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state of the state
This evening I have seen Dish, Rubbermaid, Hobex, and some band from Noo
Yawk who had very nice Moserite guitars but who did not live up to their
name.
But then who could? Emma Peel. My god. You'd have to be, well, perfect.
Which they weren't.
Word. Dish have rebounded from the departure of half the band and while
they are still looking nervously at each other onstage, due to newness,
they are nonetheless producing yet more of the fine, surprising, often
subtly cruel music which we came to know them for to begin with.
Though their new drummer has cymbals, a development which I cannot
wholeheartedly endorse as of yet. Ditto the guitarist's wah-wah pedal.
This is a band which quickly renders such crutches unnecessary.
Rubbermaid. If you have not seen Dave Hollinghurst leap into the air
like Pete Townshend, well, then, do it. They are a rock accident waiting
to happen, or something. I mean, rather, they are a rock explosion
threatening to go off.
Or a big rock cheese threatening to go off. Anyway. My neck is sore from
the bobbing of it, and there has been some subtle sea-change in
Jessica's demeanor and/or attitude which gives her onstage persona some
new level of complexity and/or believability and/or, uh, ooomph.
In other words, they have not only plateaued at a consistently enjoyable
level of punkrock, they seem to be repeatedly launching themselves up
towards whatever's above. Or at least Dave does. Those damn Pete
Townshend jump things.
I saw all of 10 minutes worth of Hobex before crawling home to what was
supposed to be bed, but which wound up typing instead, but by the end of
that 10 minutes I was clapping far louder than I do normally. Greg has
this homemade-looking dimmer-switch vibrato unit thing which makes his
guitar make all kinds of incredibly groovy noises.
But more importantly, he's turned a lot of his previously-held pop
notions around sidewise and stretched and pushed and pulled them in
other directions--it's the Greg Humphreys experience filtered through a
few more layers of American Pop History, even, and those layers being
classic 70s soul (Curtis Mayfield/Stevie Wonder/Al Green) it's all the
more better for it.
So I was transfixed and then they paused and the spell was broken long
enough for me to make a break for home and bed and so I am here.
gnight
grady
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