The three-fifths I saw of The 1-10s’ CD release show Friday night was worth getting smashed up against a wooden pole at The Basement throughout most of the sets. By 10 p.m. the house was packed and stifling as Oh No No took the stage. Only a few months ago, the band released a four-track EP, Tren Del Sexo (Sex Train), which is lyrically amusing but never settles into a sound. They cheerily genre-hop from pop rock to rambling, banjo-driven folk, and energetic as it was, I didn’t think it too memorable. After seeing their live performance, I’m changing my mind.
Crowd interaction, a penchant for tightly-belted shorts and a dopey charisma that makes them seem like they should be in a Broken Lizard movie added to the animated set. Fist-pumping, stomping and clapping were encouraged throughout the seven-song set that opened with the slow but blistering riff of “(Shake) Shake Your Hips” followed by the timid pop number “You Could Be My Lover,” both from the EP. Also included was a recently-written and particularly loud and bitter Valentine’s song titled “The Bitch.” They’re not the most sophisticated band out there, and they’re definitely not going to get all arty onstage, but they can play and it was a fun set.
Up next was The 1-10s, another group whose live performances outshine the recordings, the latest of which is Fighting for a Golden Age. The band played all 10 tracks from the LP, starting with the deep, pensive bass and warbling blues riff of “Bad Day” as frontman Will Floyd yowled in Zeppelin-like fashion and did his awkward shuffle around the microphone. “Run From Your Master” and “Dying Blues” followed with surging and stuttering guitar parts from Adam Louis that imitate Queens of the Stone Age, while Abby Hairston kept up an incessant thrash back there on the drums despite the heat.
For the most part, they stick with revving, up-tempo tunes, but they broke from that long enough for bassist Ben Lowry to take over vocals for the comparably sweet and melodic “Eye For An Eye” and finished with the gritty title track. The 1-10s toy with blues and toy with metal, tying it together with punk and classic rock of the late ’70s, and they’re talented enough to pull off all those sounds and make a cohesive album.
Theirs would have been a great set to end with, but Spoken Nerd took the stage after with an electronic hip hop fusion. I would have stuck around for that as well as The Running and I Am Sabot, but by this point I was in a 1-10s-induced punk stupor and thus wandered out to Nathan Conrad’s emphatic, “we’ll crush those who stand against us.” – Jessica Pace