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Monday

Japanther at the Hemlock Tavern 5/25/08


Brooklyn's Japanther played a late show at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco on Sunday night. Emerging from the Brooklyn underground club scene (The Silent Barn/Death by Audio/Roof in Bed Sty) with a decidedly artistic lean, Japanther has a budding following nationwide. Tour mates The Pharmacy, from Seattle WA, got things going. The show was running a good hour behind schedule but the trio's high energy fuzz pop quickly got the small room going. Both bands were coming off a Saturday night gig at LA's art punk warehouse The Smell. The Smell is rapidly becoming the West Coast's answer to the Williamsburg art punk movement.

There was another lengthy delay in between bands, that found the audience vocally agitated and on the verge of turning on the Brooklyn duo. Japanther worked out their technical kinks and quickly won over the crowd. Their high energy, drum, bass, and tape loop constructions, have a crystallized focus that bound the room together. Free of the guitar, Japanther uses the bass to drive the melodies. The live drums augment and infuse the taped beats with added punch. Tandem vocals are shouted through amped up telephone receivers. This lo-fi, albeit slightly gimmicky approach, is what gives this band their unique sound. Japanther has a surprisingly crafted pop sensibility. The songs generally maintain a thunderous squall with arty deconstructions, unloading into a revved-up Ramones meets Suicide stomp.

Time will tell if Japanther is able to expand the songwriting beyond their minimalist, rave Rock. Bands like Britain's Klaxons, have borrowed from the community driven, intensity inherent in the Nu Rave movement. This scene captures Punk's attitude and simplicity while also drawing on the Rave culture's tribal mindset. If the sold-out crowd of barely twenty-somethings gathered at the Hemlock is an indication, Japanther is tapping into a mercury laced mother lode. The audience bounced in joyous unison the entire evening.

Links:

SleepWhenDead

Japanther

The Hemlock Tavern

The Smell

Klaxons

The Pharmacy


Tuesday

The Last Hurrah of So and So...

"Well played my good man"...he said as he lingered just below the threshold. "I thought you might try to persuade her to stay but instead you..." his pause was studied, meant to be meaningful. "I guess I don't know what I expected really."

This was not the sort of conversation either of them was used to having. Especially not with each other. If he could only force the words out he might have some relief, some resolution. The air simply escaped past his lips with a barely audible hiss. He turned to make his way down the stoop and into the night. At the last step he felt the tendons and muscles tighten through out his entire body. It was as if every cell had suddenly gone on strike...he simply ceased to exist.

Why bother with bothering he thought to himself? I mean if that was how the divine designer imagined his retribution, who was he to argue. He knew it was over. He knew she had never really been his. And perhaps more telling he knew he never really cared one way or the other.