Oh No Forest Fires / Still Life Still / Arietta
Lee's Palace. Friday, March 21, 2009.
In the indie rock game, you pays your money and you takes your chances. On a Friday night with no big plans after seeing a movie, $7 seemed like a fair investment in some unknown qualities. On the whole, none of the three bands I saw blew my mind, but it was still a decent evening.
If nothing else, it was a stirring sign of community spirit, and really encouraging to see a large, young crowd out for four local bands on a Friday night. All the bands, as well, seemed to be a mutually supportive bunch — I guess it wasn't just a comment on the lack of gender balance on the stage that the event was dubbed "BroFest". I think my favourite part of the night was when some of the bandmembers brought out their handcrafted, paint-splattered BroFest banner up to mount on the stage, which turned out to be done on the back of a CMW banner from last week. That's some top-notch DIY creative re-purposing.
First up were Arietta, a complete unknown quantity to me. I guess I would file them under that broad (and vaguely pejorative) term "modern rock" — they sounded like their music could be slipped right into the playlist of The Edge or some such.1 Which is to say they were probably objectively "good", but didn't interest me at all. The frontman looked like he had misread one of those lists of don'ts: two-handed microphone gripping, leg up on the monitor for emotive bending over, etc. But at least he was a good enough vocalist to justify his presence in the band. In their defence, the band did look like they were making some efforts at mixing up their sound a bit, but some textures like melodica were totally lost in the mix. They sound like they could do well for themselves, and had (for a band going on at 9:30) a reasonable crowd of folks down on the dancefloor. And ultimately, if you can make nineteen-year-old girls wiggle, that's probably a better predictor of success than my taste. If I were a mersh A&R man, I'd snap these dudes straight up.2
Next up were Still Life Still, probably the band on the bill I was most curious about. Having the phrase "recent Arts & Crafts signees" slapped next to your name probably creates a certain set of expectations. A five-piece unit playing a sort of smeary version of that dance-ified post-punk thing, they come across as having a not-yet-settled sound, a few competing ideas not totally integrated into one concept. At first they evoked a sort of Born Ruffians/D'Urbervilles kind of vibe, and I found the first part of the set the least interesting. As things progressed, that was undercut by a sort of Modest Mouse feel, and that made things go down a little better. A woozy, slowed-down number in the middle was the best of the bunch, and I could begin to see what Kevin Drew might have seen in this lot. Once the easy dance beats gave way to the hazier stuff with ragged, collective vox, it began to make more sense to me. With an EP and an album forthcoming from A&C, I can only imagine there'll be plenty more chances to see them in the next few months, so I reserve the right not to make up my mind yet.3
They were followed by Oh No Forest Fires, another crew that I had heard some good things about. They played a sort of guitar rock skewed by rapid-bursting spazzy asides exploding out from broken powerpop dreams. Their best weapon was charismatic frontman Rajiv Thavanathan, who can apparently find his way around a melody but seems to have some inner compulsion to step on it like a wayward spider.4 The set ended with a raucous cover of "Footloose", with the stage crowded by members of all the night's bands plus some from Great Bloomers. The band was fun, energetic and full of good vibes. I dug them, and I appreciated the music, but I wouldn't declare myself a convert.
After seeing Dinosaur Bones last week, I knew I wanted to see them again, but after the end of ONFF's set past midnight I could feel myself fading — not in an ideal state to try and appreciate their subtleties. So I headed out. A la prochaine, Dino Bones.
1 Caveat: I really have no idea what commercial radio sounds like in this decade, so this is largely a supposition on my part. In my imagination, this is what bands on the radio sound like.
2All the lads of Arietta, save the singer, were all wearing white t-shirts on stage, leaving me wondering if this was an attempt at a unified look or if when they all met up backstage before the gig they were all, like, "Bro! You wore a white t-shirt today? I wore a white t-shirt today!"
3 Tangential note: the bass player had a five string, which I normally associate with limpid funk-lite. Are there any examples of quality rock bands with a five-string bass? Could this be the first?
4 A couple songs led by the bassist/keyb player Matt Del Buono were less successful, and didn't totally fit in with the rest of the set.
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