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I feel vindicated by tonight's Debutantes set. Since I first saw them, I felt that they have really good, catchy indie-pop songs with solid hooks, and a lot of basic talent. The problem was the vocals, which pretty much have to be good for this genre, and I felt that the singer was just too nervous to sing well. With time and more shows under his belt, I expected major improvement. And here it is. It's not the most gorgeous voice, but tonight it's just fine, and that lets the basic beauty of these songs shine through. Also, the dodgy mix (we're at Charlie's, remember) emphasizes the guitar, which is very good, a bit flashier than I would normally expect to hear accompanying this sort of song. Unfortunately, the keyboard (a relatively recent addition) gets completely lost; I can see that he's playing, but I can't really hear it at all.
Keys to the Streets of Fear THRIVE on a ghetto sound system. At Charlie's, they are in their element. Oh, is the PA feeding back? Lovely; they'll mic their amps, then feed that feedback into the PA. Weird, sludgy vocal quality? Why yes, that'll do nicely. And underneath that nasty, screaming mess, a rhythm section with a huge, unstoppable momentum. It has a plodding quality in several of their songs, which would be funny if it weren't so damned serious. And then they'll break out into a thrashy gallop. It's all a beautiful raucous stew, and highly danceable.
Major Stars are a six-piece! As such, they kind of overrun the "stage" area, and their three-guitar onslaught swamps the poor vocal. When I can hear snatches of it, the singer's voice sounds lovely, if a little uncertain. (But with no monitors, if I can't hear her, she can't her herself, so it's no wonder she'd sound uncertain.) Major Stars traffic in a kind of bluesy psychedelia, but with a noise component. It's much the same set of influences The Butthole Surfers synthesized, and the result is a similar darkly trippy ride. They're celebrating the release of a 7" tonight, and for their last number, they do one of the songs on it, but stretch it out into about a ten minute excursion.
