HEALTH, LIVE

12minutes

shot in Paris, october 2009

one camera, 40min show, edit of 4 songs
watch in the dark, listen carefully with headphones

filmed and edited by vincent moon
sounds by francois clos
produced by la blogotheque
thanks to cooperative music, SUPER, lovepump


"Hi, we’re HEALTH. We’re from Los Angeles.”

OK, I’m pretty sure that BJ did say that. Or Jake. But then…I have no idea. Beneath the mess of mutated sounds and the heinous volume that is HEALTH, it’s pretty damn hard to hear a single thing the guy is singing. Which is fine. No one came to the Nouveau Casino expecting to hear Facebook status-quality poetry. Nobody was expecting words of wisdom. People see HEALTH for the experience, the attack on the senses that leaves you just a bit disoriented. Before they go on I meet up with a friend from Los Angeles, a huge fan of HEALTH since the get-go. For weeks he has been going on about the band’s bassist, John Famiglietti. Supposedly the guy makes weird sounds on his bass, but I never really got any more specifics than that. These conversations usually end in my friend dancing on the sidewalk or making sounds that I am confident no one can ever reproduce.

At the show there’s almost a mosh pit. There’s a lot of teenagers not really grooving. There is a guy dressed as a clown. And there is my friend from LA, six foot fourteen. Completely freaking out. The bass, the bass he’s pointing and waving, the bass ! Dean Moriarty come to life. And I cock my ear, searching. And there it is.

The moment that seals the deal comes at the end of “Tabloid Sores,” when all of the band’s energy, the steamroller churning and remarkably tight pummeling of snares, the waves of guitar like bits of glass all come to a screeching halt, leaving only a bass loop that sounds like an animal, an android, Abraham Lincoln. Anything but a bass. And that’s when I start going crazy too.


text by Max