Bothered by the routine of waking up in New Jersey and not doing much, I sought refuge somewhere else; somewhere more happening. I drove to Bristol in the afternoon to meet Ian, and we then continued on to Cambridge where we met Racheal at Hi-Fi across the street from the Middle East. Minus the Bear and These Arms are Snakes were playing Downstairs and the line swelled around the block, whereas the line at TT’s was non-existent.
We sat at the bar and had some rounds, I tried a local brewery’s Oktoberfest and then switched over to whiskey and cokes. The first act of the night had a fifteen minute set that consisted of two songs. It was one guy and a saxophone. Ian made the obligatory “saxomaphone…. saxomaphone” reference, because what this guy played sounded eerily similar to an unschooled Homer Simpson attempting to master the instrument. After his set, someone approached him and said, “I really liked that second song you played. Is it on your album?” The guy snarled and said, “Yeah, it’s track number two.”
The second act Prurient, was a half naked man screaming into a microphone over some heavily distorted, echoed samples. It reminded me, at first, of the time I saw Black Dice and they just blasted a 1k sine wave the entire time that rang in your ears like severe tinnitus. The rest of his set, which I don’t believe he played to completion, was him screaming at the top of his lungs.
Sunburned Hand of the Man took the stage and quickly announced that the show was dedicated to the rest of the band, because they were missing several members. They had six dudes on stage and instantly started their brand of highly improvised noodling. There was no semblance of melody really, which is the only thing that separates what they do with what my friend and I do on a typical night down in my father’s basement. There were moments of brilliance, but the lulls were a bit awkward or stuttered. They played for close to forty-five minutes, maybe a little longer since they had extra time. They left the stage and Ian, Racheal and I stepped outside for fresh air.
Looking for smokes, we went around the block. As we rounded the corner onto Massachusetts Avenue and a grimy black man approached us. He eyed Racheal, turned to me and said, “This girl likes you!” to which I responded, “Yeah, I know.” Then as we brushed past me he said something like, “You want to get smack?” or “You want to get smacked?” I couldn’t really tell which he was offering, so we just kept walking with our heads down.
After a brief stop at Racheal’s car for her sweatshirt (she claimed it was cold inside TT’s), we headed back to the club.
When returned, Wolf Eyes was just taking the stage to set up a huge grim reaper poster and setting up their gear. The drummer had a gong and a homemade one-string bass. There were samplers and effects pedals littered across the stage. They then announced that they needed to “transform,” and would be back in two, three, five minutes. They arrived, looking unremarkably different, and took the stage. Then they slowly started building up pulsating blasts of sound until it erupted into a sheet of pummeling noise. The crowd instantly went nuts and a hole opened where kids began assaulting one another. The second song was bit slower. The third song was probably the most intense of their set, again kids going nuts everywhere, beer being spilled, punches flying, trampled youths and girls. Before the fourth song someone produced a slew of shots for the band for Nate’s 28th birthday. They started the fourth song saying it was going to be their last, and in the middle of the performance things went absolutely insane. First, the girl who was working the door weaseled her way on stage, and she was kind of motioning in the direction of a kid who had been a bit too aggressive, I guess, in the pit, and suddenly one of the bartenders flew into the fray and grabbed this kid around the next and was basically choking him to the ground. The song ended abruptly and the kid somehow got away, but by the time we got outside there were cop cars all around TT’s. I don’t know what exactly the purpose was, or who/what they were looking for, but I guess it’s not a Wolf Eyes show unless you leave covered in beer and blood, only to be greeted outside by a parade of patrol cars. It was unforgettable, that’s for certain.
Back to Rhode Island.
