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Ketman are having their CD release party tonight. I am happy to get a copy of the CD, less happy to have missed Appomattox, and fairly unhappy to see that it's a pretty sparsely attended show. The sound at PA's is a lot better when there are more people in the room. So it's a bit muddy tonight. This mostly weighs on the bass lines, which are fast and involved but a bit hard to discern here. The guitar is too quiet but has lots of good, sharp-edged moments, and the drummer doesn't have to worry about sound quality: she's fierce enough to cut through any mix. The vocals are surprisingly audible; the bassist's amphetamine screams, the guitarist's lovely croon, and the neat sections where they both shout in a weird sort of harmony.
The Underdogs have it even worse, sound-wise. At one point there are only seven audience members, and they have two guitars, so the sound is more busy and muddy. They remind me of Social Distortion in their basic formula: these are fundamentally pop songs, but played in a thick, grungy way and sung in a gravelly growl. There are occasional guitar squealies, but mostly it's fast strumming that doesn't fare well with the sound. All the playing is solid, and if I can't make out a lot of detail, I also don't want to deprive them of 28% of their audience, so we stay through the end of their set.
