Agony Shorthand
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Sunday, May 22, 2005
A-FRAMES / SIGHTINGS, live 5/20/05 Hemlock Tavern, San Francisco.......
SIGHTINGS are unlike any band going, anywhere. This Brooklyn trio speak a musical foreign tongue formed at the intersection of improvisational soundscapes, balls-out rock and crude electronics held together by duct tape & baling wire. Emphasis on the electronics & effects, along with a big dose of spattering percussion. The drummer's kit is this weird half-analog, half-digital hydra; the bass sounds like it's going through 20 effects boxes and is on delay to boot, and the guitar itself is like a mushroom-fueled bad trip. If I had to split the SIGHTINGS cards between unplanned free-form experimentation and songs, they'd easily fall into the latter -- rehearsed, practiced, and planned, yet bizarre as fuck-all. Those songs don't remind me much of anyone else's. If this is indeed the sound of the 21st Century, we could do a hell of a lot worse. Crowd thought so too, & though they may have been here for the far more pedestrian sounds of the A-FRAMES, they hooted in all the right places.
I had to liberally check my pocketwatch while watching the A-FRAMES (picture above) to make sure I wasn't still standing at their May 8th, 2004 Hemlock Tavern show. The set, which was great, was nearly identical to the one rendered last time they were here. Same charge-ahead songs from their new CD "Black Forest", which were "in development" then, same hits from the past, even the exact same encore ("Radiation Generation" + the Aussie X's "Batman"). I get the feeling that these guys are comfortable right about here, in terms of popularity & audience growth -- enough to fill a hole-in-the-wall club with rowdy hipsters, yet also enough to sell merch by themselves in a dark corner, put 45s out on cool micro-underground labels like S-S & Dragnet, and play their new stuff louder, faster & more berzerk than the Sub Pop record songs. And drummer Lars Finberg is quite a stud pounder for a fairly compact young gentleman; he's also a prime mover behind fine Seattle bands THE INTELLIGENCE and THE DIPERS. Remember the name -- it's gonna be a big one someday. I'd gladly pay real cash money to see the same set again next May too, so let's plan on it, hunh?
SIGHTINGS are unlike any band going, anywhere. This Brooklyn trio speak a musical foreign tongue formed at the intersection of improvisational soundscapes, balls-out rock and crude electronics held together by duct tape & baling wire. Emphasis on the electronics & effects, along with a big dose of spattering percussion. The drummer's kit is this weird half-analog, half-digital hydra; the bass sounds like it's going through 20 effects boxes and is on delay to boot, and the guitar itself is like a mushroom-fueled bad trip. If I had to split the SIGHTINGS cards between unplanned free-form experimentation and songs, they'd easily fall into the latter -- rehearsed, practiced, and planned, yet bizarre as fuck-all. Those songs don't remind me much of anyone else's. If this is indeed the sound of the 21st Century, we could do a hell of a lot worse. Crowd thought so too, & though they may have been here for the far more pedestrian sounds of the A-FRAMES, they hooted in all the right places.
I had to liberally check my pocketwatch while watching the A-FRAMES (picture above) to make sure I wasn't still standing at their May 8th, 2004 Hemlock Tavern show. The set, which was great, was nearly identical to the one rendered last time they were here. Same charge-ahead songs from their new CD "Black Forest", which were "in development" then, same hits from the past, even the exact same encore ("Radiation Generation" + the Aussie X's "Batman"). I get the feeling that these guys are comfortable right about here, in terms of popularity & audience growth -- enough to fill a hole-in-the-wall club with rowdy hipsters, yet also enough to sell merch by themselves in a dark corner, put 45s out on cool micro-underground labels like S-S & Dragnet, and play their new stuff louder, faster & more berzerk than the Sub Pop record songs. And drummer Lars Finberg is quite a stud pounder for a fairly compact young gentleman; he's also a prime mover behind fine Seattle bands THE INTELLIGENCE and THE DIPERS. Remember the name -- it's gonna be a big one someday. I'd gladly pay real cash money to see the same set again next May too, so let's plan on it, hunh?
