Index of Shows | Homepage | Write to me
Captain Haddock are playing when I arrive at O'Brien's. Guitarist, bassist, and drummer are all very tight, and are all doing interesting, fast, kind of punky things. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble hearing them because there's someone screaming. He has a microphone. He seems to be part of the band. He should stop. I would call it "tuneless," but that seems to imply that there's a tune that he's not hitting. It's not like that; he's just screaming. It's not even particularly rhythmic. Nor can I make out WHAT he's screaming. And he's mixed really high, and dominates the experience without contributing. This is apparently their very first gig; perhaps they'll schedule another and not tell him about it.
I'm here to see Tristan da Cunha, whom I love. Tonight's set is weird. (In a somewhat different way than they're usually weird.) They open with a cover of "Winter Wonderland". (It's not what you'd call a faithful cover.) They explain between songs that they've recently played for a "History of Rock" class at BC, so we also get a Fall cover and a Dead Kennedys cover that they learned for the occasion. The latter is very faithful, and Brian sounds eerily like Jello Biafra. They introduce one of their originals by telling us that one of the students in the class (a Pearl Jam fan!) called it "the worst song ever." It's true that its jagged guitar lines and wild rhythms (is that a section in NINETEEN?!?) are not calculated to please the record-buying public. I, of course, am a dancing fool.
Miniwatt are up from Providence for the occasion. What they do, they do well: each song is built around a fast, complicated, usually quite interesting drum pattern and distorted guitar riff, which are then repeated and repeated for a minute or two before the song suddenly comes to an abrupt halt. There is also some shouting, but it's pretty hard to hear. There's one fairly regrettable piece that the drummer has apparently not learned, so he frequently stops and looks pained while the guitarist and bassist shoot him bemused glances, but he has a real talent for stopping and restarting on the beat, so much so that if it weren't for all the facial expressions I might think it was supposed to sound like that. There's a formulaic quality to these songs, but at least it's well done.
Last are Kayo Dot, who take forever to set up. There are seven of them, at O'Brien's! The drummer actually sets up in front of the stage, facing the rest of the band. Two guys play only guitars; one plays only bass; one plays guitar, trumpet, and cornet; one plays guitar and French horn and sings; and the lone woman in this whole night of music plays violin and bells. I am intrigued. With all those different instruments, you'd think something interesting would happen. It doesn't. This isn't exactly jazz, but it bothers me in many of the same ways that most jazz does: there's the same annoying wussiness, with entirely too much brushed-cymbal drumwork, and the same fundamental aimlessness. These are apparently highly composed pieces--several of the musicians have music stands, and they all seem to spend a lot of time trying to stay together and manage the transitions--but they never seem like they're trying to GO anywhere. The solos are pointless and noodling and lack any sort of tonal structure, and there's one point where four different people are playing guitars and can't seem to make one decent chord among them. There are also some fast sections with screaming vocals, which sort of come out of nowhere and still manage not to feel directed or propulsive in any way. In case you couldn't tell, I hate this, and stay until the end only because there are so few clearly demarked pieces that giving them three songs means hearing the whole set.
