the thing is about all ages shows is that they always smell differently than do your regular adult rock shows - they smell like hardcore kids. in seattle, at the underage hotspot it's not unlike abc no rio for that humid accumulation of nearly threadbare decadence worn on unwashed bodies. humid, woody, and playfully but agressively male - i love that smell. it's what blue-hoodie emo love songs should be about. one place that romance goes rank, i must say, is in the more intense venues in providence, where the innocence is sometimes traded for brutal, encampment style fester -- not something i hope to have bump into me ever again.
TONIGHT - At 2nd Ave. Pizza - Iron Lung...
Two man power violence chit chat between songs weirdly alienating even though they knew the whole damn crowd. Big big muffled gut shaken guitar and spit-spazz drumming, though giving the holy terror two beat call and repsonse (you know, dun na, DUN NA, dun na DUN NA (! ! !) (the !'s being snare hits, or clicks like Nick taught you) that gets the kids rolling ball to toe. The dry erase board announcing upcoming bands was a terror too - so many bands I'll never know about, so much gloom spread around the world. I naively asked my pal Brian why everyone was wearing black (too much day-go East Coast), to which he said, "it's a west coast thing," which set me to : duh, ya, all those pesky post-hardcore bois who came eastward with their Locust-like white belts and blood-stopping tight shirts (Hopper called it in HIOQI?) set us all on the downward spiral to near mall goth MTV2 fake glam.
SPEAKING OF WHICH - at the Crocadile - the Icarus Line, Battles and the Evaporators
Ya, the Icarus Line. I hear people love their record - Joe Cardamone, lead singer slash Hanson hair double, blubbered over two songs backed by a Kulashaker-on-heroin-hey- I'll-smash-this-guitar rabble roar sadly lacking in any sort of direction other than --- onward.
Unlike the EVAPORATORS, who I thought to be a joke band because, well, they since songs about cheese and their Carrot Top looking leader does multiple costume changes, but I stood there transformed with glee as the Top got the audience in a tizzy by first getting a group to hold his keyboard, than another to body surf him over, where he promptly mounted the keys while still held aloft -then played the rest of the song - and recovered beautifully. Even the most befuddled main band waiters got into the act. I watched him bobble out of the room while Battles was on, looking defeated for having gotten the crowd roused only to watch them die of boredom at the pomp of BATTLES.
Admit it, me, Don Cab bored us. We hated the fake jazz, the shuffle drum noise burst repressed by overdone gestures. We thought it was affected. Well, now with Tyondai Braxton, who gave an excellent solo set of Fennesz type textures at Brown a while back, it's just that much more obvious to us - math rock is for 20 somethings too precious to like prog. We liked Polvo and even Roads to Space Travel, but those dudes could have some fun, we think, not just inhabit 'regions' of the stage where they toss Tortoise cast aways to one another like overprocesses bait - wait, the only improv here really seems to be Tyondai's blah blah fx box stuff? Well, we've seen that in his other incarnations, only here we get to watch him making fuck me faces and rocker 'ya ya' nods to Ian Williams for 45 minutes while the audience, 75% dudes by weight and volume, just stands their waiting for the Roundabout jam. Barhrrhghghghg!
(barghghghghg is the sound of Daphne wanting something akin to peace love and understanding, aka femininity, infused in spine-crushing hardcore and funny jangle nerd rock -- has there ever been an all woman Heroin? a femme fueled Material?)
