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Longknives start pretty early, as tonight's show is a complicated last-minute booking mess comprising chunks of two other shows welded together, so I miss the beginning of their set. They're a three-piece: keyboards & vocals, guitar, and drums. It's very harsh, noisy stuff. The drums are quick and steady, a little dancey but fluid and interesting. The keyboards are the loudest component, kind of simple and jumpy. They're good, but I think they need the guitar to set them off, and I can barely hear it. (Great Scott seems to be breaking in a couple of brand new sound guys.) It's noisy and feedback-drenched, but I can't really tell what's going on in there. The vocals are completely weird; one song is sung in a mic'ed gas mask, which muffles and distorts the sound. (And looks so comfortable on this sweltering night!) The rest sound like the vocal is going through some sort of distortion filter, but I'm told that that's really his actual voice. Bizarre. There are bright lights that intermittently shine in our faces, in time to the music. I understand that it's supposed to be edgy and confrontational, but I hate having bright lights shone in my face.
Cathy Cathodic is up next for a short set. She's a singer and rapper, with a three-piece backing band and a drum machine. Once again, the guitar is almost completely inaudible. The drum machine would normally be a problem for me, but Cathy is a commanding presence, and sort of sweeps up all my attention. Her singing is okay, kind of soft, jazzy stuff. But her rapping is awesome. I love her rhythm and flow, and she has an urgent, earnest, positive energy in her words. She really cares about what she's saying, and she makes me care too.
ZWA are a very, very different thing. It's "Zombies With Attitude," and they work hard for the joke. Costumes, makeup, choreography, and every word of every number seems to be zombie-themed. This, too, is rap to a drum machine, but almost none of the music is played live. (Which I suppose fits the joke, now that I think of it.) One of the three of them, the frontman more often than not, is actually rather a good rapper, in terms of flow and articulation. But I'm afraid the joke gets really old for me sometime during the second song, and with nothing else behind it to back it up, I quickly get bored and go looking for food.
