POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Vega Offers Variety at Coach House

Shy Suzanne Vega wasn’t riveting Tuesday at the Coach House, but she put forward enough thought-provoking paradoxes, and delivered them in sufficiently varied musical wrappings, to at least keep things interesting.

The central paradox was Vega herself. The New York singer-songwriter, author of four albums of artful, literate pop with occasional folk underpinnings, is no natural performer. Instead, she is a reticent soul driven by a contradictory need for self-expression--a recurring theme in her music.

Vega hinted at that contradiction from the start of her early show. She opened with “Fat Man and Dancing Girl,” in which the protagonist suffers from stage fright verging on horror. Next, Vega mustered all the defiance her thin, austere, circumscribed voice could hold and spat out “Rock in This Pocket (Song of David),” the declaration of a self demanding to be reckoned with.

The songs, like many in the 75-minute set, were dominated by the clanking, percussive rhythms that mark Vega’s current album, “99.9 F.” Generated mainly via sampling keyboard, they lent a sense of innovation and hammering intensity--to the new songs--maybe too much intensity for Vega, whose voice sometimes had trouble competing with her four-man band. But the approach made for some edgy rock moments, proving that folk singer is now an outmoded label for Vega.

Vega also appears tonight at the Wiltern Theatre and Monday at San Diego State University’s Montezuma Hall.