An expansive project like a double album deserves a double tour. That's how Mark Oliver Everett feels.
The 43-year-old Los Angeles-based musician released the 93-minute opus “Blinking Lights and Other Revelations” in April of last year under his moniker Eels. The sprawling 33-track album took six years to record in Everett's basement, testing his will to finish the project.
According to Everett (also known as simply “E”), his band's latest studio album is about “God and all the questions related to the subject of God. It's also about hanging onto my remaining shreds of sanity and the blue sky that comes the day after a terrible storm, and it's a love letter to life itself, in all its beautiful, horrible glory.”
So how does one celebrate life “in all its beautiful, horrible glory” onstage? With strings, of course.
Last year, Eels embarked on an extensive American tour with a string quartet. The shows are documented in the newly released live album “Eels With Strings: Live at Town Hall.” The disc's 22 songs accentuate E's orchestral tendencies, providing a lush background to his gravelly vocals with sweet string parts.
“I like to treat the tours like their own albums,” says E of “Eels With Strings,” his third live record since the band's inception circa 1995. “I pour the same amount of energy into a tour as I would a new album. And they're usually so different from each other and so different from whatever album had just come out that it seems like a shame not to document some of them.”
DATEBOOK
Eels, with Smoosh
8:30 p.m. Saturday;
House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave., downtown;
$20;
(619) 299-BLUE
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The Eels' debut 1996 album, “Beautiful Freak,” and the angelic single “Novocaine for the Soul” exposed the world to E's left-of-center songwriting and gorgeous electronic pop sound. His follow-up, “Electro-Shock Blues,” found E dealing with sickness and death with profound beauty. Toy pianos mingled with fuzzy electronics, evoking a dazzling array of emotions.
While not selling like the era's teen divas, the 1998 release struck a chord with critics and won the respect of discerning music lovers. He followed with the studio discs – “Daisies of the Galaxy” (2000), “Souljacker” (2003), “Shootenanny!” (2003) – but he also worked on “Blinking Lights” at the same time.
Emphasizing the dynamic nature of “Blinking Lights,” E is heading back on tour to support the album. This time, expect the strings to be ditched and the amps to be turned up.
“The shows last year, I think of them as a gentleman's evening out. This year, you might be able to call it something more like 'not your parents' Eels concert.' I think this year is going to be quite different. We're probably not going to be as polite, we'll say.”
A drummer and amps will replace the strings on the current tour, the second leg of the supporting shows for “Blinking Lights.”
“That's my dream for this year: to put a drummer back where the strings were hogging up all the space on stage,” said E in his best deadpan voice. “And another thing is, the strings were an all-female section, which made life on the road a very different kind of tour: a lot of knitting needles on the tour bus. There was always some musical playing on the DVD player. I think it will be a little different this year.”
Everett is always trying to evolve his live show, so expect the unexpected: “Life's too short to do one thing. I want people to come and see another side. Hopefully, you won't expect the same thing again, because you're just not going to get that.”
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
