He'll cut you. Pics by Richard, more below.

​Van Dyke Parks/Clare and the Reasons
The Bell House
Saturday, October 2

Better Than: A full-semester course in American Studies.

"For whom the bell tolls," announced Van Dyke Parks as he sauntered over to the upright piano he manned for an evening as richly encoded with allusions as that first tossed-off remark. A pretty amazing album akin to, say, electric saxophonist Eddie Harris' The Reason Why I'm Talking Shit could/should be cobbled together from Parks' free-associative song introductions. "This is just far enough away from the progress of profit to maybe mean a god damn," he said by way of introducing "Orange Crate Art," title track to his 1995 album with Brian Wilson ("Heroes and Villains" arrived later). "Because there's something to be said for supreme irrelevance," he added. "And yet the song is the most portable piece of cultural goods that we have. It's the thing that we don't have to carry with us when we leave. It contains the memory, and melody. It's wonderful."

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Not last night, but you get the idea.

​Clare and the Reasons are terrifyingly cute. They could destroy all worlds of lesser cuteness, blasting apart their molecules like Oppenheimer, and the band displayed this menace instantly via their stage props: brittle bundles of winter foliage, washboards, a tuba, and red pipe cleaners, the last of which would soon jut artfully/insanely from Clare's hair. The band's five members scattered and regrouped randomly, foreshadowing the highly twee experience to follow.

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