With the last of this weeks free happy hour show starting much later than advertised, That Ghost took the stage with the most blasé of attitudes. From the Kinks’ tradition of pre-psychedelic 60s garage rock, though minus their raw energy, That Ghost doled out their songs like it was punishment. Their front man, seemingly unable to match the key, stood nonchalantly moaning the songs while chewing gum. He couldn’t have seemed less interested in his own music. On the other side of the stage there was another guitarist who didn’t seem to be contributing anything to the overall sound. He appeared to be playing but I couldn’t hear it. To their credit their bassist was very talented and held together a strong backbone for their songs. Inject some life into their members and I may be back to check them out.
Following That Ghost The Baths took to the stage, with a front man sporting his best Ringo Starr handle bar mustache, and continued with the theme of 60s garage rock. Fairly conventional sounding they were enjoyable but nothing terribly innovative.
Heading downtown to the Mezzanine, a place I would normally avoid like the bubonic plague for fear of catching an Ed Hardy disease, I geared up for the dance party to come. First up were the cute and quirky band My First Earthquake. With an air of 50s girl pop sans lyrics about “be my baby” and more about tits and wet dreams, filtered through 80s synth rock like The Cars, My First Earthquake did nerd rockers of the world proud. They were as if a group of theatre kids from your high school formed a band to endear their way into your ears.
Sugar and Gold followed and really hammed it up for the crowd. Imploring his best Prince performance (right down to his diminutive stature) their front man strutted around stage licking his guitar and shaking his ass for a dedicated crowd. I’ve never been much of a fan of their disco-revival sound but it certainly was a show to watch. The music is catchy and serves as a perfect background for a dance party, but as far as depth there isn’t much to it.
After several months as recluses, Maus Haus are back and could not have sounded better. Playing tracks from their debut album and a few from their forthcoming 7-inch (available for download on Tuesday), and weaving together their fascinating and intricate sound. Hearing the new tracks was quite exciting and I wait with great anticipation to give them an in depth listen latter on. Additionally, as a performance it was quite nice to see Josh, one of their front man, really come out of his performance shell getting into the groove and almost rapping one of my favorite songs of their initial album “Reaction.”
!!! closed the evening, laying down their fantastic groove, to a thoroughly devoted crowd. Truly living up to their reputation of assaulting your hips with their rhythm and groove, !!! put out as much energy as they demanded from the crowd. Though I would greatly loved to hear a few tracks from Louden Up Now, I can understand why they would choose not to play them. The downside to writing directly political tracks somewhat dates them. It’s hard to tell a different President, that you may or may not support, to “suck your dick” with the same meaning behind it. All that aside, they certainly did their job energizing the crowd, so much so that during their encore the stage was bum rushed by overly zealous dancers who were swiftly shut down by the bouncers. It was wild to see.
Nearing its end, I head out to my final Noise Pop show tonight, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at Bimbo’s.
–Words and Photos by Ada Lann