I heart Reggie Watts

http://reggiewatts.com/index.php

I saw this guy open for Devo in Seattle the last two nights. I want to see every Seattle-area show he does, from now on.

The Materials:
One man, the noises he can make with his voice, and a machine that grants him the power to loop his spontaneously recorded sounds into whatever background music or beats he has opted to work with.

The Effect:
So much joy. I can't even tell you. I realize that because I'm blogging about this, I've put myself into the position of a reviewer. An informal, unpaid reviewer who could be anybody from anywhere, but still.

Why I Say This:
I also realize that a hip reviewer--a respectable reviewer--must be hard to please. Fault in a performance review is as essential as acidity in food. To leave out the criticism is to leave the review fatty, bland and uninteresting. But I'm so totally bonkers over Reggie Watts's two performances that I just want to gush like the absolute dork I really and truly, most sincerely am.

When I'm smitten with a musical performance, I usually wonder if the artist responsible is a synesthete with ADHD.

This is because I am a synesthete with ADHD, and this state of being has shaped my appetite for art. When someone’s artwork perfectly sates this appetite, I can’t help but wonder if their aesthetics and sensibilities come from a perspective that’s similar to mine.

I like most of all when fresh, novel sensory information is used to communicate huge amounts of clever information as rapidly as my greedy little ADHD brain can handle. The faster the information, the stranger the information, the more insightful the information, the better.

I like beauty. But beauty—even nonverbal, wordless beauty—must be a vehicle for fresh thought, or I will start to chatter about something, build something with my hands or wander away.

Both Reggie Watts and Mike Patton (another favorite) seem to take a lovely, innocent joy in making funny noises with their mouths. This might make more sense from a synesthetic perspective, because making funny noises with one’s mouth can be a beautiful, even potentially overwhelming sensory experience. There’s less of a leap from “Pbbbth” to “Ommm” when both bring sweeping, pacifying, lovely colors that can temporarily take the pain of ADHD away. (Which is, I suppose, key to understanding my taste in art.)

So. Where does that leave us with regard to my overall impression of Watts’s performance last night and the night before?

Mr. Watts's impressive vocal act does not use any flashing lights. Nor does he use any giant plaster or robotic sharks, nor is there any stop-motion animation. And yet, I was sated. I was on the edge of my seat, and I was utterly sated.

His jokes were fast. Sometimes too fast to catch until he was midway through the next joke. His non sequiturs come from a place of marvelous expertise, showing intimate knowledge of whatever subject he has decided to deftly and almost-imperceptivity riff upon. He also switched between accents and character voices quickly and skillfully enough that I wasn’t entirely sure of which character was the real him. The overall effect on me was something like a blissful information coma.

Yes, he spoke fast. Yes, he changed subjects quickly. Yes, he used every word mindfully. But this was also a musical act.

Please take this next comparison with a grain of salt in case my lack of knowledge of underground hip hop has caused me to miss a better person to refer to. But of what I know, the beats that Reggie Watts made with his mouth and with his magical looping machine had the multi-layered, catchy, aggressive, crunchy(?), highly satisfying feel of beats by Dan the Automator. His beats are good like a perfect sandwich is good. Every layer of sound, as with sandwich filling, has meaning.

But, and I must stress this point, I liked his one-man act even better than I’ve liked the existing Mike Patton/Automator collaborations. Even smarmy, smarmy Lovage. He has surpassed the two beloved icons who immediately come to mind when I think of his act. This is huge.

We have now covered his spoken word, my personal biases when assessing music, and the beats.

On to the vocal performances that he places on top of those sublimely satisfying beats!

There is singing, there is rapping, there are noises. Both nights closed with a rap song that starts like a George Carlin album and ends like…

Well? Like good rap. Yes, it's funny, he's always a little funny. But it still held up as totally good rap. Good rhythm, good delivery of the words, interesting selection of words.

To continue with the earlier sandwich metaphor:
I would say that the rap is as essential to the beats as a good beverage is essential to the perfect sandwich. I will get bored without words, unless I have an activity (like yoga) to keep me busy. I will get thirsty without a beverage, unless I have a sorbet to keep my throat dry. Luckily, there is rap to keep us going.

I am grateful to have had the chance to see him perform twice, I intend to see his act again, and I will buy his CD soon.

In addition, the women who sat in front of us for the first Devo show claimed to know him socially, and said that he’s “very good about doing laundry in public spaces.” Whatever that means.