Psychic Ills at Saint Vitus

Psychic Ills are sort of the opposite of the stereotypical New Year's Eve party band. Although they aren't exactly quiet and some of their songs rock they are not the least bit raucous. I wouldn't say that that the music is introspective, but most songs are about one person's state of mind, their place in the world or their relationship with exactly one other person. At the very least I would say that the songs are focused internally and the band's style reflects this.

Perhaps Psychic Ills made a New Year's resolution last year to add some visual spectacle to their shows.  Every time I have seen them lately they have a projector blasting out colors and shapes. So they're certainly more colorful now, though the venue wasn't really helping by keeping the spotlights set to blue-and-only-blue the whole time. Aside from that their style hasn't changed a bit.

As I went through these photos I kept thinking "That would make a nice oil painting". I did not "oilify" a single photo but yes, in case you were wondering, I screwed around with that last shot.

Have an exciting 2013 y'all! I know I will.

Posted: 1/1/2013 at 4:13pm     Tags: New Year's Eve  Psychic Ills  Saint Vitus 

Herbcraft at Saint Vitus

Here is a short photo set of a band which played a short set. Or at least I think they did. Herbcraft's songs flowed so cleanly into one another that I can't even say how many they played. Three? Four?

Herbcraft are a two-piece from Maine who have been around for a couple of years so they've had the time to fine-tune their sound. Their music is mesmerizing, with layers of intriguing rhythms supporting ephemeral vocals and vaguely Eastern guitarwork. Unfortunately this sort of music is not conductive to keeping track of things like song counts or time. Especially when it is done so well.

On a side note the Saint Vitus calendar originally listed the show opener as "Herb Craft". So did this site's calendar because I got the listing from Saint Vitus's website. When I finally got around to checking the band out on Facebook things got interesting. Apparently one Mr. "Herbert Craft" is retired and lives in South Carolina. He probably does not play in a psych-rock band. A second "Herb Crafts" claims to be a shoe designer for Vans (wrong venue!) The third and last Herb Craft has no profile picture and no public info. He (?) is a Facebook ghost.

Posted: 1/1/2013 at 12:12pm     Tags: blue  Herbcraft  New Year's Eve  Saint Vitus 

Ay Balazo at The Paper Box

Sometimes I feel like doing something a little different. Today it was catching a show where all four bands sang entirely in Spanish. Do I speak Spanish? No I do not (okay, a tiny bit) but that really was not a problem. Rock music does not require deep or clever lyrics so why should it require intelligible ones? Remember Nirvana, or for that matter The Kingsmen ("Louie Louie")? And as for Latin dance music so long as I can move my feet to it I'm happy.

On this occasion all four bands were at least decent, but the real champs were Ay Balazo, a rock band from Queens. They have catchy hooks and plenty of musical energy, plus an active front man and rather goofy bassist who give them a fun stage presence. This is not just American rock in Spanish either. I recognize those chords, those catchy hooks are clearly Latin.  Add a bit of guiro and cowbell and you get a sound which is distinctly different from what I am used to, but which is still rock-n-roll enough that this gringo can enjoy it.  Very nice.

The Paper Box opened about a year ago so it is a relatively new venue. I had been there several times but never took photos. In fact I had never even seen the stage lights in use. So again, I did something new today.

When I arrived they had one spotlight pointed at a painting on the wall. Now, I know that some of these music venues double as art galleries (and vice-versa) but that is just weird. Why are you using a 500W bulb to light a picture? Fortunately the venue got that fixed (ahem) mid-way through the first band's set.

Once they pointed all of their firepower at the stage it started to look quite good. Perhaps a bit behind the level of The Knitting Factory but better than 90% of the venues in this town. They made good use of that smoke machine too. Not too much, just a bit here and there, like during the finale of Ay Balazo's set. I do believe I will enjoy taking photos there again.

Posted: 12/30/2012 at 4:06pm     Tags: Ay Balazo  guiro  The Paper Box 

Alberta Cross at Brooklyn Bowl

Alberta Cross have no connection to Canada but their lead singer sure does sound like a Brit (which he kinda sorta is). When he speaks, that is, not when he sings. When he sings he could pass for a guy from, say, Tennessee. Appearance-wise he could pass for Jack White's meaner cousin. Of course as the singer of a band which is most accurately labeled Southern Rock he fits in perfectly.

Alberta Cross are quite good at rocking out when they get around to it (e.g. "Atx") but these guys cover so much musical ground that it takes a while to get around to it. Most songs use all five instruments and have a full and complex sound but at times they strip down to two or three and get folky. They do everything from rockers to ballads but have plenty of mid-tempo and mid-volume material. They dabble a bit in psychedelia and even Brit-pop. Doesn't "Magnolia" sound like an Oasis song combined with the drum part from "Don't Come Around Here No More"? When the keyboard moves up front they can even get anthemic (parts of "Ophelia On My Mind").

As a side note I appreciate the fact that their keyboards sound like piano, organ, or other real instruments instead of electro-bleeps. One thing their music does not need is electro-bleeps. Somewhere in Brooklyn there is a Southern Rock band which uses a Macbook in their shows. This isn't them.

Mid-way through the set they covered "Always On My Mind", a song which was a particularly big hit for the Pet Shop Boys but which had previously been covered by Willie Nelson and Elvis Presley among others. It is a song with a proper country pedigree, sensible for a Southern Rock band to cover. Their take on it was pleasant enough and sounded like Willie Nelson's version, actually. However unlike the Pet Shop Boys they did not make the song their own. It was just a cover.

I think the same can be said for their music more generally. Listening to them perform I could not shake a sense of familiarity despite the fact that I had not heard their songs before. As broad as Alberta Cross's repertoire may be their music is not groundbreaking. They have managed to create a coherent style from a wider variety of musical idioms than most bands and managed to sound good doing it, but their individual songs fit into familiar stylistic categories. Perhaps they save the more experimental tracks for their albums? If so, I want to hear them.

Posted: 12/28/2012 at 5:03pm     Tags: Alberta Cross  Brooklyn Bowl 

Thee Holy Ghost at Don Pedro

Thee Holy Ghost are pure garage rock with all the musical energy that entails. They've got a "Thee" in their name and they played at Don Pedro so maybe that should have been obvious. They do seem to be of that old school type, more mod than punk perhaps, who mostly just stand there and play. C'mon guys, don't hide in the corner, rock out more. Your music is just begging for it.

In case you were wondering they are not the Knights of the New Crusade (or The Mummies). Not sure what inspired that band name but it probably was not Jesus.

This is the first time I have taken photos at Don Pedro since they put the new lights in. Actually, the new lights have been there for a year or so. They just don't bother to turn them on. Now that they finally turned them on... they look nice, huh? More of that would be good.

Posted: 12/24/2012 at 12:37pm     Tags: Don Pedro  Thee Holy Ghost