Gig: The ALL CAPS! Island Show (part II)

The ALL CAPS! Island Show (feat. Brian Borcherdt, Great Bloomers, Times Neue Roman, Sun Ra Ra Ra)

Artscape Gibraltar Point. Saturday, October 17, 2009.

This is part two of this day's events. For introduction and the day's earlier bands, see here.

Back in from the lighthouse, Georgia Webber told the re-assembling crowd some of its ghost stories — some true, some more spurious. By now, it was fully dark outside, giving a different atmosphere to the room as Brian Borcherdt took the stage. The darkness suited his solo acoustic material, with songs about ghosts and drowning delivered in his high, clear voice. Although Borcherdt has probably gotten the most gravy for his work with the storming dance marauders Holy Fuck, he actually was an established folky singer-songwriter before that unit took off and he has since been pursing parallel music tracks. The material at hand here, mostly deriving from '08's Coyotes, I believe, was well-assembled and well-delivered, melodic but not hooky. His music would fit well on a mixtape with say, Sandro Perri, whose solo acoustic material works in similar ways. Truth be told, this stuff didn't register with me strongly. There were one or two songs that had something going for them, but nothing really stuck — not a strong argument against their author by any means, just an indication that this style doesn't do much for me. He closed his set with a cover of Kim Mitchell's "Easy to Tame", which we will forgive as a lack of judgment arising from over-exuberance.

"You might notice half of us are missing", noted vocalist Lowell Sostomi as Great Bloomers began their set. Pulling double duty with an opening slot for Cuff the Duke at the 'Shoe later in the evening, the band elected to play in a stripped-down format. Kudos to them for playing a benefit on the night they had a paying gig to go to. The band is certainly reaching ever-growing numbers of people — the days' crowd was at its thickest at this point, with maybe sixty bodies in the room, responding heartily to the band's rootsy pop-rock. Myself, despite a couple previous exposures, I haven't particularly cottoned to their stuff. There's certainly something there — "Dark Horse" has a nice gallop to it, for example, but their songs to date largely haven't convinced me. Trying on some different material with the trio alignment, Sostomi played one he introduced as "an old love song" that predated the band as well as a new one. It's not out of the question that this band might impress me at some point down the road, but for the time being, they'll remain merely pleasant in my book.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Presumably looking to catch a ferry back to the mainland to attend to various evening plans, the crowd suddenly shrunk by about half, but it left a looser vibe among those sticking it out. Times Neue Roman were the day's first band to command the mostly-sitting crowd to stand up and move closer, handing out chocolates as an incentive. The crowd was soon into their high-energy hip-hop, though not quite responding to the band with the same vigour they were putting out: "to those not participating, you'll have to excuse the awkwardness of the call-and-response — we all just met, so we're still getting the hang of it," Arowbe commented. All things considered, TNR put on the best show of the night, with a dancer trying to get the crowd moving, plus a giant illuminated skull overlooking proceedings. Plus, the band pulled off the night's deftest bit of impromptu songwriting, presenting a tune called "Winston, Where are You?", based on the the story told in their introduction about Winston — the probably-mythical student at this school who, as a punishment, had to sit in a chair in the hatch under the library floor, and was forgotten there. The duo mixed in a couple songs with Alexander The on acoustic guitar — a break from their usual driving beats. As with the previous time I'd seen 'em, I was rather impressed by TNR's showmanship as well as their tunes. A couple days after this show, I had a song relentlessly trapped in my head, and I struggled for a while to figure out it was before I realized it was a Times Neue Roman joint — so take that as a good sign.

Listen to a track from this set here.

"Is that loud enough? I know it's been a real quiet day," asked Sun Ra Ra Ra, ending the night with a cobweb-clearing set of blistering rock anthems. The rock'n'roll equivalent of an overdriven flamethrower, the rapid-fire songs flew by with incomprehensibly shout-y vox, shards of feedback and a sock-full-of-nickels beat. Oh, plus a strutting costumed samurai marching around the room. Apparently playing sans their organ player, their sound managed to be pretty saturated regardless. A lightning fast version of "Surfin' Bird" made The Ramones sound like The Melvins — until it hit that lurch, the "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" before the song launches back into the "ooh mau mau", where the song stopped dead, the vocalist (Daniel? Emmot? their myspace leaves the matter unclear who the singer is) sputtering for a full weird minute before the band jumped back into the song. A guitar amp blew out on the penultimate song, but a quick switch got things back for the finale. Perhaps, like Ghostlight earlier on, this might have sounded all the more vital for standing in stark contrast to most of the other acts, but in the moment this felt pretty damned fine. Rousing, sweaty fun.

Listen to a track from this set here.

After that, there was a chunk of time to kill, as the next ferry was about forty-five minutes away, and this time, I was going to rely on the shuttle to get me back. So there was some shuffling around, and time to chat with some of the fellow stragglers and poking around a few more corners of the facility. Dale Morningstar, whose famous Gas Station studio was nearby, had lent out some PA equipment for the event and dropped by to check on it, chatting with the shuttle driver and a few other Islanders, keeping their wary eyes on us auslanders. Outside, there was heavy quiet, and a weird sense of time-confusion — after the full afternoon's concert, it felt really late, and standing outside, it could have been three in the morning as easily as ten at night.

Eventually, everyone shuffled onto the minibus for the surreal ride back to Ward's. The interior lights were on as we zipped through the sward, meaning only occasional shadows were visible as we passed through all the hollows I'd knocked about on my way in. The driver was blasting Q107 as the dudes behind me were confessing to each other that as they grew older, they were increasingly able to appreciate metal unironically. A strange little trip.

And then to the dock as the ferry was pulling in. A quick, chattery trip back across the water and then walk up to Union. It was not, in reality, all that late, and a more-eager type could have still gotten somewhere for a musical nightcap. But the day felt complete to me. Well-organized, well-executed, this was a fine bit of work by all involved, and a most worthy event.