-like observations—“There are corners of your home / You’ve never noticed before”—but the audience singalong of Owls’ “Everyone Is My Friend” provided another kind of sublime feeling. “May we all make it home safely,” Kinsella repeats, and especially in context—shrugging off delineations between projects, blessing the crowd in a February ice storm—it was transcendent.

One of Kinsella’s heroes, and one that he gets slightly inaccurately compared to, is the director Jean-Luc Godard, whose Week End the band recreated for the album art of Live In Chicago. Both have become more avant garde since their more accessible, influential early years, sure, but Joan of Arc isn’t exactly lacking in pop filigree, though, and don’t ignore their past in live sets. They’ve just taken the most important lesson: that the click of a good genre piece is sometimes the best sound in the world, and that the best way to subvert expectations is with the same simple cameras or guitars that have always worked. No effects necessary.