The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth
Successful though it was, a heavy air of loss and soldiering on permeated last year's Freakin' Weekend festivities. The 2013 installment of the local punk festival took place less than a month after founder Ben Todd's death, and served as a bittersweet sort of therapy for the tightly knit local rock 'n' roll scene. But 2014's Freakin' Weekend V was about partying on, dancing and immersing ourselves in the sounds of Music City's freak scene — The Spin was simply doing our best to keep up.
After inhaling a burger from Gold Rush and chugging a beer or two, we rolled into The End on Thursday night just as Slammers took the stage. Or maybe it was just as they were leaving. It's hard to tell with Cy Barkley and friends' thrash-punk project, which surfaces to batter you right in the face for about 20 minutes every eight months or so. Sure enough, Slammers were sloppy and punishing, echoing that kind of Huntington Beach hardcore punk that took over the '80s in a hail of swinging fists. If breaking the center monitor in the first set isn't an apt metaphor for Freakin' Weekend V, we don't know what is.
Up next was Perfect Pussy, who sound like Bikini Kill sucked through a black hole. The Syracuse noise punks have been buzzing all over the place, with Pitchfork filming their CMJ appearance last year, NPR hosting a stream of their 23-minute debut LP and Spin calling them a "best new artist" this month. Singer Meredith Graves snarled through a brief set of cacophonous brutality that reverbed into infinity, earning the hell out of all that Internet praise.
The funny thing about Freakin' Weekend, though, is that even the buzziest bands are out-buzzed by local favorites. The modest group of punks transformed into a dense mosh pit as D. Watusi took the stage with an emphatic "thank you, thank you, thank you" from singer-guitarist and Freakin' Weekend co-organizer Dillon Watson. Every D. Watusi set we see feels bittersweet, with the massive void left by Ben Todd (D. Watusi's former bassist) as obvious as ever during this, the fifth iteration of a festival that was his brainchild. In Todd's place was ubiquitous Nashville's Deadite Ryan Donoho, who played with at least two other bands later that weekend. Watusi's as tight as ever, giving life to the ultra-loud rock 'n' roll 45s that were being DJed between sets. The interplay between Watson's guitar licks and Christina Norwood's keyboard melodies gave us flashbacks to the first time we saw fellow locals The Clutters. Or, at least it did until they turned the psychedelia up to 11, wailing through an extended jam that transformed into a cover of "Wooly Bully" and back out again.
"I'm not good at talking to people, so I'm not gonna," announced Jack Name (who has recorded most prominently as Fictional Boys and Muzz) before settling into a set that ranged between Television-style post-punk on a jam-band kick and Ziggy Stardust on downers. Name, whose real name is John Webster Adams, doesn't have a touring band and was instead backed by especially sparkly members of D. Watusi, Fox Fun and Cheap Time for a set of spaced-out pop music that felt like a far cry from the abrasive punk the night started on.
Following Jack Name was Cincinnati trio Tweens, whom we described as "like a sort of doo-wop-y take on Richard Hell and the Voidoids crossed with Bratmobile" when we caught them opening for Black Lips in November. That more or less holds true, with singer Bridget Battle hitting the less dorky side of pop punk hard on songs like "Be Mean," which is positively our jam. However, we missed most of the last part of their set laughing to ourselves about the dumb refrain put into our head by a buddy, who swears he heard the line "Mean, mean, I want you to be mean" as "Tweets, tweets, I want you to retweet."
And then, the main event. Thursday's honorary Freak King, Music Band's Harry Kagan (decked out with a crown and scepter, as is FW tradition), strode onstage to fling McDonald's hamburgers into the audience — one of which struck us squarely in the chest — as PUJOL tore into "Too Safe" and the crowd whipped into a true ruckus. The End was a torrent of crowd-surfers, shouting along to old favorites like "Mayday" and "Psychic Pain" and raging to new tunes like the recently debuted "Pitch Black." At the start of the set, a pillow was torn open, sending feathers into the air in a billowing, luminous plume. Of course, by set's end people were doing the Night at the Roxbury nose-scratching move, but it was mostly worth it. With indefatigable local basher Tiffany Minton making her PUJOL debut on drums and sideman Brett Rosenberg shredding between frontman Daniel Pujol's brainy existential lyrics — not to mention a True Detective reference thrown into the banter, be still our heart — it may very well have been the best set we've seen from the band since ... well, ever. The evening ended when Pujol called his former MEEMAW bandmate, Natural Child bassist Wes Traylor, onstage for a slow-dance to Eagles' "Take It to the Limit." It was somehow both an anticlimactic and perfectly fulfilling way to end FW's opening night.
Saint Misbehavin'
The Spin was at a loss for words when we picked up our brains from somewhere behind the merch table a little after 11 p.m. on Friday night. We expected good things from St. Vincent, having thoroughly enjoyed past performances, but because of that familiarity, Annie Clark & Co. weren't really pinging our must-see radar. That changed real quick.
We emerged from the will-call line a few songs into the opening set, in which New York-based filmmaker and visual artist Sarah Lipstate, performing as Noveller, created Frippertronic symphonies for solo electric guitar. With a slew of pedals and a bow, Lipstate coaxed a wide array of sounds from her instrument, turning the slightest gesture into a building block in her massive cathedral of sound, taking us to the peaks of the Himalayas and the depths of the Mariana Trench. While we appreciated the purposeful design and were thoroughly impressed with her technique, the soundscape evolved at a glacial pace, which started to wear on us. Maybe we'd think differently if we'd seen Noveller as part of RadioLab (she performed as part of the Apocalyptical tour last fall), or before we chugged that cup of coffee.
We didn't have to wait long, however, for the energy to ramp way, way up. The lights blacked out and a robot voice came over the PA — the soul of the song "Digital Witness," asking us to resist the temptation to document the show and to simply listen. Sometimes that suggestion feels pretentious, or at least like overkill, but it was essential advice for this set, a marriage of music, lighting and choreography that left us gobsmacked and with a notebook full of hieroglyphic scribbles. Even if it was played simple and straight-ahead, we'd enjoy Clark's set, about half songs from St. Vincent and the remainder covering the rest of her catalog. Sometimes a big production is distracting, and sometimes pageantry is the heart of what makes a show great, but this was an entirely different animal, and one that really blurred the line between music and visual art. Every song had a color scheme and choreographed movement that felt more like a natural extension of the words and music than a just an accompanying dance.
Speaking of the songs, St. Vincent's are arranged with a lot of room for the parts to breathe. As a result, they sound huge, even with the small backing trio that accompanied her, made up of multi-instrumentalist Toko Yasuda (who has a collaboration with Sun Ra Arkestra's Danny Ray Thompson among her many credits), keyboardist Daniel Mintseris and drummer Matthew Johnston. "Bring Me Your Loves," a deep cut from St. Vincent's latest record, didn't really stand out on the album, but its punked-up second-line rhythm and twisted, de-tuned vocals dropped our jaw at this show. When "Huey Newton," another track from St. Vincent, suddenly turned heavy around the three-quarter mark, it was like a more menacing version of Tool crept onstage and plugged in without our noticing. And then there was Clark's stunning guitar playing. Its technical ferocity puts prog masters to shame, but her light touch and sparing use of it intensifies it.
The encore began with a beautiful solo take on "Strange Mercy" that slowly but surely silenced the crowd chatter, and ended with "Your Lips Are Red" exploding all over us. We were totally immersed in Clark's world of death, rebirth and strange fascinations, and the end of the show took us completely by surprise — just the way we like it.
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