Concert Review: Girls and Dum Dum Girls at Mr. Small's

JR: The show was decent. First, Dum Dum Girls: their set was tight from start to finish. They opened with their cover of The Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire", which they do very well. The closer was "Jail La La", as I would have expected given that is their first single off the new album. Musically speaking, the songs are mostly three-chord mashers with some bells and whistles thrown in for good measure, but vocally, I thought they were pretty awesome. The lead singer has a great voice and the harmonies worked very well, in my opinion.

Roberto: Definitely. I hadn’t been impressed with what I’d heard of Dum Dum Girls before the show, but they were very good live. The vocals in particular were really tight and sounded great, reminiscent of some early-70s gospel-rock harmonies. They have like no stage presence, but I didn't find myself thinking, "These chics have, like, no stage presence." In fact, it didn't detract from the music at all in my opinion. It actually worked with their aesthetic. Really enjoyable opener.

JR: The lead signer was also wearing some pretty awesome tights.

Roberto: Sweet tights FTW.

Girls started off great. I can't remember what they opened the set with for the life of me, but I do remember thinking it was a great starter. For the better part of the set the sound was excellent and the song selection was great. I think "Laura" was the third or fourth song in, and that seemed to be the big crowd-pleaser of the night. Not a lot of stage presence with these guys either, but that didn't seem to to hold them back. They're not the kind of band you would ever describe as a great live band, though generally the songs equaled the album versions when played live.

JR: Amazingly, the mix was quite good for most of the night, especially during the Dum Dum Girls' set. You could actually make out the vocals most of the time - not like the Deerhunter/No Age/ Dan Deacon show that we attended last summer at Mr. Small's, which was a sound engineering nightmare. As for Girls, I agree the first two-thirds of the set was great. Until around “Hellhole Ratrace”

Roberto: That really was where the show went wrong. First off, I thought it was a horrendous rendition. The drumming wasn't off beat; just off. It was almost as if the drummer had some Phil Collins pumping into a personal set of headphones right on rhythm. I found it distracting. I also thought some guitar change-ups in the song didn't work. I'm all for reinventing your own tunes, but this particular version didn't wow.

JR: I actually thought "Hellhole Ratrace" started off great, but then it turned into a wall of distortion, which would have been fine had it lasted 30 seconds - it probably lasted about a solid three minutes.

Roberto: Yeah, the feedback. Girls is not Sonic Youth, and the lesson should be learned early by any indie band that noise for the sake of noise will fail almost every time. When they finally let the feedback lead into "Morning Light" I was ready to let it slide and rock out a bit. But it didn’t let up, and there was just no control of the distortion. Some high frequency drone persisted that had a solid third of the crowd cringing and/or plugging their ears. Some were eyeballing the soundboard; I blame this one squarely on the band.

JR: That is where any other band probably would have called it a night and closed it out with the big grandiose distorted finish. But no. Then they played one more song and did a three song encore that was poor.

Roberto: True, I might have let the noise thing slide if they'd closed the set on that loud note. I can appreciate a climax. But the last song of the main set was totally forgettable (literally, as it turns out). The encore was respectable in length but pretty weak otherwise.

JR: They didn't save any of the their best tracks for the encore, so it was very anticlimactic. They also lost whatever magic they had with the sound board, because the encore sounded horrible from an acoustics perspective. And throughout the encore the drummer especially seemed like he was playing with a different band -- it just wasn't working, period.

Roberto: My favorite Girls tune actually popped up in the encore: "Lauren Marie." Unfortunately it was totally lackluster and the vocals were really drowned out. "Big Bad Mean Motherf*cker" was only slightly better. All in all, I left a bit disappointed, which is too bad because it really was a good show for the most part.

JR: I would give the show as a whole a 6 out of 10, and that figure is aided significantly by the Dum Dum Girls' performance, which was very good. Ultimately, no one really wants a 6. Your friends probably won't make fun of you for being with a 6, but you will never be totally satisfied, always wondering if things could have been better. That's how I felt about this show. It was good enough not to be embarrassing, but the lows outweighed the highs, and I left feeling a bit underwhelmed.

Roberto: Agree, the lows just outweighed the highs in the end. I’m on board with that 6 out of 10. Or, 35 out of 57 varieties on the SITKOT scale.

Notes on inconsequential developments in my current listenings and possibly concerning my recent relationship with blogospheric hype more generally

Less than a week after its actual release, I feel (somewhat) comfortable saying that I am "over" Girls' Album. I bought into the hype, and I was really into a few of the leaked tracks. I continue to really like "Hellhole Ratrace," "Lauren Marie," and a few others. Indeed, the highs are high. But the rest is beginning to seem like fluff. I fear this may be a record which quickly finds its way out of my rotation. Reminds me a bit of VietNam, in whom I also lost interest a few weeks into a short-lived captivation yet still sort of like when I hear them. Maybe all this rain is just getting to me. I did find the tracks to be generally more satisfying while in San Diego last week. Anyway. Moving on.

I am an unabashed fan of M. Ward and My Morning Jacket and was/sometimes think I still might be a(n abashed) fan of Bright Eyes. So obvi I was thrilled that they were finally working on a Monsters of Folk album. But then I was disappointed when I heard the first single, "Say Please." But then I was reinvigorated when I downloaded the full album and dug it straight through. And now I even like "Say Please." (Not sure what happened there.) Highs: All of it. In particular, "Man Named Truth," "The Sandman, the Brakeman and Me," "Magic Marker." But really all of it.

I ignored everything I read about Washed Out. Not sure why. Didn't even give him a listen. So much hype around so many bands in '09, maybe. I've been leaning on some old standards lately: Neil Young, John Prine, Dinosaur Jr., Beatles, others. (Glad U2 played "Ultraviolet" on SNL this weekend.) From the words around the blogs, I assumed Wavves - Rock = Washed Out. I was not interested. Preemptive backlash. Then I gave in. Glad I did. The general impression and resultant formula might be accurate, but I like it no less. For now, anyhow. Like a lo-fi indie poptart.

Maybe I'm just too fickle these days.

New hype preview: 7 Worlds Collide. I've got my eye on you.

Download:
Monsters of Folk - "The Sandman, the Brakeman and Me"