The Brunettes, Bows and Arrows, Heavy Cream at Local Honey and more
Loopy loopy love
With all the various shows going around town—from the old-timey jammy jam at Riverfront to The Ettes across town to Unknown Hinson across the street—there were a lot of choices last Thursday. And those were all worthy choices. We hope you had fun, because sadly for you, Nashville, you missed one of the best shows to roll through our town this year. (Again.) But you wouldn't have guessed that from the early going at The End.
Openers Oli Endless, fronted by Oli Endless, played a song called "Oli Endless Nights," and that's pretty much how it felt by the time they were halfway through their set of songs, uh, inspired by The Strokes. We thought maybe they were a cover band at first. Their set felt kind of like a freshman dorm talent show, and a dance-happy crew of friends added to that atmosphere. It was like everyone was having fun except The Spin. What else is new?
The good news is that we finally got to see an entire set by Bows and Arrows—at least an entire set where they were playing their own songs—and we found out just how overdue that was. The Murfreesboro quartet played a short but effective set of reverb-soaked indie pop that flashed with influences from the Velvets to Galaxie 500, Jesus & Mary Chain to Pixies, all delivered with a slack, cool-kid charm that had us grinning. The band sounded best when Rodrigo and Anna sang together, as they do on the disarmingly simple gem "Carbon," one of several songs they played off 1010 Eaton Street. They closed with "Burn It," which seemed to explode off the stage. If these youngsters can manage to bring that kind of energy to an entire set anytime soon, watch out.
Happy Birthday Amy followed with an exhausting set of theatrical, slightly dark piano-rock. We say exhausting because the band's set was all motion, from fingers flying over keys to quick-shifting bass lines to fierce, hard-bopping, jazz-inflected drums. There was hardly a moment to take a breath. Speaking of drums, all anyone around us could talk about after their set was the drummer's badass chops. Bravo.
By this time it was late and getting later fast, as The Brunettes set up their menagerie of instruments and gear. But damn, it was worth the wait. The band build and rebuilt their wall of perfect, '60s-tinged pop over the course of each song, as the band traded vocals and instruments—at one point the drummer ran out from behind his kit to grab a maraca and made it back to his seat in time to keep the song in time. They made more magic out of a three-person riff played on claves, castanet and handclaps than a hundred million blazing guitar solos could ever hope to conjure, and their smart, snappy arrangements were full of subtle surprises.
The ridiculously charming pair of Jonathan Bree and Heather Mansfield kept the harmonic center of the sweet, sweet maelstrom—he with his droll baritone, she with her girl-group chants. Mansfield was like a Swiss army knife all night—switching between keyboard, glockenspiel, castanet, maraca, harmonica, tambourine and vocals.
Oh, and there was dancing! Much, much dirtier dancing than we would have expected from a group of people watching a band who had two triangles in their arsenal and at one point joked, "This is our most emo song." But dancing nonetheless.
Their cover of "Lovesong" turned The Cure classic into a duet—which made such total, awesome sense—and their new songs sounded like maybe the middle point between Belle and Sebastian and Broadcast. But comparisons are really going to fall short, because they were none other than The Brunettes, and they were pop perfection incarnate.
Yeah yeah yard
The Spin loves yard sales, but being The Spin we're almost never awake during yard sale hours 'cause, y'know, we're The Spin, and we're allergic to sunlight and fresh air and waking up before sundown. It's probably a good thing, too, otherwise Spin HQ would be chock to the brim with curios, knickknacks and geegaws—though none of them would be as cool as the "Matador Kills Bull on Black Velvet" painting that we bought off the world-famous William Tyler this weekend. That thing is seriously badass day-glo animal cruelty on fuzzy fabric with a dude wearing slippers and throwing pointy sticks with flowers on them. Also awesome? The vintage New England Patriots T-shirt we scored for 2 freaking dollars—The Spin's getting all Steve Grogan up in this motherfucker now, bi-aaat-chez!
But reveling in the merchandise of a shitty-at-the-time pro-sports franchise wasn't all we were at Local Honey for, oh no. There was some serious rock 'n' roll to be had once you passed the the gauntlet of curios and gimcracks. We missed the openers How Cozy and Countrymusic because we were caught up in some serious soul-searching about whether or not we really needed to own the House Party soundtrack, but we did make it to the backyard in time for Heavy Cream and their set of swine-flu-esque punk—snotty as all get-out and catchy as hell. The Kindergarten Circus and Caitlin Rose were both predictably rad, even though they inhabit diametrically opposed ends of the volume knob.
Out-of-towners Pree, from Washington, D.C., had us giddy with anticipation when we saw them setting up a flute and melodica, but were ultimately a letdown. We were hoping for Trouble Funk but it was more like Joni Mitchell meets the Kottonmouth Kings or Christie Front Drive meets Jethro Tull. Think LFO meets ICP, The Eagles meets The Shaggs, Jawbox meets Helen Reddy or Jandek meets the Red Hot Chili Peppers—basically think of anything else to keep yourself entertained. Once Pree had played their second song we were really disappointed they were playing more than one song.
Denny and the Jets and The Tits closed out the show, but by that point we'd been drinking beer in the sun for far too long and our enthusiasm was more or less depleted. They were good and everything, but we were just a little too sun-stroked to give a shit. There's a reason The Spin doesn't go outside very often and that's because outside isn't air-conditioned—The Spin's indeterminate genitalia is not a fan of swimming in its own sweat, fer realz. Genital sweat impairs our ability to give a fuck. Sorry.
See you at the Cream party, y'all. Email thespin@nashvillescene.com.
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