The Universal Heartbeat: Jesse Malin Celebrates His Debut "The Fine Art of Self Destruction" at Home in New York
The Singer/Songwriter Celebrates the Twentieth Anniversary of His Debut Solo Album at Home
On Saturday, March 26, 2023, Jesse Malin came home to New York again.
Malin was a veteran of the city’s music scene since he was fourteen years old in 1981. He was a veteran of hard-edged bands by the mid-1990s, from the teenage punk band Heart Attack to the hard-to-classify De Generation. (Robert Christgau, self-described Dean of American Rock Critics, described the latter as the part of Aerosmith that loved the New York Dolls.) Around the turn of the century, Malin launched a solo career that is generally more dulcet and introspective than his past, inspired by the likes of solo Neil Young but retaining his diverse influences.
This year, he has been celebrating the twentieth anniversary of his first solo album, The Fine Art of Self Destruction (Artemis Records, 2003), with a world tour. The tour arrived at Webster Hall, a venerated and venerable venue on East 11th Street. He didn’t (quite) play that entire debut album as promised, but he, his band, and his many special guests provided an evening’s art and entertainment that was memorable and rewarding. While uneven towards the end, the set reminded one of the rthymn and power of classic, pre-1990s New York performances, and perhaps of the best of the city in general.
Malin is not just a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He’s also a raconteur, and he never delivers more than when he waxes rhapsodic about his youth on his home turf. (I’ve seen him in four states on two coasts.) Webster Hall, constructed in 1886 (the year an iconic statue titled Liberty Enlightening the World was unveiled in New York Harbor), was the optimal Art Deco venue for the occasion. In the 1980s, it was The Ritz, site of legendary MTV broadcasts. Malin regaled the audience about seeing The Replacements there in 1986, and Replacement Tommy Stinson joined him onstage later in the show. He also recalled opening for The Misfits with Heart Attack. He contextualized several songs from his solo debut with details about themes and inspirations that were illuminating and revelatory even to longtime fans.
Musically, the evening was superlative before anyone took the stage. The pre-show music included Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang” and other state-of-the-art tunes from the last century’s second half.
The live music commenced at 8PM sharp (in order to allow time for “Emo Night” later that night). Jesse’s current band played three songs without him, with a revolving door of vocalists. Cait O’Riordan of The Pogues introduced the event and opened with “Shane”, Malin’s tribute to her bandmate Shane MacGowan. Malin’s former bass guitarist Catherine Popper sang “Swinging Man”, one of Malin’s many autobiographical songs.
There was a brief transition before the headliner emerged in front of the sold-out audience of 1500. Starting with a few recent songs, he shortly settled into the vast majority of his debut album, somewhat oddly interrupted with more recent material. Before diverging from the solo debut, he introduced a rousing “Wendy”, comparing live music to religion (as I saw him do at the nearby Mercury Lounge many years earlier). “This is the universal heartbeat,” he said. “This is what brings us together. Fuck politics.” Mercifully, Malin, unlike his friend and sometime collaborator Bruce Springsteen, rarely mentions politics except to make a dismissive statement like that. He immediately followed “Wendy” with “Brooklyn”, perhaps the most clever and evocative song from The Fine Art of Self Destruction. It appears on the album twice. Unfortunately, unlike a previous performance of the album in West Hollywood (see below), “Brooklyn (Band Version)” was skipped last Saturday. Fortunately, a more than ever politically incorrect lyric in the song did survive.
Malin took a sharp left turn in this part of the set with a few more recent tunes, including his plaintive, piano-centric cover of The Replacements’ raucous “Bastards of Young” and his own “Turn Up the Mains”. While enjoyable and welcome, the songs were incongruous sandwiched by most of the debut album.
Returning to the first album, he introduced “Solitaire”. To my surprise, the plaintive threnody about isolation is not about him but a female booking agent he knew in New York around that time who forswore social interaction. Before the indubitably autobiographical “Almost Grown”, he prefaced the song with a modish but hardly objectionable offer of solidarity to oppressed minorities while stressing the need to have a sense of humor about things because “we’re all fucked up … but we’re almost grown”. Even when modish, his spoken “bits”, as he calls them, are effective and emphasize positive aspects of human life, not the darker moments that are the objects of obsession of trendier cultural figures. At one point, he stressed that the title of The Fine Art of Self Destruction is widely misinterpreted. Its songs (and most of his songs) are about transformative beginnings, not destructive endings.
This part of the set ended with “Xmas”, the last song on the first album not named “Brooklyn”. In any month, “Xmas” is as evocative of the holiday season (and much more) in what is still a magnificent city even in these dire, dark times. There is an irony that, like Irving Berlin and so many composers of the most memorable Christmas tunes, Malin is Jewish.
Unfortunately, Malin and company did not reprise “Brooklyn” a la the album. He closed with several other songs, including the debut’s “Cigarettes & Violets”, which he forgot to do earlier. He noted that he borrowed the melody of “Cigarettes & Violets” from Elton John’s “High Flying Bird”; coincidentally, it was Elton John’s seventy-sixth birthday. Many special guests were invited onstage during this closing part of the set, including Stinson, Butch Walker, and Lucinda Williams, who produced his 2019 album, Sunset Kids (Wicked Cool Records). Sadly, Williams suffered a stroke in 2020, which was evident in her deportment and performance, but her support of her friend and her determination to keep performing is admirable. Parts of this portion of the concert brought the momentum down a bit, but the set closed with rousing covers of Johnny Thunders’s “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory” and The Clash’s “Rudie Can’t Fail” before a hasty finish to accommodate the curfew for the more unfortunate part of the night.
Like most artistically successful cultural figures in modern times, Jesse Malin is not particularly popular. But he is an embodiment and exemplar of what is still possible. For two hours and thirty-six minutes on a March evening in 2023, he demonstrated that skillful, exuberant, celebratory, original music still exists in the shadows of a decrepit culture. One could even argue that the deviations from the celebrated first solo album were appropriate, deemphasizing nostalgia a bit and showcasing the newer music. Besides—it wouldn’t be a Jesse Malin show without the sharp turns and improvisation. If you have an opportunity to see him and his style interests you at all, see him. He is an artist in the moment steering away from contemporary schlock toward a potentially better future, or at least a better present, and he captures the best of the rhythms and heartbeat of pre-’90s New York.
For awhile on Saturday, March 26, it was also 2023 New York.
Postscript: Below are two reviews I wrote of Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social in West Hollywood, California, on August 4, 2011, and Fullerton, California, on August 5, 2011. At the former concert, The Fine Art of Self Destruction actually was performed in its entirety (seriatim). These reviews were published to Facebooks’ defunct “Notes” feature. Rest In Peace, Todd Youth.
A Dying Art: Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social Live in West Hollywood and Fullerton, Part I
Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social do not need prepared setlists.
Indeed, there were none in sight anywhere in the vicinity of the stages of the Key Club and the Slidebar (in West Hollywood and Fullerton, respectively) when the New York-based singer/songwriter and his recently-formed band performed over the past few nights.
Malin, the veteran stylistic chameleon who put together the St. Marks Social over the past few years as a nod to his punk/hard rock roots, represents an amalgam of genres and sensibilities that seems like a fading ember in a cultural fire that is about to be extinguished. More diverse than eclectic, he and his acolytes bring the extemporaneousness and energy of punk, the melody and grandeur of arena rock, the pathos of the singer/songwriter, and even a little of the improvisation of the jam band, all while performing solid songs of a quality that is painfully elusive these days.
“Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social” seems to be more of an all-purpose moniker for a revolving door of musicians, akin to “John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band” (and, appropriately enough, their own spin on “Instant Karma” is a highlight of their current shows). One lineup recorded last year’s Love It to Life (Side One Dummy Records), and a completely different one, including Malin’s former D Generation bandmate Todd Youth, is now winding down the Love It to Life Tour. The St. Marks Social, whose discography (so far) consists solely of the aforementioned record, can actually be seen as a bridge between Malin’s puissant past and his more dulcet, introspective solo career of recent years. While D Generation’s songs are absent from the repertoire, the “Jesse Malin” tunes are performed with aplomb by this band. Indeed: as they have been doing at select shows, the ensemble performed Jesse’s first solo album, The Fine Art of Self Destruction (Artemis Records, 2003), in its entirety in West Hollywood.
This concession to the death that is nostalgia (to paraphrase Bob Dylan, another artist the bicoastal band is covering) seems incongruous at first given Malin’s proclivities and the disconnect between the Ryan Adams-produced debut and the new band. But when a protean, skillful band saturates a metropolitan area with free and low-priced gigs and never repeats the same evening’s art and entertainment, there is room for such concessions, and they are not so fey.
The Fine Art of Self Destruction scarcely sounded better with the St. Marks Social treatment.
After refreshing and entertaining opening sets by the saucy, incendiary Audra Mae and the autobiographical spoken-word of Side One Dummy co-owner Joe Sib, the electric/acoustic troubadour commenced an 87-minute set in West Hollywood at the former location of the legendary Gazzari’s with an understated introduction: “I’m Jesse Malin, and this is The Fine Art of Self Destruction.” Playing a reddish (this reporter is color blind) Gibson acoustic guitar for most of the set (while the black Les Paul sporting the legend “P.M.A.”—positive mental attitude, Jesse’s mantra—enticed the audience on a stand behind him), the five-piece ensemble eased into “Queen of the Underworld,” the first of twelve songs (one of which is reprised at album’s end) on the U.S. incarnation of the disc that can be interpreted as a concept album about rock and roll New Yorkers in the no man’s land of the early twenty-first century. Most songs featured Malin on the acoustic; the surprisingly adept, near-virtuosic Youth on a Gibson SG; multi-intstrumentalist Derek Cruz on keyboards, percussion, and background vocals; Johnny Martin on a Fender P-bass and background vocals; and Ty Smith on a truncated four-piece drum kit with one hanging tom (the standard indie/hipster arrangement). The first few songs were a little too faithful to the recordings for such a wise live band, but by song number five, “Brooklyn,” things got interesting.
“This song made the record twice,” remarked Malin before Martin handed his bass to Youth, who took a place behind Cruz’s setup and doubled up on keyboards. This song has been reinterpreted on record (forget about on stage), and it’s always slightly different. (Enigmatic lyrics like “The ghost of Christmas past/left Walt Whitman in the trash” are the kind that stay just on the right side of the abstract/incomprehensible chasm.) This drumless performance, subtly different from the recording, was a turning point of what the next few (several?) evenings would be like.
“Solitaire,” track number nine, further deviated from the carbon copy aesthetic. On record, the hymn to solidarity in solitude has a condign instrumental sparseness. On the Key Club stage Thursday night, it began that way, with Malin handing off his acoustic guitar to special guest Ryan Adams, the debut album’s producer. Halfway through, the rest of the band crashed into the song, complimenting the song’s resolution and heroism with the exultation that comes with a band.
The five continued to love these aging songs to life, including the always-moving, always-welcome “Xmas,” perhaps the best original rock Christmas song since “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”. Then, Jesse introduced “Cigarettes and Violets” by informing the audience it was only available on domestic copies of the album (a fact of which I was unaware). Finally, the “concert proper” was driven home with “Brooklyn (full band)”. At song’s end, Jesse finally reached for the “P.M.A.” Les Paul, strapped it on, and treated the audience to soloing (which he rarely does). What he lacked in chops (Youth provided those) was overcompensated by his contemplative positive mental attitude. It is present in his songs, his soloing, and his irrepressible, forceful stage presence, and it is always a welcome corrective to the false alternative of mindless, Eloi “positivity” and baleful nihilism that permeates this Endarkenment.
After the planned main set, the band returned for an off-the-cuff, lengthy, six-song encore, starting with the only “Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social” song of the evening, the eventually explosive “Burning the Bowery”, as well as “Instant Karma” and an obscure Bob Dylan cover (as well as an apparent punk cover I could not identify), both of which should grace a live album that these five should release as soon as possible. Before leaving the stage, Jesse informed the audience that they would be at the Slidebar in Fullerton the following evening. He did not mention that admission would be free. The Key Club’s sound and lighting boards are upstairs and off-limits, but I tried (and failed) to get a setlist from the stage. I don’t think there were any.
While the venue was crowded, one would think that masters like these could sell out a club with a capacity of 114 asking for an admission price of only twelve dollars. Then one recalls that this is an Endarkenment.
Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social
Key Club
West Hollywood, California
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Love It to Life Tour
Support: Joe Sib, Audra Mae
Set:
The Fine Art of Self Destruction:
Queen of the Underworld
T.K.O.
Wendy
Downliner
Brooklyn
The Fine Art of Self Destruction
Riding on the Subway
High Lonesome
Solitaire (with Ryan Adams)
Almost Grown
Xmas
Cigarettes and Violets
Brooklyn (Full Band)
Burning the Bowery
Prisoners of Paradise
In the Modern World
Instant Karma [John Lennon]
??? [Your guess is as good as mine] [Ed. 2023 : Probably Bad Brains’s “Pay to Cum”]
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere [Bob Dylan]
A Dying Art: Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social Live in West Hollywood and Fullerton, Part II
The atmosphere in Fullerton is tense.
Just over the Orange County line, the small city was the scene of a brutal police beating about a month ago. A series of protests over the extra-judicial killing of unarmed and nonthreatening homeless schizophrenic Kelly Thomas (himself the son of a retired cop and current cop trainer) is ongoing. Perhaps due to the status of the victim’s father, this incident, part of an ever-increasing trend, is actually getting attention. News trucks from Los Angeles were on the scene of the incident, a public transit station in downtown Fullerton. Just across the parking lot is the rear entrance to The Slidebar, where Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social performed last night, delivering a drastically different but equally compelling set.
The venues themselves were as different as the sets. The Key Club’s monolithic austerity and heavy security contrasted sharply with the down-to-earth, laid-back Slidebar (which never charges an admission fee). The Slidebar stage, barely a few feet above the ground, is in one of the smaller rooms of a multi-faceted restaurant and bar complex.
Jesse sauntered on to the small stage after the St. Marks Social and exhorted the compact audience to close whatever gap remained between performers and audience. “We need you to come up here, people. Don’t be afraid. The police are out there, they’re not up here.”
Thursday night was relatively calculated nostalgia; last night was wild, current, extemporaneous abandon. Thursday night was the past; last night was the present and future.
The frontman strapped on the Gibson acoustic and commenced the festivities with “The Archer”, a relatively calm tune from Love It to Life, the album almost entirely ignored in West Hollywood. After switching to the “P.M.A.” Les Paul, he boldly announced his intention to increase the night’s intensity with “Burning the Bowery”, the lead-off single that kicked off the Key Club’s encore. The Les Paul, barely used Thursday, was a staple of Friday, an often raucous set that was certainly much more typical of a standard Love It to Life show (and not just because of the preponderance of that album’s songs in the setlist).
There were no setlists visible on stage, and Jesse was obviously calling the songs as audibles (or simply starting the song and expecting the band to follow him). The recent rockers “Disco Ghetto” and “Burn the Bridge” were welcome after the paucity of new material the previous night; Jesse and Todd thrusted their guitar necks out over the edge of the stage, scaring at least one audience member away. (This one didn’t move and appreciated the gestures.)
“This is a song from my first solo album, The Fine Art of Self Destruction,” Jesse said later, introducing the always exuberant “Wendy”, one of only two songs from the album to be repeated in Fullerton. “We played that entire album last night, and it’s good to do something different tonight.” Since Derek Cruz’s essential keyboards were actually audible in Fullerton, this performance of the always-exuberant song was superior to West Hollywood’s. The frontman reverted to the acoustic for this one for the first time since the first song.
If memory serves, Jesse kept the acoustic and announced a new song (Todd told me after the show that it is called “San Francisco”), completely counterbalancing the rearward gazing of Thursday. Then, Jesse put down the guitar and called for “Bastards of Young”, the plaintive Replacements song he covered on 2007’s Glitter in the Gutter (Adeline Records). He encouraged the audience to sing along and effectively used a lull in the song to tell a lengthy and engaging story of his own youth in New York City. Following that, he rebrandished the Les Paul (with its corresponding positive mental attitude) and treated the audience to four upbeat numbers that were not played the previous night (three of them from Love It to Life).
The two shows did have similar endings. “In the Modern World” (from Glitter in the Gutter), “Instant Karma”, and Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” were good enough that one could hardly fault Jesse for favoring them as show closers. The Lennon song was the ostensible closer, with Jesse thanking everyone at the beginning and using a breakdown for customary band introductions (which were much longer at the Key Club). Not quite finished, the fearless leader of Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social picked up the reddish Gibson at song’s end and laughed, “This is the last one for real.” Both covers have unique arrangements and sensibilities, practically demanding that the troupe include them on a live recording. The passionate (and incongruous) dual vocals of Malin and ex-Danzig and Agnostic Front guitarist Youth on the Dylan chorus are perhaps best described as simply fun.
After seventy minutes of state-of-the-art live rock music, the best-kept secret in southern California last night ended their free performance without the obligatory and contrived “encore”. Somehow, they are giving another free show tonight in Las Vegas and a very reasonably priced one in San Diego on Sunday. In a halfway rational culture, they’d be playing vast rooms and making a vast fortune.
Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social
The Slidebar
Fullerton, California
Friday, August 5, 2011
Love It to Life Tour
Support: two local Orange County bands whose names I did not record
Set:
The Archer
Burning the Bowery
Hotel Columbia
Prisoners of Paradise
Disco Ghetto
Burn the Bridge
Wendy
San Francisco
Riding on the Subway
Bastards of Young
Black Boombox
All the Way From Moscow
Black Haired Girl
Revelations
In the Modern World
Instant Karma
You Ain’t Going Nowhere
"pervious performance" -> previous
Yours are the only performance reviews I've read all the way through in decades. Thank you for actually making me miss New York.
Was sad/surprised to hear about Lucinda Williams. She was a trellis of my young adulthood.