Gig: Pony Da Look / Buildings / Romo Roto

Pony Da Look / Buildings / Romo Roto

Trash Palace. Monday, August 17, 2009.

Headed down to the Trash Palace on a stifling Monday evening for a gig. To me, the biggest selling point may have been an assurance that the whole thing'd be over by eleven. This goes a long way towards convincing me to go out on a Monday night these days.¹ Walked in to a pretty empty room and settled in for a few minutes, idly watching an old concert video of The Police as people started to trickle in, and the 8:30 start time came and went. After a bit, members of Buildings, sitting down at the back, started to wonder if they should just go ahead and play when our openers arrived.

Romo Roto turned out to be a co-ed duo, consisting of Tomas Del Balso (from local spaz-punk crew DD/MM/YYYY) and Alexandra Mackenzie. Their gear consisted of a small, stand-up drum kit and a boom-box, into which Del Balso would cram in cassettes with gurgling keyb noises. The music started off sounding like pummelling shout-fests that felt like free-form bursts of primal scream therapy. After a bit, though, it did become clear that this wasn't merely random noise — there were songs underneath it all. I'm not sure if the caterwaul and crawl-on-the-floor harshness of it were meant as a bit of an épater les bourgeois kind of move, but I was, at first, put off a bit by it. Not the sort of thing that I would have my manservant put on while sitting in my wingback chair, running my fingers down the spine of a hand-bound leather volume and savouring a fine sherry, but while standing in the boiling depths of the Trash Palace, swilling PBR as Howdy Doody gambolled in the background on the screen behind them, it was all right.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Buildings, out of Washington, D.C., were the night's out-of-town guests. A four-piece, two guitar combo with a slight post-punk edge. Oh, and all-instrumental, too, though don't be fooled into thinking that says all there is to say about 'em. Avoiding the clichés of the "post-rock" sort of instrumental bands, Buildings' songs rely on the forward momentum of their guitar interplay to drive the songs, without any too-tricky time-changes or stop-start rhythms. They also didn't fall have any of that Explosions in the Sky-esque stuff where every song builds into a big crescendo to get easy points when the tension is released. One track reminded me of a speeded-up version of Faust's "Krautrock", which may be a better indicator of this band's approach. They also came correct with the visual angle covered, their songs accompanied by a series of home-made projections on the screen behind them — ranging from home-made kaleidoscopic animations to detourned video game footage. It all combined into a transporting experience, and the half-hour set really made the night for me. The band were also friendly lads, willing to engage in a bit of a chat before and after their set. Picked up a CD afterwards and then went outside to try and cool off a bit, but as muggy as it was in the basement, outside didn't feel much better. But still managed to regain my breath for the final go-round.

Listen to a track from this set here.

It'd been a couple years since I'd last seen Pony Da Look, who are now sporting a different lineup, including Rob Gordon on drums. But even if it's been a while, it's impossible to forget a band with such a unique and striking aesthetic. If most bands are something like method actors, working hard to learn to mutter just like we mutter, Pony Da Look are more like operatic divas, looking for the perfect heightened gesture to get their point across. It was not for nothing that they chose a DVD of Lars von Trier's The Kingdom to project on the screen behind them during their set, which was a perfect visual counterpoint to the music. Three voices, three synths up front, with Gordon's drumming pushing the band, as if recklessly rushing them along the rocky path on the side of a dark mountain. Highly entertaining stuff.

Listen to a track from this set here.

And, as promised, I was out and walking to catch the streetcar before eleven, so a successful night all around. Kudos as always to the Trash Palace for allowing strangers to rock out in their space.

---

¹ Hell, if it came with a promise it'd be over by ten, I'd be even happier. This reminds me of a story — recounted in Heylin's From the Velvets to the Voidoids, if memory serves me right — that in the Cleveland scene in the '70's, because it was acknowledged that everyone had to go to work in the morning, it was standard practice for the headliner to play first, and then the other bands in order of descending popularity, so the lowest group in the food chain had to wait around the longest to play and got to bed last.