In-store: CMW 2011/Sonic Boom (Friday)

(Bombay Bicycle Club / J Mascis / Bravestation)

Sonic Boom Records. Friday, March 11, 2011.

Started off a full day of CMW with some more in-store action downstairs at Sonic Boom. There was a decent smattering of folks on hand as I caught the end of a set by local alt-bro yalpers Pkew Pkew Pkew. Looking around, there was an unusual number of highschoolers on hand, many of them sitting down on the floor and lounging like it was a proper basement party.

I was sorta feeling warm-heated towards them for supporting local music when suddenly the casual sprawl turned into a mass of kids up against the stage, jockeying for position as the next band started to set up. That would turn out to be Bombay Bicycle Club, a British band with some buzz-appeal. Once stools and a banjo were brought out, it looked like this was going be an unplugged-style appearance. And as vocalist Jack Steadman casually sang the old bluegrass/gospel standard "I'll Fly Away" as his compadres soundchecked around him, I figured they were going to be one of that new wave of British roots-inspired bands that I'd heard vaguely about. The band's music was more "rock" than that, though, but how much this stripped-down set departed from their usual I can't say — "if this is too quiet for anyone, we're going to be playing at Lee's Palace tonight with some real instruments," was the rocknowledgement from the stage.

The set started with "Evening/Morning", that banjo playing against Steadman's quavery vocals. Otherwise, besides the pleasant-enough lope of "Rinse Me Down", none of the other handful of originals made much of an impression on me, but the young crowd in front of them was suitably impressed. "This is the first audience we've ever played to on this side of the Atlantic," Steadman informed them, whipping them up a little more.

I had the band pegged as earnest, clean-cut types, but perhaps they weren't not so blandly innocent after all: it might be kinda audaciously skeezy to cover Loudon Wainwright III's "Motel Blues", with its baldly-stated ambitions ("come up to my motel room and treat me right") to a crowd full of highschool-aged girls. Well, to the boys, too — I don't want to make groundless assumptions about what kind of groupies they were courting. And, somewhat confounding my notions of who this band might be getting marketed to, it was a dude-heavy crowd, full of enthusiastic lads. Just as I was jotting down "mostly harmless" as a concluding thought about the set in my notepad, I overheard two of them as they were putting on their coats:

Dude #1: That was very legit.

Dude #2: That one? That was the sickest song.

Listen to a track from this set here.

And then there was a weird sort of transference in the room as the large bulk of that young crowd booked it out of there and their spots up front were quickly filled in by members of the older cohort that had been been building up for the last half of Bombay Bicycle Club's set. The net outcome was a slightly smaller crowd, albeit a much taller one, patiently awaiting J Mascis. Mascis, who dared to be an alt-rock guitar hero in a time when such a thing was frowned upon, was playing songs from his newly-released Several Shades of Why. That album is, in some technical sense, his first proper "solo" album — so long as you don't count his albums backed by The Fog or the several of Dinosaur Jr.'s albums where he was essentially a one-man band.

But here, most decidedly playing on his own, Mascis treated the crowd to some hints of wry humour, like leading off set-starting "Listen to Me" with a "this is the first song on the new album" crack. That was pretty audience-engaging for the oft-laconic guitarist — it felt more directly within the bounds of his public persona when the next song (the new album's title track) screeched to a quick halt for an extended bout of tuning with the room holding an awkward silence. Interestingly, Mascis employed a loop pedal for that one to add a static part to hold things steady while he moved off on one of the nimble excursions that are recognized as his most articulate expressions.

Less expected was "Circle of Friends", a cover introduced with what seemed at first some especially random banter: "how many people remember Paul Simon's wife? Edie Brickell? Any fans out there?" Of course, all the randomness is tempered by the moments (like during "Ammaring") when he just plays, and suddenly you're all like, "oh yeah, guitar god. Right."

After that, he asked if there was anything anyone wanted to hear, and "Severed Lips" was the first thing shouted, so he graciously tore that one off and chased it with another (and less obvious) Dino Jr. cut, Green Mind's "Flying Cloud". A really enjoyable set — and it didn't leave my ears ringing afterward, like that time I saw Dinosaur Jr.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Although a lot of the crowd departed, I stuck around to check out local quartet Bravestation. With guitar, bass, drums and electronics/laptop, they presented a pop-forward electro-textured version of rock, the synth-y sounds and click-track percussion rendered vital with plenty of extra percussion.

Starting with "Clocks & Spears", they showcased the five songs from their 2010 EP. Though everything in the short set was well-performed — guitarist Derek Wilson especially showed a nimble touch — none of the tunes really stuck with me. But there were encouraging signs, like closer "White Wolves" which played that frisky rhythm/cold synths duality well. Not a band that I'd rush out to see again right away, but I won't regret having a chance for a progress report a little further down the road.

Listen to a track from this set here.