Monday, May 25, 2009

Holy Fuck, A Place to Bury Strangers!


Following on the tails of last week's Melvins show, saw the incredible liquid energy show of Holy Fuck Saturday night @ Bowery Ballroom. Hella good show, just a bit late for me: start time was 11:30pm. Didn't matter, I was really looking forward to the set; when former Enon drummer Matt Schulz came out to set up his drums, I knew it was on.

After standing around since 9:30ish for Crocodiles and then A Place to Bury Strangers, the feet were killing us, and we were lucky enough to grab a table with great view from the upstairs balcony. The show kicked off with a series of songs that sounded new (including "Jungle", which seems recently added to their MySpace page), and once they warmed up the crowd they started throwing some of the older tunes into the mix. A move they did, because the whole venue turned into this electric dance floor, at the very least heads were moving, and for some of the more flamboyants, total dance party USA.

Despite all this energy, at some point about 45 minutes into the show, I started feeling past my bedtime syndrome, probably in part due to staying out nearly 1:30 the night before for a nomikai with Reiko's coworkers. Thus came the weird surreal state of semi-consciousness - falling asleep in small bursts but all the while aware of the awesome show going on around me. Kinda like zoning out while riding the lawn mower and your neighbors are having a pool party, grabbing the wheel in time to make the turn and not crash into the fence. But I came to, and we headed downstairs and caught the rest of the show there. Up close, things looked so busy but with everyone having a good time.

Matt Schulz in particular is a real treat to watch - his style is the epitome of fast and aggressive. The thing that really gets me is his speed and ambidextrousness: He plays a regular 4-piece drum kit, but uses his left hand as the lead for hi-hat work, right hand for ride cymbal. Drum fills seem to be right-left-right-left patterns, but again, everything is lightening fast so its hard to say for sure. The results of the mixup seems to allow for some nice change ups and patterns I've never heard elsewhere, hence my fondness for listening to him play. And, perhaps it was the lack of seeing him at that Enon show last month that left such a meh feeling in my mouth.

As for the other bands, Crocodiles had a modern new wave sound going for them, but as only a 2 piece, they lacked from where they could be with the addition of a solid drummer and bassist. Mostly good tunes, albeit intentionally dated sounding. A Place to Bury Strangers: let down. After hearing all this hype for them ("New York's Loudest band!", "THE band to see at SXSW!"), their opening song came out of sync, with the drums behind the guitar behind the vocals; this happened on a few other tracks. Another track, a slow noise builder, finally came to an end, and... wait for it... they played the exact same fucking thing for another two or three minutes, no double-time beats to save the day. I don't know if it was the venue being mean to them or what, but I was not impressed, move along folks, move along.

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Alex Baker works in NYC doing web development during the day and puts on a cape to solve riddles and crime by night. In his free time, he shreds the skins in DBCR, explores NYC and other places and geeks out on new tech.