If it’s true that every generation throws a hero up the pop charts, there must be something in the Thames that dramatically shortens the human gestation cycle. Either that, or the English system for creating and selling celebrity, distilled perfectly in the late Malcolm McLaren, still works like gangbusters in a musical post-industrial age.

There’s no point in peeking behind the curtain, though, when somebody like V.V. Brown is on stage. She’s got the goods, and at least two or three more really, really good albums before NME ditches her for someone younger. Now, Fremont on a Friday night can be pretty daunting any more, but it was worth it to overcome my fear of hipster rejection and nurse a beer at the back of the room, just watching the people until Vanessa and the band came out.

Take equal parts Lily Allen and Peter Gabriel, add 1/3 Yma Sumac, glance over at Wanda Jackson, and divide by Corinne Bailey Rae. (Unlike my online friend Bill, who gets the shout-out on this one, I’m not a real music critic. So it’s okay for me to play celebrity math.) You can easily forgive someone like that their slight insecurities (“you guys having a good time?”), which, although seemingly at odds with her remarkable, confident delivery, probably bothered no one but me. Brown used that mallet in her hand to announce her presence with authority, starting with the big-beat “Everybody” and running through an entire set of impossible-to-dislike songs including “Quick Fix,” “Bottles,” and of course “Shark in the Water.” Karyn told me she woke up Saturday morning with the earworm from that last one. Me, I had it all weekend. It wasn’t unpleasant.

Show of hands: how many people know the oeuvre of Mister Jonathan Coulton? Seriously? Wow, that’s more than I thought. I was going to use his show on Friday night to observe how fandom must become fiercer in our Balkanized, web-driven culture. But all you code monkeys may provide counterpoint with your mere numbers.

My point is still valid, though, because even here, in an outer spiral of the Long Tail, the audience divided itself into insiders and inner-insiders. I’ve heard how the savvy artist these days has to hang their career on the latter, and I’m happy to see this strategy pay off so well for my man JC. He’s at that sweet spot where more casual fans like me will still buy a pair of tickets, even if we don’t dress up as pirates, attend PAX, or play that video game he wrote a song for.

I’m down with the geeks to a point. I get the LOLcat jokes, and I know why people were shouting “Whill Wheaton!” But I also use deodorant, and I’ve been known to enjoy a salad now and again. Well, live and let live, man. What matters is, we enjoyed the show tremendously, Karyn and me. Funny songs can be delicate things with short shelf lives, but like They Might Be Giants, Coulton’s songs aren’t just funny. They have heart, and wonderful, direct melodies. I can’t tell you how proud I felt to hear my wife singing along with “Skullcrusher Mountain.” And the TMBG reference isn’t just casual. I had heard they’d been covering “Birdhouse in Your Soul” recently; Friday night, they launched into the madcap and infinitely more difficult “Fingertips.”

Here’s a setlist cribbed from the JoCopedia:

Betty and Me
Ikea
Shop Vac
Code Monkey
Millionaire Girlfriend
Curl
Big Bad World One
Creepy Doll
My Monkey
Always the Moon
Bills, Bills, Bills
It All Makes Sense At The End (Molly Lewis solo)
Road Trip (Molly solo)
Fingertips
Mr. Fancy Pants
Skullcrusher Mountain
The Future Soon
Still Alive
Re: Your Brains
Encore: First of May

Karyn wanted to play “Ikea” for some people at work. Here it is for her and anyone else who needs a basic JC primer.
Jonathan Coulton: Ikea

Such a fun show at the Tractor last night! John Wesley Harding’s Flying Circus Cabinet of Wonders brought a collection of local and I guess international talent, each one a consummate performer in their own right. John Roderick read a rollicking and well-crafted story of a strange night in a strange land. Sherman Alexie read some slam-worthy poems about — what else? — rock & roll. His enthusiasm sounded a little like Nick Hornby’s, but his delivery was a little bluer. Thee Sergeant Major III delivered a few period pieces that wouldn’t have been out of place on a college campus in the mid-eighties. I don’t mean to damn with faint praise; it was hard to not like the songs, but they did feel a bit worked over. And this coming from a big Golden Silvers fan. Local semi-legend Jon Auer did a short set of originals, highlighted by his supple voice and a medley that elucidated the psychic connection between “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” “California Dreamin’,” and “All Along the Watchtower.” Seriously.

But it was the co-hosts, Harding and Eugene Mirman, that I’d come to see. The raconteur Mirman always sounds like he’s having a great time telling his stories. They tend to spin off from someplace plausible —frex, losing your luggage — into something completely bonkers. And Harding’s songs range in tone from immediately topical to the earnest and sympathetic character studies you’d expect from a guy with a second career as a novelist. That also sounds dull, I know, but it wasn’t. He’s clever with the rhymes and strong with the melody. And although the Tull references are cheeky, he also embodies what’s good in English folk-rock without slavishly revering the Auld Days.

A couple more photos here. Also, to the guy in the bathroom: I was flipping through the photos in playback mode. I was not taking an action shot of my junk.

To wit: he writes the songs. Karyn tells me that the speaker here is not any single person, but music itself. How about that! I suppose it does make it easier to cut the guy a little slack, but it doesn’t make the lyrics any more poignant to me. Indeed, nothing will; I’ve never been moved by these paeans to longing and loss; the schmaltz (shmälts, n: rendered chicken fat, from the Yiddish) just doesn’t cure what ails me. But Karyn’s into it, and you gotta respect. We have a sort of live-and-let-live attitude when it comes to music, anyway, so I was there for the spectacle and the complacency-shake. What a mensch, huh?

Another myth dispelled is the one that characterizes Fanilows as dowdy, aging cat lovers. I don’t know from sociology, so I’m reluctant to speak on behalf of that many people, nor do I have any unkind words for the values people attach to cultural objects. I can tell you this: it was much easier to spot the Furries at Puffy Amiyumi last year. If I aimed high, I might claim that Manilow is neither subversive nor extreme, and it’s that mushy middle this crowd reflected. But you can’t prove a negative, and besides, why have peeps if you can’t tell who they are?

It was a traveling museum come through, a Fate Marable Showboat with a smoke machine. When the confetti settled and the lights came up, you weren’t sure if it actually happened. That said, I was genuinely moved by my wife’s enthusiasm, and by the faint whiff of piano-bar smoke buried deep in the songs’ DNA. Under all the Vegas bombast, the truck-driver’s gear changes, the stock video, you could still see an intent. That’s the beauty of Song — once it’s written, it stays written, while I get flabbier with every passing year.

Until last night, I was kinda meh on Everything that Happens. It seemed like, in order to avoid making the Other Bush of Ghosts, they chose to make a radio-ready folk album instead. But after Byrne’s show at Benaroya, I’m a believer. The new songs opened up like flowers, revealing inner beauties I didn’t fully appreciate: the bass motif in “Strange Overtones,” frex, or the nice floaty vibe of “One Fine Day.”

Come to think of it, he should change his name to David “Slow” Byrne, which would not only address the endurance of a thirty-year-old song like “Heaven” (which I hated in high school), but also his role on stage as a sea of calm at the center of this polyrhythmic fury. The contrast was just lovely, and with all eleven musicians & dancers wearing white from head to toe, it felt somehow sunny and tropical, too.

Shape-shifter that he is, I honestly didn’t expect so many hits to be covered. Nor did I expect my two favorite Heads albums, Fear of Music and Remain in Light to be so well represented. I mean, “Air?” Seriously? “I Zimbra” was an early surprise. That’s when the dancers first came out. At first I thought they were just pretentious roadies, but then it became clear that they were gonna be the hardest-working people up there, twirling and jumping and, you know, interpreting. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe dance, but it felt like their take on what was happening in the songs was just right.

One of the night’s sharpest left turns, and a real highlight for me, was the live-action “Help Me Somebody.” By becoming the manic preacher from the original field recording, DB managed to simultaneously make the song tighter and give his backup singers a chance to work out. All in all, it was six degrees of awesome. I now consider my wife fully paid in advance for making me do Barry Manilow next month.