Enon Show

One thing I've really come to appreciate about living in NYC is the chance to catch one-off shows, some of them in my hood. The Bell House is great for this: not much more than a month after the Miho show, I biked it down to neighboring sludge town Gowanus to see likable Enon play with These Are Powers and The Forms.

The Forms: got there a bit too late and only caught the tail end. What I saw sounded good. The drummer was solid and played a sweet kit with a mounted electro pad and had a redneck mohawk that made him look akin to Joe Dirt. I'll try harder to catch them next time.

First and foremost: These Are Powers are absolutely amazing. Slamming, as I say. Before you read the rest of this, open up their myspace page and get that going. Distorted 808-beat loops with a synth sound pad / mini drum kit (designed to be played standing while grooving), Asian-slick chick vocals, and cover-all sound textures bassist got The Bell House moving. Loud, heavy bass put the PA through its paces just the way you wanted. Want to see white people shake it? Bring these guys over. These Are Powers couldn't have brought more energy to the table and to that, I say thank you.

Now: Enon takes the stage. Notable are the new drummer and the amount of electronics (everyone's got something), John having, a Midi sequencer connected to a laptop in the back with Ableton Live. Also, during sound checking, everything sounded too hot - the mic sounded like it might have been going flakey; in my opinion the drums sounded like shit. And then they opened with what might have been the coolest opener: Rubber Car, the first track from Believo. First few tracks were sequence heavy and it was apparent Enon was taking a very regressional approach to their sound, headed back to its roots with sequenced beats and drums over the top.

While the set was good, it wasn't their greatest for a couple of reasons. One, I couldn't get into the drummer. With sloppy technique, uneven fills, and the lack of doing anything cool over the top of a 60% loop based set, this guy was a very far cry from the impressive Holy Fuck stylings of left hand lead Matt Schulz. And part of that was the second issue: that poor sound in the Bell House. I still can't figure this one out as These Are Powers had sounded so full and rich. The drums were hosed and fake sounding, the guitar lost in the mix, and everything was just a wash. Sound quality can really make or break a set, this time being the latter.

But with everything the way it was, there was a nice, shiny bit of brown nugget here that in my opinion, summed up the whole evening: the douschebag in front who just tried to get love from the band and couldn't. I'd call him the gaijin, because he looked just like one of the trolls I've come across in my Japanese studies. And totally fixated on Toko-chan. Long hair in pony tail, glasses, likes manga where he can see comic butts. Started his act by pointing and making a loud comment to John before the set even started, to which John replied, dude, you don't have to point. Midway through the set, when Daughter in the House of Fools busted out, he tried oh so hard for the entire song to get skin from Toko, who was singing with just a mic in hand, by stretching his arm way out and onto the stage. Denied! Finally, by the end of the set, he just stood there, screaming like Charlie Brown, auuugggghhhhhhhh, weirdo. Even funnier was watching security come over and give him the boot, at the last minute of the encore In This City, effectively meaning nothing.