Recording: Poster Boy

Artist: Poster Boy

Song: Fuck It^*

Recorded at The Great Hall's Conversation Room (Long Winter 4.4), February 19, 2016.

Poster Boy - Fuck It

Kenton Smith's Poster Boy project buries pop songs under layers of digital distortion and murk — sometimes it's difficult to tell where one abstracted song lurches into the next. But live, it's delivered with a hyperkinetic verve that makes the particulars of the songs feel secondary to the performance as Smith ranges into the crowd, leaps in the air, and occasionally mumbles greetings to friends. His set-up is minimal, but given how he tends to dive back towards his gear to hit buttons as if they're grenades with a snooze alarm, there's always a feeling that the songs could explode at any second. In fact, at the height of one towards the end of his set, the room's PA lost power, creating an unplanned crowd-pleasing crescendo. That could have been a good way to go out, but instead Smith topped himself with a closing run through "That's Life", shouting the lyrics through clouds of hiss as he lay in the middle of the floor, the crowd gathering in around him.

[This season's Long Winter will conclude over two nights at The Great Hall on March 18th and 19th, 2016.]

^* Thanks to Poster Boy for passing the title to this one along!