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Crazy and the Brains/The Due Diligence/Shivering Timbers at Now That’s Class, Cleveland, OH, 1.13.11

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Crazy and the Brains

Imagine: You’re in a chilly punk bar, the kind with band stickers all over the walls, along with a little graffiti, and bike quarter pipes along the back of the room. There’s four-piece punk band on stage whose line-up includes xylophone. The band starts up, and a crowd comes dancing in, some of whom look like they were shipped in from the suburbs. There is a conga line at one point.

This was my cognitive dissonance-inducing introduction to not only Now That’s Class (a nice little venue with good acoustics and a laid-back vibe – easy to see why they received more than one nod in Scene’s most recent “best of” round-up), but also Crazy and the Brains. The audience, who had apparently been priming themselves at the bar for a while, was ready to dance, and CatB supplied just the right soundtrack with their bright, high-energy punk rock. While their originals, like “Birthday Song” and “Saturday Night Live”, were well-received, the most popular song of their set was a scream-along cover of “I Want Candy”.

Here’s video of “Birthday Song”. Gotta say, the xylophone really works.

 

 

The Due Diligence

Regular readers know I’ve been enjoying the music of the Due Diligence (i.e. Isaac Gillespie) for a while now, so I was excited for the opportunity to see the New York-based artist live. Gillespie set the tone by kicking off with a ragged tribute to Sly and the Family Stone in the form of a cover of “Family Affair”. Going from a quiet figure (with an impressive beard) to a stomping, howling demon in seconds, Gillespie seems to be less playing and singing the songs than he is pulling them out of his chest, strand by gut-drenched strand.

While the touring version of the Due Diligence is much stripped-down from the album line-up, the song arrangements lend themselves easily to a simple guitar-and-drums set-up, especially when amped up by Gillespie’s flip-a-switch energy. Including originals like “I Will Wreck Your Life” and “Uncle Stephen” and covers like the aforementioned “Family Affair” and Steve Miller’s “Keep On Rockin’ Me, Baby”, the Due Diligence set covered extremes from slow and sultry to a screaming wall of sound.

 

I Will Wreck Your Life • Cleveland, OH from the Due Diligence on Vimeo.

 

Shivering Timbers

“This is a nursery rhyme,” Sarah Benn almost seemed to be warning the audience, with finger pointed, at the beginning of Shivering Timbers’ set. Sarah and husband Jayson traffic in nursery rhymes, littering their album We All Started in the Same Place with jazzy arrangements of the childhood rhymes along with songs inspired by their daughter. But Shivering Timbers’ music is not strictly for the babies. With Sarah’s slinky upright bass and Jayson’s bluesy guitar – along with drums and appearances by banjo, toy piano and toy hand bells – stories like that of the crooked man who walked a crooked mile sound like they were birthed in a smoky club instead of at cribside.

While Dan Auerbach – who produced Shivering Timbers’ album – is known for his ability to capture a honest, live sound, the Benns should be seen in concert to appreciate the range of their talents, such as Sarah’s powerful voice and Jayson’s skilled guitar work. Not to mention the fact that they are charming as all hell, Sarah projecting a warm and friendly presence while Jayson, with a grin, thanked the crowd for “being drunk enough” at one point. And the way the Benns look at each other while playing is enough to make a seasoned cynic melt a little.

The dance-hungry crowd – who were obviously familiar with the band, requesting “Baby Don’t” and sending up a pathetic whine when they thought they might have to go the night through without hearing “Little Bird” – was given enough ammunition to keep them happy with the likes of the rock-out endings to “Little Bird” and “Evening Prayer”.

 

 

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Soft Speaker/HotChCha/mr. Gnome at the Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, OH, 12.18.1010

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Somewhere between home and the Beachland, I managed to lose one of my camera batteries, but I did manage to attain a concert-going companion (NTSIB friend Joy) with a camera phone. We didn’t get any shots of Soft Speaker, but we do have some fittingly atmospheric pictures of HotChaCha and mr. Gnome.

Soft Speaker

This Chicago quartet, whom my brain persisted in thinking of as the Red Guitar Brigade due to the color of all their string instruments, weaves in and out of styles, sometimes moving from a more funked-up groove to treble-heavy indie rock within the same song. And it may just be my background playing up things that weren’t there, but it seemed at times that the vocals and lyrics were influenced by a dusting of late-’90s goth. While it is easy to hear how a track like “I Stand To Lose My Fortune, Easy” can grow quickly on the listener, Soft Speaker’s encompassing style is perhaps too much for a first-time listener to process at a live show, and they never seemed to spark with the audience.

HotChaCha

HotChaCha are swiftly becoming an NTSIB favorite, bolstered heavily by their energetic live shows. As most live reviews of the band will mention, much of this is thanks to frontwoman Jovana Batkovic and her complete lack of inhibition or pretension. She will engage the audience, whether they like it or not – and they usually end up liking it. Especially the men who gather up around the front of the stage, eagerly anticipating Batkovic’s eventual leap into the audience to dance through the crowd, sliding up against various audience members as she goes. In an era when most live performances will consist of a group of shy hipsters standing still behind their mics, not making much eye contact with the crowd, Batkovic definitely stands out as she lets the music take her, using her mic and/or mic stand as a phallus, crawling between the legs of her bandmates, making eye contact with any and everyone and folding herself backwards on the stage.

But it is Mandy Aramouni, Heather Gmucs and Roseanna Safos who perform the massive springboard from which Batkovic launches. Aramouni’s atmospheric guitar and keys are never in danger of becoming lighter-than-air partially thanks to the heavily solid low end held down by Gmucs and Safos. And while most eyes tend to be on Batkovic, the rest of the band is giving their all, Aramouni rocking and headbanging, Gmucs prowling across the stage and Safos propelling everything with her power hitting.

At one point Saturday night, Batkovic asked the crowd, “Who wants to dance?” She then proceeded to pull about ten audience members on stage – including Joy – for a dance party, which she soon left for the floor to let the stage dancers take the spotlight while she took a rest from being the center of attention. Audiences will often reflect the attitude of the band they’re seeing, and while those shy indie hipsters have shy hipster audiences, HotChaCha’s audience is one of the smilingest crowds you’ll see.

mr. Gnome

I suppose it is a common cry among fans and bloggers who concentrate on independently-produced music, but every time I listen to mr. Gnome, I ask, “Why isn’t this band huge yet?” Finally seeing them perform live (after having failed to make it happen three times previous), this question has only grown louder in my mind.

Nicole Barille and Sam Meister eased the crowd into things with the soothing, pretty “Titor” before plunging directly into the bounce beat of “Plastic Shadow” (one of my favorites). When listening to mr. Gnome recordings, I’m usually too caught up in the atmosphere, the feeling of their songs to notice the skill involved. That probably sounds counterintuitive to some of you, but I always latch onto emotion in music before I get around to pesky things like skill or even lyrics. Being able to see Barille and Meister work their instruments Saturday night brought my levels of respect for them from merely high to through-the-roof. While Meister is a power hitter of epic proportions, he’s also precise and complex, his syncopations and fills far beyond the skill of most rock drummers.

Most press on Barille focuses on her voice as she plays between low roars, tenor howls and pixie trills, but her guitar work is more than just a backdrop to her vocals. Barille moves easily between the heavy power chords and experimental atmospherics you would expect when listening to mr. Gnome’s music, but she’s also capable of intricate fretwork, which she displayed on a brutal “Deliver this Creature”. Oh, and she also belts out the vocals like a hellion live.

The playlist for the night concentrated on Deliver this Creature and Heave Yer Skeleton material, ending with “Three Red Birds” from the recent Tastes Like Magic EP. They also broke out a couple of new babies from their forthcoming album, which land on the more head-banging end of the Gnome spectrum. Check out this footage from the omnipresent kingofthecastle7 of their new song “Manbat”.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzNHGgpKX1c?fs=1]

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Eddie Kirkland/The Alarm Clocks/The Gories at the Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, OH, 11.27.10

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This past Saturday night at the Beachland (a busy day for the venue on all fronts with four different events taking place) felt more like a package tour out of the 1950s than your regular a-headliner-and-two-openers show. The mirror ball was spinning, and New York DJ Mr. Fine Wine (check out his WFMU Friday night show Soulville) painted the scene with groovin’ chunks of early soul between sets.

Eddie Kirkland

Kirkland’s name might be a little obscure, but his history should make even the most casual music fan pay attention. Aside from his own modest hit “The Hawg” (released on Stax/Volt in 1963 under the name Eddie Kirk), Kirkland played second guitar for John Lee Hooker on a number of recordings throughout the ’50s and toured in Otis Redding’s live band for a while in the early ’60s.

After spending most of his pre-show time sitting behind his amp, waiting for his backing band (second guitar, bass guitar, drums and keys) to arrive, Kirkland suffered a little from a hurried soundcheck (this apparently stemming from the fact that the ballroom was occupied all day by Genghis Con). However, once he got going, he gathered an appreciative crowd from the still-sparse patronage of the ballroom. Kirkland specializes in a mix of electric dance blues and soul – the kind of music the encompassing term “rhythm and blues” was first invented to cover. On some songs, you could practically hear a horn section, and it was hard not to imagine the kind of show Kirkland could put on if he had the full band his music deserves. Building up steam throughout his set, it felt like Kirkland had really just hit his peak when his time was over, and the 87-year-old “Gypsy of the Blues” with the jewel-bedecked guitar exited the stage to the cheers of a now switched-on audience.

The Alarm Clocks

Formed in Parma, Ohio, in 1965, the Alarm Clocks took a long time off when guitarist Bruce Boehm was drafted into the army in 1967. Their music resurfaced in 1983 when their songs “Yeah” and “No Reason to Complain” were included on the first Back from the Grave compilation (a series credited with inspiring Jon Spencer to begin his career in music), and Norton Records released an Alarm Clocks album culled from early recordings in 2000. The band reformed in 2006 and have put out their second album since that time, Wake Up.

While the Alarm Clocks are a fully competent band and bass player/vocalist Mike Pierce has an impressive scream, their straight-ahead ’60s garage rock felt a little too straight-ahead to me, and my interest in the music waned as the set went on (not even to be re-awakened by a cover of Bo Diddley’s “I’m Alright”, though this may have been a cover of a cover given that the Alarm Clocks call it “It’s Alright”, just as Spacemen 3 did when they recorded the song). But it should be taken into account that I have never been the biggest fan of this style of music, and the band received an enthusiastic reception from many in the audience, including the Gories.

The Gories

Dan Kroha was going to have a good time with the Gories’ soundcheck whether the sound man liked it or not. The singer/guitarist/harmonica wailer is about 200 pounds of personality in a 100 pound frame and was a clear indicator that the Gories’ set of serious rockin’ was not going to be serious. As seems to be the case for any of singer/guitarist Mick Collins’ bands (see the Dirtbombs, the Screws, Blacktop, etc., ad naseum), energy was the name of the game.

Don’t know the Gories? Jack White sure does. Take a listen through the Gories’ catalogue, and you’ll easily catch the influence that the band – who formed in 1986, broke up in 1993 and reunited in 2009 – had on the White Stripes, right down to specific riffs.

Kicking off, appropriately, with “Hey Hey, We’re the Gories”, the Detroit three-piece – rounded out by Peg O’Neill on toms – immediately sawed into the skulls of the Beachland crowd (which seemed like it had gone through a complete rotation from the beginning of the night) with their trademark don’t-call-it-garage rock. They threw out songs like “Sister Ann”, “Feral” and “Telepathic” with bombast and love. Kroha looked like he was going to blow a nut as he wailed away on his harmonica during “You Don’t Love Me”, but, unfortunately, those of us positioned in front of Collins were unable to hear most of the fruits of Kroha’s labor (again, a less-hasty soundcheck would have been beneficial).

While the crowd was clearly a few steps behind Kroha, spurring him to comment midway through, “Oh, you liked that one, did you? Finally decided to wake up?”, they’d finally all caught up by the end. When the band returned for an encore, Kroha gave the audience the audience a loving middle finger before the Gories launched into a rowdy call-and-response version of “Thunderbird ESQ” and topped things off with “Nitroglycerine”.

Then, around 1:00 A.M., it was all over too soon. Like the best shows, the Gories leave you with excess energy and a jones for more, and I personally would be happy to see the Gories (and most any of Collins’ other bands) several nights in a row. And if you have even an inkling of interest in catching the Gories, don’t sit on it because Collins’ limited attention span – and the fact that O’Neill was reportedly pretty much done with the tour before it even began – may mean this reunion doesn’t last long.

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Trampled by Turtles/The Infamous Stringdusters at the Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, Ohio, 11.6.10

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Trampled by Turtles

Many times, when you hear one song by a band and are instantly excited
by it, the rest of that band’s repertoire can be disappointing. I
heard Trampled by Turtles’ “Wait So Long” a while back and loved it
instantly, so when they started off their set at the Beachland
Saturday night with a mellow number, while it was a lovely song, I
wondered if I was in for impending disappointment. But all misgivings
were completely wiped out by the second song when TBT launched into
the thrash-grass sound that’s been garnering them fans all over the
country.

TBT played a very good mix of slower tunes with their fast tunes, but
it was obviously the fast ones the audience had come for, and I don’t
think anyone was disappointed. Between the foot-stomping that was
going on out on the floor and the guy who was headbanging to my left,
for a moment, I wondered if a mosh pit was going to erupt in the
ballroom.

The band themselves seemed to be having a great time, too, smiling and
laughing often. They traded off lead vocals once to let their talented
bass guitar (note: not upright as you usually see in string bands) Tim
Saxhaug take the reins on a good-feeling-inducing song about wishing
you knew then what you know now. And with their talented roster (Dave
Simonett on guitar and lead vocals, Dave Carroll on banjo, Ryan Young
on fiddle and Erik Berry tearing it up on mandolin) and amazing
energy, they are able to pull off what not many other bands of any
genre can without losing the audience halfway through: instrumentals.

(Sidenote: Even though TBT are from Minnesota, I couldn’t help wishing
they would cover the classic “Rocky Top”.)

They played for an exhilarating hour, closing with a rendering of
“Wait So Long” that seemed to work the whole of the Beachland into a
frenzy, resulting in the first time I’ve ever experienced an opening
act being called back for an encore. They certainly made a lot of new
fans in Cleveland.

The Infamous Stringdusters

The Infamous Stringdusters (Andy Hall on resonator guitar, Andy Falco
on guitar, Chris Pandolfi on banjo, Jeremy Garrett on fiddle, Jesse
Cobb on mandolin, and Travis Book on upright bass) are musicians’
musicians, centering many of their extended songs around trading off
solos and flexing their chops. They’re a bluegrass jam band, in other
words. There are a lot of solos… and a lot of “faces” (you know
those faces that some musicians make when soloing hard), especially
from Pandolfi and Falco.

Despite a couple of sound system issues (the between-set house music
wasn’t turned off until midway through the first song and there seemed
to be interference in Falco’s equipment late in the set), the
Stringdusters played through tunes like “I Am a Stranger”,
“Blackrock”, “Deep Ellum Blues”, a great cover of U2’s “In God’s
Country”, “High on a Mountaintop” and more straight country get-downs
like “You Can’t Handle the Truth” and “Why You Been Gone So Long”.

(Props to Garrett for his Google search and destroy T-shirt.)

For their encore, the Stringdusters teamed up with Trampled by Turtles
and brought the show down to the ballroom floor… which I’m sure was
great if you were part of the inner circle that gathered around the
bands but was barely audible to those of us left on the outskirts.
Though I can report from the singing along heard from the audience
that the bands played a sped-up version of the classic “Sittin’ on Top
of the World”.

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Craig Wedren/Greg Dulli at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, OH, 10.16.10

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Craig Wedren

Given my long-standing love for Greg Dulli (generally referred to in my world by his proper name: Greg fucking Dulli), it was a given that I would jump on tickets to this special acoustic show, Dulli’s first solo tour. When it was announced that Craig Wedren of Shudder to Think would be opening, my eyes nearly rolled back in my head. In the later 1990s, before bands began breaking up and band members died, my holy triumvirate of music was topped by the Afghan Whigs with Morphine and Shudder to Think anchoring the other corners. I was fortunate enough to see each of these bands play before tides turned, and I cherish the memory of those shows. To be able to check in with the frontmen of two of those bands in one night was a special treat.

Wedren looked exactly as I remembered seeing him back in 1997 when Shudder to Think toured in support of 50,000 B.C.: fresh, lean and handsome with a spectacular smile and a sparkle in his eye. Mixing his solo and film work (including a song from his project Baby) with a few Shudder to Think favorites – like the ubiquitous “Red House”, “Hit Liquor” and “X-French Tee Shirt” – Wedren switched off between acoustic and electric guitars and occasionally employed a loop station to create a rich layers of sound. And he was as at ease on stage as ever, cracking wise, musing and making dedications to his mother and his wife.

Craig Wedren’s best instrument has always been his voice, and it remains strong and supple. He ranges from baritone to falsetto and back again with ease, sometimes using the loop station to create eerie harmonies with himself. Beautiful from start to finish.

Greg Dulli

When Greg Dulli took the stage, flanked by frequent collaborator Dave Rosser on guitar and Rick Nelson on cello and violin, it seemed he might be satisfied to rest on his laurels for this low-key “Evening with”. While the first four songs of the set, which included the Gutter Twins’ “God’s Children” and brand new Twilight Singers’ track “Blackbird and the Fox”, were good, something was missing. The renowned Dulli fire was set to low. But with the Twilight Singers’ stormy “Bonnie Brae”, the burner was turned to high, and that familiar, scorching howl rolled forth from Dulli’s ragged throat.

Though the evening was heavy with Twilight Singers songs, Dulli did, as promised, trot out some Afghan Whigs classics like “Let Me Lie to You”, “If I Were Going” and “Summer’s Kiss”, and even, per an audience request, an unscheduled turn on “66” (the first time played on this tour, Dulli quipped that Cleveland had broken his cherry).

The encore, which kicked off with the Twilight Singers epic “Candy Cane Crawl”, contained the only true non-album cover of the night, a passionate take on José González’s “Down the Line”, culminating in Dulli’s repeated howl warning “Don’t let the darkness eat you up”. It was a goosebumps moment.

Dave Rosser already has a solid reputation as a stand-up guitarist and didn’t fail to impress, but it was Rick Nelson who really shined on the strings this night, sometimes flowing a layer of incomparable beauty under a song and sometimes ramping up the passion to roof-blowing proportions.

But it wasn’t a perfect evening. In attendance was the drunkest crowd I’ve ever experienced in such a small venue, and they kept sending their loudest, gabbiest emissaries to stand right in front of the stage and chit chat, both to Dulli and among themselves, through both sets of the night. One particular offender, who had bullied her way rudely in front of people who had been holding their spots for two hours, had to be called out by Dulli twice before she got the message to “shut your fucking mouth”. It was possibly the first time I’ve ever left a show annoyed.

Greg Dulli Setlist

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Henry Clay People/Drive-By Truckers at Musica in Akron, OH, 10.5.10

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The Henry Clay People

The Henry Clay People took the stage with confidence and ease, and while the beginning of their set struck me the same way their album Somewhere on the Golden Coast struck me – decent but same-y – things picked up with a song dedicated to the Drive-By Truckers (“This Ain’t a Scene”, I believe) and only got better from there. Joey Siara helped endear the band to the crowd by soliciting requests for cover songs… though the crowd was possibly stuck in a time-warp as Siara’s guidance to suggest a band from the ’70s was met with a shout for Guided By Voices. After a creditable rendering of “Game of Pricks”, Jay Gonzalez was brought on stage to join the band for a stop-start go at “Space Oddity” that included audience participation in the form of countdowns and hand-claps.

After a couple more stand-up originals, the band finished out their set with a cover of “Born to Run” that made the now slightly time-worn classic vital again.

Drive-By Truckers

The Drive-By Truckers, too, started their set a little low-key (though not quietly – it was the Drive-By Truckers, after all) and more toward the twangy side of their country-edged rock. I couldn’t help think of Tim Quine’s post on Rubber City Review suggesting that the best soundtrack for Akron was honky tonk and of the pig roasts of my youth which were often accompanied by a bar band of some stripe. Though those pig roasts would have been a hell of a lot more exciting if DBT had provided the entertainment.

After a few songs, the band picked up steam and brought out a string of their rockers, sounding almost like a heavy metal band with their low guitar riffs and Patterson Hood’s impassioned howls. It was impossible not to headbang along. It’s on these songs that the dynamic between the band’s de facto double-lead, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, is best appreciated. Cooley strikes cooler-than-cool guitar god poses (with the chops to back it up) while Hood bounces around and looks like he’s having the time of his life.

They kept the pace up throughout the rest of the show, which was a smart move in light of the mood of the audience. The only real break in the pace came with the lovely “The Flying Wallendas” which received a great reception from the crowd thanks to the line about “the fine folks of Akron” (sang as “the good people of Akron” this night).

I try to keep my opinions about audiences to myself, but this audience was something else. While the crowd gave it up good for their favorite songs throughout the night, it was the laziest audience I’ve ever experienced when it came to calling out for an encore. There were long lulls between half-hearted cheers and anemic chants of “D B T”. People mostly stood around as if they were waiting to be served. If I were the Truckers, I wouldn’t have come back, but the Truckers are better people than me, and they came back for a hell of an encore. DBT seem to be able to create their own energy and were in a fine, fine groove. Hood was apparently so excited that he played them into a second go at “Lookout Mountain”. Not that anyone was complaining, especially as it rocked even harder the second time around.

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HotChaCha/Freedom/A Place to Bury Strangers at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, OH, 9.27.10

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Ah, Grog Shop, someday I’ll learn not to be fooled by your posted show times. Someday, I will learn that in Grogspeak, 8 p.m. means “sometime after 10”. But enough of my kvetching. How about some fucking rock ‘n’ roll?

HotChaCha

HotChaCha are like an answer to my prayers – or, at least, a solution to the complaint I’ve made in this blog before about all the twee girly girls in music today. Singer Jovana Batkovic is probably more manly than most of the other men who hit the stage Monday night. Taller, too. Her long-legged presence, mic-phallic gyrations, forays into the audience and rolling around on the stage bring an undeniably entertaining aspect to HotChaCha’s live show, but it’s not covering up or compensating for anything else. Her energy feeds off of and perfectly complements the punk-spirited rock churned out by this four-piece. At once at ease and energetic, HotChaCha’s vigorous show is a credit to Cleveland, to women in rock and to the spirit of rock in general.

Freedom

To be honest, I think I didn’t quite get Freedom. After hauling out enough drums, guitars, pedals and padded Kustom amps to make the Grog Shop stage look like a music showroom, it felt like Freedom never quite capitalized on all that gear. In the end, it felt like a lot of noise that never coalesced into anything other than noise.

A Place to Bury Strangers

They will tell you A Place to Bury Strangers is a loud band. They will tell you to wear earplugs. They are not to be trusted. Yes, APtBS are loud. Gloriously loud. But fuck the earplugs. APtBS should be experienced without barrier.

From the surf-rock opening of “Deadbeat” to the free-for-all ending of “Ocean”, an A Place to Bury Strangers show is about being ensconced in sound – not experiencing it from a safe distance, with you here in the audience and the music there on stage. It is about the sound waves rattling against your bones. It is about feeling your brain swim in your head. It’s about the rainbow tracers left in your peripheral vision by what may just be the APtBS light/media show but may also be the music taking control of your cortex. It’s about sounds so intense and unexpected that your heart races and your breath catches. It’s about leaving the mundane world and entering sound.

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Rainy Day Saints/Wye Oak/Lou Barlow + the missingmen at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, OH, 8.27.10

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Rainy Day Saints

Kicking off the show around 10:30 p.m. (contrary to the 8 p.m. start time listed on the Grog Shop website. Though I’m getting to the point where I actually like the Grog Shop, their concept of time continues to mystify me) was local opener Rainy Day Saints. Playing straight-ahead, classic Cleveland-style rock with a modern influence, the band suffered from a muddy sound mix in which Marianne Friend’s saxophone and harmony vocals all but disappeared, and it was difficult to tell if any of the songs were good or not. Still, the band seemed to enjoy themselves, so there’s that.

Wye Oak

While the Wye Oak recordings I have heard have been a little mellow for me, the word around the internet was that skeptics should catch the Baltimore duo live before locking in an opinion, and this advice proved on the mark. While you might expect something tiny and twee upon seeing Jenn Wasner in her ballet flats and polka dot blouse, she unleashes an intense sound. With Wasner on vocals and guitar and Andy Stack on drums and keyboards, Wye Oak is equal parts dreamy Americana pop and noise assault. They won over the audience quickly, party through their music and party through Wasner’s charming and friendly personality, and drew vocal praise for “Holy Holy”, a song from their forthcoming album (which Stack works on in the backseat of their tour van “while I talk to myself for 7 hours,” says Wasner).

Sidenote: Red keyboards are so hot right now. Seriously, this is about the fifth one I’ve seen at a show this year.

Lou Barlow + the missingmen

“Lou Barlow!” one of the more, uh, enthusiastic audience members helpfully shouted through the night, just in case we – or Barlow himself – forgot who he was. (The same person would also like you to know that “The Freed Pig” is the best break-up song ever. At least, I assume this is why she stated this no less than four times until Barlow honored her request.) I wasn’t about to forget because, confession time, I was a little geeked out to be seeing someone I’ve been listening to for about a decade, in his various bands and projects, at this little club.

Barlow began the show solo with his acoustic guitar (the case for which sports a handsome Music Saves sticker), chatting with the crowd, telling stories and taking requests (or pretending to). He played sweet-voiced renderings of songs like “Magnet’s Coil”, “Puzzled” and “Rebound” before bringing on missingmen Tom Watson and Raul Morales (on loan from Mr. Mike Watt) for an electric set.

Watson and Morales bring great talent and energy to the stage, and it’s easy to see why Watt has been keeping this friendly, easy-going pair close and why Barlow borrows them. They helped pump up songs like “Home”, “Too Much Freedom” and “Gravitate”. Things really broke out when Barlow put down his Danelectro and strapped on the bass, closing out the electric set by tearing up “Losercore”.

Back for an acoustic encore, Barlow broke out his ukulele (a baritone uke as opposed to the popular soprano uke) for “Beauty of the Ride” and “Soul and Fire” before returning to his acoustic for a few more songs, including the aforementioned “The Freed Pig”, closing out the show with “Brand New Love”.

Barlow is a skilled entertainer, aware how to keep a good balance with his audience. During solo acoustic sets, he chats more – telling stories about everything from annoying his sisters with an 8-track player to finding a bag of weed in a hotel room left by the previous occupants, the Black Crowes – and comes across as amiable, funny and candid. “Did I ever tell you my Cleveland story?” he asks the audience at one point, creating the feeling of being friends who have hung out together before. But when Watson and Morales join him onstage, the between-song conversation was turned down as the music amped up.

I don’t normally add links to my show reviews, but I have to share Lou Barlow’s great website and kingofthecastle7’s YouTube channel for videos of the show.

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Beach Fossils/Warpaint/Javelin at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, OH, 8.10.10

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Note: Beach Fossils and Warpaint played under very low lights, and flash photography is of the devil, so no live shots to go with this review.

Beach Fossils

Joined by TJ from Cleveland’s Cloud Nothings, who filled in on guitar due to the Fossils’ guitarist quitting a week into the tour, the Beach Fossils dove into the night with big energy that did not dissipate throughout their set. With their chiming guitars, dance-groove bass and big-beat drums (the drummer stood as he played his minimal snare and tom set-up), they give off an ’80s vibe, putting me in mind of the club scenes from Pretty in Pink. That is a good thing, in case you’re unsure. The songs began to sound a little same-y after a while, but the band was fully committed to every song.

Warpaint

When I decided to hit this show, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Warpaint live. Their recordings are laid-back, and I honestly feared their live show might put me to sleep. I feel okay admitting that because, in retrospect, I know how silly that fear was. As a matter of fact, as soon as I saw drummer Stella Mozgawa take off her shoes and socks, I had a feeling I was in for something good.

Not just good. Great.

While I can certainly enjoy shows from bands whose music I have only a passing familiarity with, it is rare that I can get into those shows like I got into Warpaint, eyes closed, vibing to the heavy grooves. The ambient guitarwork and sweet (but not twee) vocals of Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman are backed by the strong rhythm section of Mozgawa and Jenny Lee Lindberg on bass (slightly nerdy gear aside: found it cool that Lindberg plays a Rickenbacker bass). The sounds coming out of the bass and guitars verged on the spooky, almost – dare I say it – gothic at times. And Mozgawa sounded like she’d be perfectly at home in a black metal band a time or two.

A very impressive set that left the audience enthusiastic and asking for more.

(I would love to see Warpaint play some gigs with Cleveland’s mr. Gnome.)

Javelin

While they were very energetic and had a lot of people dancing (actual dancing – not the usual concert-style, shimmy-in-one-spot dancing), all-electronic music isn’t generally my thing, and I left three songs into Javelin’s set. But my preferences probably don’t do Javelin justice, so check out the Zender Agenda’s review of their set.