Wednesday night on the Lower East Side started with unabashed energy as Sag Harbor, New York-hailing duo The Glazzies performed its guitar-stormed tracks at Pianos’ Upstairs Lounge. Along with drummer Dave Horn, whose Johnny Cash T-shirt added to the room’s ominous yet warm aura, singer Peter Landi broke into tight songs that conveyed the passionate angst of Nirvana while burning the mirror-paneled stage with its own punk fire. Just across the street at Arlene’s Grocery, New Jersey quintet Owel delivered a shinier but no less fiery sound, frontman Jay Sakong and his bandmates playing soaring, violin-girded cuts that recalled the grand-rock of Muse but glowed in a unique halo of ferocity and sonority. Fellow five-piece Controller (pictured, scheduled to play our Pianos indie show on Friday) took the bustling Arlene’s next, jumping into pop-bubbled rock pieces that almost sounded like Bruce Springsteen beside a synth station. There was also something of ’80s dance in these delightfully loud songs, as vividly seen in lead vocalist Jon Bellinger’s elastic sways and swoons, the movements of a bashful master of ceremonies. Back at Pianos, the five mustached men of Los Angeles’ Bird Dog brought things down to a somewhat calmer notch, their folk-inflected rock songs reaching particular beauty with gliding harmonies and topping the high-ceilinged hall with western sun. New York-via-Israel musician Tesha closed the evening a few blocks away at Fat Baby. Before a wall that had pictures of such hip-hop masters as Tupac, the computer-decked artist dipped into subtly moving fantasias of skipping beats and sputtering synths, almost holding time in a bewitchingly nocturnal instant and then releasing it back into the wee hours of the morning. – Zach Weg
