The Gossip's Undead in NYC is the documentation of ten trashy roots-punk tracks that the Olympia-via-Arkansas trio churned out at a sweaty Knitting Factory gig in July of last year. Originally released by the band as a cassette-only edition of 50 titled Non-Dead In NYC, the 27-minute set is a boomy swath of analog noise that compliments the band's sloppy-ass, faux-naive approach to the blues.
The band races through material from each of their recent full-lengths, but the most immediately noteworthy track is the one they didn't write: a perfunctory cover of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog". Over the years, the song has been covered (to varying degrees of shittiness) by Hüsker Dü, Uncle Tupelo, The Meat Puppets, Elf Power, GG Allin, Sonic Youth, Swans, The Birthday Party, and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, so it's impossible to know for sure exactly which version The Gossip are botching here. The trio is joined here by GSL punks The Chromatics for one blathering five-minute jam, replete with what sounds like some Good Charlotte instrument-smashing to round out the punk-as-fire festivities. It lacks nuance, though, and charisma-- a re-tooling of Bessie Smith or The Ramones would have made more sense contextually.
But before this half-ass finale gets underway, there's some valuable stuff to learn. Initiating the set with a muddy strum, some tuning and banter, a splice, and finally a grindingly ho-hum "Got All This Waiting" from their 2001 debut That's Not What I Heard, Undead in NYC doesn't really get going until the second track, "Non, Non, Non" (originally released on this year's Movement as "No, No, No"). My big bitch about The Gossip's studio outings has always been the guitar's incongruent cleanliness and Ditto's too-upfront pop-diva vocals, so it's nice to hear the band indulging my aesthetic pipe dream: "Non, Non, Non" is an evened-out miasma of Southern-styled Tower Recordings boom. As a bonus, the shrieking crowd forms ad hoc high-end percussion to the otherwise dense super-bass sound. Damn nice: this is how they should've sounded always.
"Don't (Make Waves)" is similarly, gloriously buried in a pile of dirt: when Ditto's voice falls farther back in the mix, she stretches and ducks more powerfully around the fractured feedback, hummingbird drumsticks, and other concrete obstacles. Ditto remains the band's singularly unique talent, and listening to her notes bounce off the Knitting Factory's walls is a treat. In fact, all the material from Movement shines, sounding more complex and intriguing than ever. On the other hand, the stuff from 2001's Arkansas Heat EP slides by like a sigh, lacking detail and succumbing to boring garage-rock tropes (even if the band would rather be pigeonholed as "punk").
Also worthwhile as a downtown field archive, Undead in NYC captures the crowd's gleeful response to Beth Ditto's every word. Though she doesn't actually say anything very interesting, her snotty delivery and joyous attitude are fun enough. Formally, a peculiar but totally interesting aspect of Undead is the gaggle of sloppily edited between-song breaks, cutting Ditto off mid-sentence or syllable and creating some strange juxtapositions, and the beginning of a new from-beyond-the-grave William Gaddis novel:
"So I'm looking for somebody named--""--This songs is for all the f--"[feedback][inaudible]"...proud of your fucking selves."
These odd splices and cuts continue throughout, creating a bizarre Jackson Mac Low vibe: now if only they'd start chopping the songs in half and attacking obvious compositional structures.
Despite its boring cover choice and the less-than exciting Arkansas Heat material, Undead in NYC offers a few energetic, beautifully contained environmental recordings. As a whole, I'm not sure it has much use for anyone besides hardcore fans, oddball technophiles, or the folks who attended this particular performance, but The Gossip should use it as a blueprint, hire Neil Hagerty or Henry Flynt, and record in the future with a similarly integrated, basement hiss aesthetic.
