Brides (METZ / Tropics / Actual Water / Young Mother)
The Shop under Parts & Labour. Saturday, December 11, 2010.
A bit of an event down in Parkdale, with local No Wave noisters Brides playing their final show together. Although their recorded legacy is thin, they were well-beloved as a live unit, and went out in style by bringing no less than four like-minded bands to play with them. I was more of an admirer than a fanatic, but I felt like I should be on hand for this.
Knowing this was going to get jammed, I took care to get to The Shop in good time. My feelings for the venue continue to be a bit up and down — I rather like it when there's about fifty people in the long, low-ceilinged bomb shelter-like space; but when there's a couple hundred people on hand, it feels like a claustrophobic sweatbox and it gets hard to see and hear the bands. Weighing my options for the night, I decided to forgo my usual spot right up front (where at least you can see who's playing) and park myself on the back of the tiered gym benches along the long wall opposite the bar. From there, I was as elevated as could be over the crowd, so I could make out some of what was going on up front — though not a good spot for a bad photographer like me. It takes you out of the action a bit, but at least it generally sounded good and kept me out of harm's way.
I was also eager to be there early to catch Young Mother, who had impressed me when I'd seen 'em before. And though their first song was titled "No Straight Lines", I think that they were a bit less single-mindedly monochromatic in their presentation than when I'd seen them before — the songs were a little shorter and punchier this time 'round, and singer Jesse James Laderoute even cracked a joke, telling the crowd, "I promise I didn't match my guitar to my turtleneck intentionally." Still, underneath all that, the band was still manufacturing a calculated squalor with occasional bursts of rapidly babbled sing-speak lyrics breaking out into howls and no-wave sax bursts1. After four relatively concise songs — a couple in the two-minute range — the band closed with the relatively expansive "The Well-Tempered Male". Impressive once more, it was nice to bookend a show demarking one band's denouement with another really on the cusp.
Listen to a song from this set here.
Meanwhile, the night's between-sets entertainment was handled by Doldrums, with Airick Woodhead doing something in the slippery zone between conventional DJing and his standard one-man-band chop/copy/loop routine. Perhaps best to say that he "Doldrumized" the music he was playing in the same manner he creates his own, tweaking sounds in real time, dropping in treated samples of the music from just-completed sets all while bopping away as if he were there primarily to entertain himself. Later on in the night, Woodhead would test the goodwill of the crowd by playing some of the most diametrically opposed tunes imaginable to the evening's bands, including dropping Cher's "Believe" — and then deconstructing it in real-time, talking over the music to ponder on the lyrics and ask the crowd if, in fact, they really do believe in life after love.
I'd been curious for a while about Actual Water, who'd originally had a rep for noisy squalor. But that's been torqued with the release of The Paisley Orchard, their third album, which promised something else entirely. Apparently a core duo of Tony Price (guit/vox) and G.P. (drums), they were rounded out with bass and second guitarist. Laying down a loud rock racket crossed with twelve-string jangle could go wrong, and when the first song kinda muddled along, I wondered if this was going to be any good. But suddenly it all clicked together gloriously and all at once the band's sound was in focus — flower punk with no lack of heaviosity.
As others would throughout the evening, Price mused on their connection to the night's headliner: "The first show we ever played was with Brides," he noted. And, as if eager to get to their set, the band kept things concise, cramming in seven songs in just over twenty minutes. Intriguing stuff, and a band worth checking out.2
Listen to a track from this set here.
From there, the rest of the bands were more familiar to me, including Tropics. "I want to welcome you to the Battle of the Bands, 2010," joked singer/guitarist Slim Twig after leading off with one that might be called "Holy Water", which worked in the basic Tropics template of hammering drums from Simone TB countering Slim's slashing guitar and slurred screeches. But their sound is evolving a little, I think. The guitar is a bit less thin/harsh than is used to be, mediating the abrasiveness of the sound. That's relative, of course — the music is still way more Alan Vega than Buddy Holly, and still feels like a cauterizing wallop in the band's usual quick bursts.
Joking about the quick twenty minute sets the bands were playing, Slim Twig noted, "most bands have to shorten their sets — we're lengthening ours." In fact, they still came in as the shortest burst of the night, but there was some definite gems in there, including "Pale Trash", now out on a 7".
With METZ taking the stage, the room seemed as full as before, but now there were twice as many people trying to cram themselves right up against the band, making the back half of the room look quite empty by comparison. As loud as it was, people obviously wanted to get face-to-face with the band's riff-y ferocity. As usual, the stage area was dark, the illuminated bass drum the only source of light. Once the band's spazz-grunge attack was underway, I couldn't see much of anything going on past the pulsating crowd, but there must have been some bodies bouncing off the gear, as the microphones kept getting unplugged every once in a while.
Still in the process of recording their debut long-player, for this set unreleased material would outweigh the stuff from their singles — I recognized "Dry Up" and "Negative Space", and there were a couple familiar from past shows. There were also a couple brand new songs, including one with a snappier-than-usual tempo: "this is the only song that we can honestly say is a dance song," commented bassist Chris Slorach. I've now seen the band enough to be past that initial shocked-and-awed stage, but I still found it to be a bracing experience.3
Listen to a track from this set here.
The hour growing late, some of the crowd slipped away after that. It would be about ten to two when the last set began. Overall, from the outset Brides went about their business without sentimentality — this was more like a one last mad rush into battle than a victory lap. And despite the finality of the occasion and the reverence paid to them by all of the earlier bands, they didn't play for very much longer than anyone else, preferring to lay out their final testament in a concentrated blast that was done in under half an hour. That didn't mean they were rushing it — the set began with a few minutes of instrumental build. This might be a sign that the band had grown some since I'd last seen 'em — or perhaps my mind tended to remember the blasts of skronk more. Still, all the main elements I remembered were here, with saxophone blats butting up against the thrum of the music, all a backdrop for Elliott Jones' panicked-sounding vocals.
Even if the band seemed relatively reserved, there was certainly more palpable emotion coming from the crowd, and even when the music was syrupy slow, the audience was still seething and slipping around on the beer that had been sprayed around at the set's beginning. I wasn't close enough to really be able to catch what was going on, but there was some antipathy towards the audience from Jones — whether that was part of the band's antagonistic pose or the crowd was getting a bit too aggressive I cannot say. But when Jones commented, "that's it man, I'm not doing any more... everybody's bleeding too much playin' up here," he wasn't speaking metaphorically. Afterward, I spotted guitarist Michael Pytlik washing a bleeding gash in his hand clean. How that came to pass, I couldn't see from my vantage, but it probably explained the "fuck all y'all" that the band closed with. Maybe not the best way to go out, but rather apt, metaphorically speaking, given the band's abrasive vibe. Thus passeth Brides, though some members can already be seen around town in new bands, perpetuating the rock'n'roll circle of life.4
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 I noted that the band had a new sax player in tow, but I have no information on who he was. Apparently savouring the mystery, there's still not a lot of information online about the band and who's in it, but they do have a generous assortment of music to check out on their soundcloud, which is the most important thing.
2 Tropics and Actual Water (plus out-of-town guests White Suede) will be playing June 17, 2011 at the Feast In The East II show at the Dickens Street Theatre.
3 During NXNE, METZ will be playing a free show at Yonge-Dundas Square (June 16, 2011) along such distinguished company as Fucked Up, Descendents and OFF!
4 Though I haven't caught 'em yet, Elliott Jones' new project Ell V Gore — which also features Tropics' Simone TB on drums — has been hotly tipped.
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