Reviewing Monday's Show

In between all my West Virginia jetsetting I wanted to write a little about Monday night's show. Monday was a nice break from the norm in quite a few ways. It was put together by someone outside the usual circle of promotion, featuring relatively new bands and the show STARTED AT 9PM and was OVER BY 1AM. With four bands. I kid you not. Kudos to Patrick for getting the word out for the early time and getting the crowd there early.

Upon entering 123 I was surprised by the lack of regulars - they all showed up after 10 or 11, perhaps not realizing the proper start time. Still there were a ton of folks there for a Monday night already, many of whom appeared to be new faces, and few of whom appeared old enough to purchase 'legal beverages.' Xylen Roberts was playing as I came in, but must have just started as I got there almost at 9. The setup is one guy singing and playing a Casio keyboard with an iPod providing the backup beats. It was an interesting juxtaposition of cheesy Casio tones (but not for the painfully alone), slow jamzz beats and sincere crooning that was a little like a very detached David Byrne. It sounds a little like someone trying to make little sci-fi symphonies out of the demo mode of a keyboard. I'd like to see his stage presence get a little more comfortable but it definitely sounded cool and altogether unique.

Next up was David Bello & the Stinky Slinkies, basically Mr. Bello backed by Trey Curtis from Librarians, Patrick Manzi, Kyle Vass and Dylan Balliett, and everyone except for Dave & Trey switches instruments. If you've heard David do an acoustic set you're pretty familiar with his voice and some of his songs. At times he reminds me of Black Francis. Maybe Stephen Malkmus on songs like Baptiss Blacktick where he howls "That fucker!!!" and then lets out this guttural squeal that cracks me up every time. I guess you could make a comparison to Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, because both David and he are very intense singers, but it strikes me as a bit off because Dave doesn't have that ridiculous air of melancholia and overestimation, and his songs are pretty gleeful. Like the vocals, little hints of early 90's indie rock poked out of the mix, most obviously Pavement and the Pixies. But like the vocals, none of the influence is overt in that way which so many "me-too" indie rock bands were in the post-Pavement wake. Standouts for me included the anti-love ballad Terminate, with clever lyrics and a bombastic, slackerish feel, and the surprisingly southern rock-esque (and I may slightly screw up this title) Hills and Valleys. The set was short but sweet, and I can't wait to let the songs sink in over repeated performances. If you want to see for yourself, check out this slick video made by the kids at Project Active Media.

The Planet The were up next. It was pretty incredible to see the headlining act start around or before 11pm, the time shows sometimes start at. TPT have two basic sounds. One style sounds as if someone took a pre-tragic-car-accident Tim Taylor aside and said "Look, Tim, this whole Brainiac thing you're doing is really cool, we dig the whole Devo on crack vibe, but could you maybe strip down the sound to guitar, drums and keys, up the tempos and change time signatures every...oh lets say 30 seconds?" Spastic, stop start robot punk/funk that you have no hope of keeping up with. The other mode is characterized by songs like High School Hands, a favorite of mine of their first LP, Physical Angel. The song began with singer Charles Matze grabbing a mic hooked up to a vocoder and spouting some of the song's surreal lyrics, and then a pause which seemed to draw on forever. He chanted the next line and then stopped. Finally the band broke into the song proper, easily doubling the tempo of the recording, in a process which geologists have termed "spastification." It kind of reminded me of the contrast between modern-day Enon and back-in-the-day Brainiac. Anyway, their set was quite good, as is their album on 5 Rue Christine (aka Kill Rock Stars). Apparently the prog angle is legit, because the stop-start stuff is fairly akin to Yes(?). But that's just what I'm told.

Anyway, last up were Red Oranges. They had a really good buildup to their first song with all the members running around the stage chanting, one of them yelling into a loudspeaker. Their delivery and intensity is good too, but despite changing tempos and being manic just as well as The Planet The, I never felt like they had enough melody or something I can't put my finger on. Bands like TPT and Pittsburgh's now-defunct A is A would change gears fast, but hit a meaty groove that you could have listened to for 5 minutes had they stuck to it, but Red Oranges seemed too attention deficit disordered to give you anything to latch onto. Still, very impressive technically, and nice to see a band from Shpeherdstown period.

Overall, very nicely organized show, good combination of openers and headliners, good promotion and very well attended. If you didn't make it you should definitely check out some of these bands in the future.