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Music

Bradford Cox Short Circuits, Subjects Audience To Hellish Hour-Long Rendition Of "My Sharona"

This guy gives zero fucks.

For today's installment of "What in the Fucking Fuck?," a new series I have created solely for the purpose of discussing this story, Bradford Cox, the creative force behind Deerhunter and Altas Sound, totally loses his mind with the most hilariously uncomfortable hostage situation ever.

It all went down last Friday at Minneapolis' Cedar Cultural Center.

Initially, the Minnesota audience was confused and a bit perturbed when Cox took the stage donned in a jet black ski mask with only his eyes showing. But before long, Bradford began to play and the crowd's discomfort was quickly assuaged by the multinstrumentalist's inarguably exceptional musicianship. The show went on as normal--Cox traversing songs from his latest release under Atlas Sound, Parallax, as well as some covers and even teasing a few Deerhunter tunes--for about a half hour, until some obnoxious audience member, possessed by self-importance and probably alcohol, blurted out a request for "My Sharona". Yes, the "My Sharona" that's now stuck in your head.

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That's when things got weird. As if he had once been a participant in a hypnotism show at Six Flags where he was programmed to hear the key phrase "My Sharona" and immediately snap into a Phish-derivative performance artist from hell, Cox robotically responded "I must play want you want to hear" and launched into a diabolical distorted rendition of the 1979 power pop anthem that lasted for an hour. An hour. As City Pages' Sally Hedberg observed: "The transition was stark and instant, as if Cox suddenly felt mocked or distrusting of the audience he had gradually opened dialogue with throughout the course of the night."

Even more conflicted than the crowd at this point were Bradford's openers, Carnivores and Frankie Broyles, who the usually-prolific musician asked to join him onstage as accomplices in this ludicrous, seemingly endless jam session. "Initially the vibes were positive. The musicians, all fairly young, were clearly honored to be sharing a moment of spontaneity with someone they idolized. 35 minutes later that enthusiasm began to fade. They were visibly uncomfortable and beginning to question the sanity of their esteemed proctor."

Apparently still unsatisfied with his own instability (or perhaps feeling that the audience members, people who paid money to be "unwillingly locked in some twisted, Doomsday clock performance of a '70s hit," deserved to be punished further), Cox instructed--rather, demanded--that the bewildered crowd take off their clothes and shake their chairs above their heads, all the while shouting "seemingly intoxicated defenses about his art" and simulating felatio. The nightmarish charade reached a screeching, welcomed, and equaling head-scratching end when Cox invited the remaining spectators on stage, triumphantly proclaiming that the show was "the death of folk music and the birth of punk."

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Despite consistently being hailed as a "darling of indie," in recent years, Bradford has fired back at the reputation with more frequency and more fervor, asserting in an interview with Pitchfork (the irony isn't lost here), "I need punk rock. I am not an indie rock musician. I don't even know what the fuck that means."

Is this the first of many instances of Cox abandoning his ambient psych rock reputation and throwing it back to The Man? Will this hurt his tickets sales? Will it help ticket sales?

And people wonder why Republicans are trying to cut funding for the arts…

Check out some excerpts of the performance below if you want to see nervous concertgoers hoisting metal chairs above their heads, a man in a sweater vest being forced to strip and dance on stage, a girl almost visibly falling asleep at her keyboard, or if you just really, really love "My Sharona".

@sashahecht