Avers at Black Cat
Sometimes listening to a band's stuff on Bandcamp can be terribly misleading. If you listen to that one song by Avers and check their tags (psychedelic, shoegaze) then you would probably go to their show expecting to hear something like Dead Leaf Echo. Wrong-O!
Simply put, Avers are a rock band. Okay, they're a rock band which is informed by psych rock, which dips a toe or so into country and roots rock (I guess that would be two toes, maybe one from each foot?) But they didn't forget to bring the volume. Or the stage presence: some of these folks were bouncing around stage like rawk stars. It turns out they're more like Alberta Cross, or maybe the late-80s Mekons. This was a very pleasant surprise.
So, uh, oops! I guess I should have checked out their SoundCloud too.
The Ar-Kaics at DC9
I only got half a photo set of these folks, The Ar-Kaics, because my burger took half an hour to show up. I missed the first two songs, went upstairs and chowed down during the next few, and then got up and got these shots. Then I went back to my table and finished my dinner. "Will suffer indigestion for rock-n-roll", yeah, that's my motto.
Now as for The Ar-Kaics their motto seems to be "Never let 'em relax". All fuzzy guitars, all shouting, nary a ballad to be found. Good stuff if you're into that trash rock sound, which I am so fuck yeah!
Posted: 5/19/2014 at 10:00am Tags: DC9 The Ar-Kaics
Baked at Black Cat
Boy, talk about truth in advertising. I'm not sure that I would call this band psych rock. They're not quite as strictly psychedelic as some of the other bands I've covered recently. But boy, the ambience is just overwhelming, a real heavy dose of something which is actually kind of mild and mellow. So yeah, Baked, that's exactly it.
Titus Andronicus at Black Cat
At this point I don't remember which came first, Titus Andronicus the band or Titus Andronicus the play. They've been around forever and clearly there is no stopping them. So please just enjoy these photos, painstonkingly captured by me from my vantage point in the pit (and then later at stage far left when the pit wore me out).
Posted: 5/17/2014 at 12:58pm Tags: Black Cat Titus Andronicus
Lorelle Meets The Obsolete at Tropicalia
Their name is a mouthful. Their music, an earful. This slogan, just awful. The band is rather good though.
Lorelle and The Obsolete are apparently the actual stage names of the two guitarists who form the core of the band. They play plenty of slower, shoegazey psych but their best stuff are the more rockin' tracks like What's Holding You? I'm glad they mix it up like that. Some psych bands seem to be trying to force a low-energy mood on their audience. Y'all are musicians, not hypnotists folks!
Posted: 5/15/2014 at 11:00am Tags: Lorelle Meets The Obsolete Tropicalia
