NAKED SOUL

Sean Flinn - California - 2000

Here's the thing about Matt Johnson: the man makes absolutely brilliant, soulful music, crafts it like few other musicians working today, puts his heart and sweat and blood into it, and, as a result, has won a fanatical fan base that, like kids following the ice cream man on a summer afternoon, traverse the country, or county, or state to see his shows. He regularly sells a half million records whenever he puts out an album. Steady sales. He never phones one in, not live, not on record. When Matt Johnson and his band of 20 years, TheThe, come to town or put out a record, you can be pretty certain that patronzation will earn you the genuine article.

So of course, his record company, Universal Music Group, has basically left him - or at least, his most recent record, NakedSelf, for dead. That's Johnson's side of the story, and given what's well-known about UMG, now a division of Seagram's (yes, the beverage people) and the axe they dropped during a hideous period of sub-label consolidation two years ago, it's hard not to believe him. Besides, what promotion did NakedSelf receive? Remember any ads for it? Heard any singles from it on the radio? Seen any videos from it on MTV?

Didn't think so. Ditto for most of the bands on Johnson's actual label, Trent Reznor's Nothing Records imprint, all of whom have felt the sting of neglect from their parent companies, Interscope and good ol' UM F'ing G. This is the company, you'll recall -- the only major record label -- that refused to settle with MyMP3.com over their MyMP3.com listening service. Profits are of chief concern to them - they're a corporation, and corporations tend not to handle artful music with any delicacy or sympathy.

I wouldn't spend so much time and space regurgitating Johnson's bile over this issue if it weren't relevant to the task at hand, to wit, a discussion of TheThe's intensely moody set at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, Calif. this past Wednesday (October 11). Johnson's frustration with his treatment by UMG motivated him not just to write a lengthy, bitter, self-described manifesto (posted earlier this year on the band's Web site, and subsequently forwarded to everybody and their brother via e-mail), but to take the The on their current year-long tour in support of Naked Self. Johnson himself had this to say in a recent post to thethe.com:


“As most of you are aware, given Universal's incompetence/ indifference [with] regards [to] TheThe, I do not really have a record company at present. Any losses on this tour (and there are losses) come straight out of my pocket. For various reasons the oxygen of publicity in the form of radio and t.v and to a large extent even press had been switched off by Universal so we've been well and truly alone from the outset of this project. Now, many promoters get cold feet over this type of situation as nowadays they expect the record companies to do all the promotion for them. If they don't hear the singles on the radio and see posters all over town they panic and lose interest. In spite of this overwhelming problem, or rather to counteract it, it was my decision to take this album on the road for a year in an attempt to reconnect with my audience, most of whom still don't even know NakedSelf has been released. It's been a case of rolled up sleeves and hard work. Old school in fact.”

Was there evidence on the last night of this "old school" work ethic on the last night of this long running tour? You bet. Like I said, this band doesn't phone 'em in. They rip the phone off the wall, in fact, and stomp it into useless pieces.

Drawing heavily from both the recent NakedSelf and, arguably the band's commercially most successful album, 1993's Dusk, Johnson and Co. proceeded to dig deep into their catalog and their guts to serve up a show full of old favorites, new classics, and moments of genuine passion and soulful intensity.

And the band made good on its commitment to reconnect with its fan base - albeit, in a semi-unexpected way. Johnson liberally sprinkled the set with friendly, even humorous banter, taking song requests from the audience and inviting questions about the group. The fans, in turn, indulged Johnson's efforts by shouting out a laundry list of hits and obscurities reaching all the way back to the The's first album, 1981's Burning Blue Soul (represented at this show by the appearance of a revved-up, guitar-heavy "Icing Up").

They also came to Johnson's rescue, providing the evening's highlight: After Johnson interrupted his by-request performance of Soul Mining's "This Is The Day" to put the clampdown on a fistfight in the audience (one of three that broke out during the evening), the crowd helped him find his place in the song by singing the words, en masse, from the point at which he left off. The band took the cue and dove after the song in unison with the delighted audience.

The show provided plenty of other peaks: the post-modern blues of simmering cuts like Dusk's "Love Is Stronger Than Death"; the un-self-righteous commentary of the heretical "Armageddon Days Are Here Again"; Johnson's brief but searing anti-commercial preface to NakedSelf's "GlobalEyes," which shone like mellow gold thanks to drummer Earl Harvin's addition of live jazz breakbeats to the song's outro. And while Johnson coyly refused to indulge repeated requests for the The's signature song, Soul Mining's "Uncertain Smile" (which some drunken goober in the audience repeatedly called "Perfect Smile") he did bring out standbys like "Infected" and "Beat(en) Generation," casting them anew under the sheen of well-planned revamps.

So TheThe isn't playing stadium-sized venues any more, as they did during 1993 when they opened for Depeche Mode on their Devotional Tour. But a show like this proves it's far more effective for Johnson and friends to break down barriers and make contact with their audience than to stand separated by distance and spectacle. It makes you wonder whether the UMG hubbub will, at some point, prove to have been a gift in disguise. The audience at the Belly Up sure seemed to think so. Walking past their glowing post-show faces, you'd have thought it was Christmas.