When Aimee Mann and Michael Penn began performing together at a Los Angeles club a few years ago, they were refugees from the music industry looking for a home. While their fortunes have since bettered, the couple, who are married but write and record songs separately, still treated their sold-out concert at Park West Tuesday night as a decidedly casual, unassuming extension of their hometown shows.
The approach was welcome at a time when many pop musicians regard careerism more as a mandate than something shameful. The lengths Mann and Penn took to avoid anything smacking of–horrors!–stardom sometimes smacked of self-indulgence, though, as they performed muted, acoustic renditions of their songs and employed a stand-up comic to handle most of the onstage chatter.
Granted, Mann and Penn have been bitten enough during their careers to be understandably shy. After debuting as the big-haired siren behind “Voices Carry,” her early-’80s MTV hit with her band ‘Til Tuesday, Mann watched her solo career founder amid record company woes, until her songs were featured prominently in the recent film “Magnolia.”
Penn has followed a similar arc, beginning promisingly with his hit “No Myth,” from his 1989 debut, then going years without recording, until the release of the CD preceding his newest one, “MP4.”
Introducing a spectral “Voices Carry” as a final encore, Mann remarked that she chose to play it because no one in the crowd yelled for it, and the couple’s determination to avoid show biz pandering was evident in their introspective renditions.
Built on her brisk guitar strumming, songs such as “You Could Make a Killing” were filled with long sustained notes that favored Mann’s bright, cool soprano. Singing in a reedy tenor, Penn twisted serpentine melodies around pensive chords on songs including “Out of My Hands.”
Mann’s “Wise Up” and Penn’s “Long Way Down” both showcased their penchant for gradually ascending melodies that conveyed a sense of yearning for things unattainable. Whereas Mann’s lyrics found her adrift and grappling, Penn was more contentious in his struggles.
“You look like a perfect fit for a girl in need of a tourniquet,” Mann sang on “Save Me,” her Academy Award-nominated song from “Magnolia,” while Penn declared that all he wanted was the “Whole Truth.”
While the murmuring keyboards, rustling percussion and gently chiming guitar of the couple’s three-man band enhanced their songs’ artful pleasures, the arrangements often were mild to a fault. “Ghost World,” from Mann’s new CD, “Bachelor 2” (available through her self-titled Web site) was transformed from a brisk rocker to a harmony-swaddled reverie, and Penn began “High Time” as a dirge that never achieved the bouncy energy of the recorded version.
Comedian Ron Lynch was an effective opening act and an agreeable foil, but his presence was occasionally disruptive and seemed to prompt Mann and Penn to ham it up at the music’s expense during the encores.
