Recording: Vivian Girls

Artist: Vivian Girls

Song: Second Date

Recorded live at The Horseshoe Tavern, May 8, 2009.

Vivian Girls - Second Date

My notes for this show are here.

Gig: Vivian Girls / Crystal Antlers / Little Girls

Vivian Girls / Crystal Antlers / Little Girls

The Horseshoe. Friday, May 8, 2009.

Once again, headed down to the 'Shoe after the night's last Hot Doc screening. Made it in time to see the openers, local crew Little Girls, already drawing some attention even though this was merely their fourth gig. It's presumably a lack of material, then, that kept their set to a tidy seven songs in twenty minutes. What they did play was generally proficient, and showed off some potential. Their sound is perhaps not yet fully integrated, at the outset sounding like a certain sub-subgenre of mid-'90's bands playing distorted variations on Superchunk (Banned From Atlantis was the first name that came to mind, though that's arguably not a widely useful referent). Things shifted a bit when frontman Josh McIntyre set down his guitar, leaving a slightly sparer mix on a couple tunes that worked from a Joy Division template. McIntyre's yelpy vox were occasionally a bit buried in the mix, but it sounds like the band has a notion on how to construct a decent song. Worth seeing again, just to see how this develops.

Listen to a song from this set here.

Next up were Crystal Antlers, with whom I was not too familiar, having backed a different horse in the Great Crystal Band Race of '08.¹ The band came out six deep, organ and percussion augmenting the dual guit/bass/drums backbone. The org and perc at the edges of the stage served to create an interesting push/pull tension to the band's whirling, slightly psychedelicized sound, with the former integrating and smoothing things out and the latter adding an extra layer of frenzy. The real wildcard on top of it all was Jonny Bell's throat-shredding vox. All of it taken together gave the band its own unique sort of sound: "Trans Am playing Led Zeppelin," a guy beside me shouted to his buddy.² The band's early momentum was nearly stopped when Bell broke a bass string a couple songs in³, but a quick substitution was effected thanks to some timely intervention from the headliners, and the band covered with some instro-noodling while Bell tuned up and things moved along. I can't say the whole thing converted me, but the set was generally entertaining with some pretty good moments, including a final selection that actually rocked in a fairly convincingly menacing way.

A quick turnover for the Vivian Girls was negated by sound problems and a wayward instrument cable, which left the band standing around on the stage for ten-plus minutes before getting going, leading to some carping from the crowd — when some dick shouted "play a song already," the band lashed back like one of the tough girl-gangs they've based themselves on, Katy coolly uttering a quick "Hey, fuck you — why don't you come up here", while Cassie added "yeah, you play a song... asshole." Point to the band.

Once everything was set, they launched into a feisty "All The Time", and kept things going for forty-five minutes. I was curious to see what kind of chops the band had built up with some steady touring since they'd been in these parts at Fucked Up's Hallowe'en gig, when they were stuck with borrowed instruments and were fighting against broken strings and other problems. All things told, watching the band still feels like watching a tightrope act, as they occasionally teeter over the edge of shambolic recklessness. At the same time, there is more confidence here, and the band is even stretching out a bit. As Ali Koehler leaned into her kit, hunched over while pounding out the backbeat, Kickball Katy remained steady on bass, leaving room for Cassie Ramone's guit, including a few more solos this time round.

The room was not particularly full, giving a bit of elbow room which was fortunate for those standing near one Max Headroom-ish fellow who decided to start up a one-man pogo dancing party, lurching all over people's private space. His incursions somehow ended up with him getting a drink poured down his collar, which led to some shouting and shoving, but ultimately cooler heads prevailed. Meanwhile, the band was mixing up material from their album with cuts from their singles and some slated for the next long player. My impression was that things moved quickly from sounding together to being a bit off, and then back again — a bit of a wayward set overall. It's tough to get just that right level of things almost falling apart without things actually falling apart a bit now and then — this is the tension that both elevates Vivian Girls and threatens to undermine them completely. It remains to be seen how they navigate this as they grow in experience and confidence.

Still, they're fun to watch, and are putting on an entertaining show, banging their tambourines on their guitar necks and inviting the crowd along to the after party to hear them DJ. They ended with a lengthy instrumental jam, wherein the band all swapped instruments in mid-stream — Katy taking over the drums without missing a beat, Cassie picking up the bass, and Ali using her beer bottle as a slide on the guitar between swigs. It seems like this crew have more tricks up their sleeves, so I'm willing to stick around to see if they can take all of their compelling elements and consolidate them into a solid set firing on all cylinders.

Listen to a song from this set here.

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¹ Crystal Stilts, for the record, which has caused no end to the rancour with J., with me at the gig, who is a Crystal Castles man.

² I'm not sure I'm 100% behind this assessment, but it saves me from having to come up with my own "X covering Y" comparison.

³ And the E string at that — you don't see that happen very often.