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Jarvis Cocker.

Last night Pulp, the masters of turning the miniature into anthems that shake the rafters of even open-air concert spaces, played their second of two shows in New York City, their first gigs in our city since 1998, when the band played the Hammerstein Ballroom. Their potent blend of creamy synthpop hooks and Jarvis Cocker's wry commentary on romance, class, and sex was, as I pretty much expected, absolutely thrilling even though their last album, We Love Life, is 11-plus years old; the vitality present in even the band's less anthemic songs, like the hangover squint "Sunrise," coursed throughout the room. Leading the way was Cocker, who I last saw with a green-painted face belting out bare-bones, self-lacerating sex jams. Last night he was in louche-professor mode, posing foppishly on the big beats, swinging his hips just so, drawling out the wistful lyrics of anthems about chances not taken, fizzled relationships, and muddling through the physical and emotional aftermath of drawn-out nights, and—most importantly—doling out aphorisms between songs as if they were delicious, decadent truffles. He didn't quote the Wikipedia entry about New York the way he paid tribute to Chicago when I saw him solo at the 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival, but he was still full of pearls of wisdom and notable factoids. And I wrote a lot of them down, mostly because I was too busy dancing like a fool during the actual songs to take proper notes; here are the seven best that made it into my notebook.

7. [While introducing "Something Changed," a sweet love song about the unpredictable nature of romance] "It would be rubbish if we knew when these things would happen... You haven't come here for a night of spoken word, have you? Sorry."

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Judy McGuire

Editor's note: This weekend, Jarvis Cocker performed at the Whitney Museum in his Relaxed Muscle guise as part of the choreographer Michael Clark's "Who's Zoo" residency. The performance brought together dancers both trained and amateur, and Seattle Weekly's Dategirl/The Official Book Of Sex, Drugs, And Rock And Roll Lists author Judy McGuire was one of the lucky people who got a crash course in dance. In honor of Cocker's band, Pulp, beginning its two-night run at Radio City Music Hall this evening, we got her perspective on being involved in the performance.

We were called "zombies" and "klutzes" by the Post and compared to an "encroaching plague" by Gia Kourlas at the Times, but the reality is, we were sculptors, writers, lawyers (okay, only one), painters, trendspotters (again, only one), entry-level assistants, actors, students, filmmakers, bookmakers, art dealers and historians, and the un/under-employed. We were the "non-dancer" element in choreographer Michael Clark's "Who's Zoo" residency at the Whitney Biennial.

Why would non-dancers be part of a dance performance? Well, I never really got a firm answer to that, but I've been a fan of Clark's since I saw a documentary about his company—including the late Leigh Bowery—dancing to the Fall back in the '80s. So when I heard they were looking for volunteers I signed on immediately. The only requirement was that one had to be able to sit down on the floor and get up quickly. I might not be able to entrachet, but I sure can stand up.

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Who's Zoo? feat. Relaxed Muscle
Whitney Museum of American Art
Saturday, April 7

Better than: Another Monday morning.

The Scottish choreographer Michael Clark's body of work has been about marrying opposites—underscoring his works with the music of the Fall and David Bowie, mingling professional dancers with amateurs onstage. In his just-completed residency at the Whitney Biennial, Clark continued those themes with Who's Zoo?, an abstract, yet charged performance set to songs by Pulp and Relaxed Muscle, two bands led by the singer/songwriter/DJ/author/all-around artistic overachiever Jarvis Cocker.

Pulp (whose reunion tour makes stops at Radio City tomorrow and Wednesday) is florid and expansive, creating anthems out of situations both small and grim; best known here for its withering putdown of class tourism "Common People," the band's last three albums (Different Class, This Is Hardcore, and We Love Life) are absolute treasures, chronicling the painful aging of not just Cocker and his bandmates but of a generation burned out on the hedonism it embraced if not wholeheartedly, then at least willingly enough to indulge in more than their fair share of excesses. Relaxed Muscle—which released one album, A Heavy Night With... (Rough Trade), in 2003—isn't Pulp's polar opposite, but it's much more suited for a club basement than a Glastonbury headlining set; while it retains Cocker's trademark wit, its songs are bare-bones, riding on the barely disguised erotic energy coursing throughout them as much as their music. "Sexualised," in which Cocker sneeringly reels off a list of those parts of the world that erotically charged (basically, everything ever) over grinding guitars and a relentless dance beat, probably sums up their world view best.

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Our look back at all things 2010 continues this week as we highlight some of the year's most overlooked tracks. In this edition: club anthems.

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Jarvis Cocker's Pulp will return for a run of summer festivals in 2011, including Spain's Primavera Sound and London's Wireless Festival, the band announced Monday morning. Along with Cocker, the line-up will feature regulars Nick Banks, Candida Doyle, Steve MacKey, Russell Senior and Mark Webber. For more details, come this way...

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Jarvis Cocker, ever the gangly, dapper showman, grew a beard last year. Very exciting development in the world anglophile sex-nerd appeal, we know. And so Jarvis Cocker's Beard has become a thing in and of itself--a la Natalie Portman's Shaved Head--and treated as an eccentric novelty, like a third nipple or a baby armadillo.

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