Pitter Patter Festival 2010 (feat. Terror Lake, The Famines, Pkew Pkew Pkew)
Rancho Relaxo. Friday, May 28, 2010.
The Fucked Up gig at the Reference Library ended in good time for me to make my way down to Rancho, climbing up the stairs and emerging into a comfortably-filled room pretty much just in time to catch Pkew Pkew Pkew finishing their set-up on stage. Previously unknown to me, I soon found out that there's no bait-and-switch here, as the band exhibits a level of sophistication pretty much on par with their band name — the blessing and curse of it all is right there on display. It's a little bit like the same gang of boys who had, a few years ago, been playing with toy guns in a tree fort with a "no girls allowed" sign out front had moved on to a garage band, the sign replaced with lyrical sentiments like "friends don't let friends move in with girlfriends".
Live, they sounded at times like a very drunk Weezer running through a B-52's cover, forgetting what they were playing and ending on some old chugalug country song. Kinda fun but they lost me some when they led off "Clever Girl" with a chorus of "Kokomo" — these lads are obviously too young to remember the widespread psychic damage that this song caused in the late 80's. Which is also about the last time some of the jokey sampled sound effects (cheering audience noises, etc.) might have seemed clever. Plus, sometimes the maturity level of the lyrics ("Why does the dick have to be such a cock?") dipped to somewhere below the schoolyard potty-mouth level.
On the flipside, though, that lyric comes from "Asshole Pandemic", which still manages to be insidiously catchy — and that counts in the band's favour.1 Plus, the lads handled themselves well on stage, with solid musicianship segueing effortlessly from one song to the next while they were obviously having a ball on stage. Employing that contemporary yelpy team vocals thing, with songs based on repeated chantable bits, makes it hard not to hit on something a little catchy now and then — but it can also get same-y in a hurry. Not everything stuck with me — or even hit me the right way, but they were certainly likable on a song like "Demille Bop" with its deadpan sing-speak.
Ending with their self-titled ode to friendships forged through drunkenness and inertia ("We ain't got nowhere to be tonight so we're just gonna sit and drink here/ We're all buddies and we all brought beers so we're just gonna sit and drink here") this band is willing to share a clubhouse with anyone who wants to raise a pint and revel in life's simple, pottymouthed joys. If that sounds beneath you, well, it's nowhere near impossible that maturity might catch up with these guys, smooth out the shout-y edges and shape them into slightly wiser (if no less boozier) songsmiths. So keep an eye on 'em.2
After the loose and relaxed approach of the opening set, things got tenser and tightened up with The Famines. The duo (guit, drums) from Edmonton hit the stage with an aggressively harsh sound. It's common, when speaking of two-man bands, for people to say that they sound like more. Famines do in fact just sound like two guys, albeit two guys playing bloody loud. There's a certain underlying spareness to their sound, and not much bottom end, but still enough noise to make your ears bleed a little. As far as duos go, this one's lineage might be somewhere a few generations down the evolutionary tree from Deja Voodoo, but without the swampiness. Indeed, there was a whiff of 80's postpunk hardrock at play in their music.3
Live, the focus was less on the songs than the performance. The dance floor wasn't packed, and with some open space in front of him, singer/guitarist Raymond Biesinger ranged well off the stage — at one point confusing the hell out of a patron entering the venue at the top of the stairs, clearly not expecting to find a guy with a guitar standing a couple feet away from him. The cat-like Biesinger seemed eager to explore any spot that he could squeeze himself into, and by the middle of the set he was sprawled out on the ground, and after that almost curled up in a foetal position between the cabinets at the foot of the stage. Meanwhile, while he was cozied up there, drummer Garrett Kruger took to the floor, too, dragging a mic stand with him and wrapping the cord around a guy standing in front of me, pulling him against the wall in some sort of embrace. All of which is to say that even if the songs weren't memorable, the overall performance was a good time.
I'd seen Terror Lake at last year's Pitter Patter, and had enjoyed them enough that I'd been meaning to see them again. Though it took longer than I expected to revisit the trio, I'm glad to note that everything I liked last year is still in place, the band still mixing surfy twang and raucous energy in just the right measures.
the set launched with the catchy "Freehold", light on lyrics and long on energy. I dig the way that the band is comfortable starting their songs off with a couple minutes of instrumental groove before drummer Wendy4 would add her voice. Guitarist Matt sang on "Tigers & Lab Rats", which was welcome for adding some variety to the set, although his vocals aren't as cuttingly distinctive as Wendy's. In fact, it was good to see the band knows both the formula that they work best in as well as when to push away from it a bit, such as on a run through the VU's "Rock & Roll", which is a bit of a departure from their core sound but still fits in nicely with the two-guitar interplay.
The band also slowed things down and stretched them out on "Redskin Panic", which had some nice textured edges before ending closer to the starting point with the spiky kiss-off "Sucks 4 U". The crowd wanted one more ("are you sure?" Wendy asked, making it sound more like a genuinely surprised question than rock-star toy-with-the-crowd move) and the band stepped back in for "Jix", which segued into a rockabilly-styled number that that sounded like a distant grand-nephew of Johnny Burnette's "Train Kept A-Rollin'".
Terror Lake are a superb party band and a lot of fun to listen to — but don't take that to imply that there isn't some solid craftsmanship under the hood. Well worth seeing, and more than once a year at that.
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 Which is one of a half-dozen tracks on their recently-released Royalty EP, which captures the band's energy level fairly well, mixing the campfire singalongs ("Friends Don't Let Friends Move In With Girlfriends", "Oysters & Wine") with the shouty group chants ("Stop Calling Us, Chief", "Asshole Pandemic"), in a package that plays to the band's strengths without hanging around for too long.
2 And if you're eager to see 'em right away, take note that they are playing this Friday (August 13th) at The Silver Dollar, and also have a Saturday night (September 11th) lined up at Rancho.
3 And, interestingly, as seems to be disproportionally common for rock'n'roll duos, this pair seem to have a flair for design exhibited in a rigourous visual aesthetic — on display from the stylized "F" on the kickdrum to their meticulously packaged merch (including a seven-song live cassette accompanied by "accompanied by 268 pages of contextual liner notes").
4 "No Fuss" may be as much of a motto as a song title for the band, with no last names furnished at the band's myspace or website — just Wendy (drums + vocals), Tim (guitar) and Matt (guitar).
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