The Covers Of This Book Are Too Far Apart

Friday night was my third time seeing Glue Machine in the past month, and this time they finally nailed it. I don't know if it was The Whitney House's superior acoustics (probably) or some extra practice or something, but finally their sound made sense to me. While the show flyers tag Glue Machine as being some kinda grunged-up AmRep-style damage, I still think the template is Side-Two-and-after Black Flag with a side order of Flipper, but maybe that's just a matter of a quarter-inch in either direction. Maybe they really do sound like The Cows, who knows. I've never actually bothered to ask the band what it is that they're shooting for; some day there'll be a demo to listen to, and then you won't need my half-assed guesses. Their set was really good, in any case.

White Suns were relentless; everything they did was precise, even though they still found enough space to play off each other, which I thought was impressive. With two guitars and two sets of patched-together effects boxes to fiddle with, they made a heck of a wall of sound, with a drummer that hardly ever stopped moving, and everything they did seemed to be at its absolute physical limit. They seemed to be randomly funny guys, too (I'd repeat the suns/sons joke, but if I don't get it right it'll just sound stupid). Rick is/was also in Open Star Clusters, and White Suns originated in Connecticut, though I'm not going to tag them as such (I know, like it really matters what I do).


White Suns -

"Communion"

They Threw Me Off The Hay Truck About Noon

There was a free Titles show at Cafe Nine last night, last-minute so you probably missed it. It was a birthday bash for Ryan Gorman (Glue Machine, Iron Hand). Glue Machine played-- their riffs started to sink in with me a little better than they did the first time I saw them. Think Black Flag, side-two-and-afterwards ("Nothing Left Inside") with a little bit of Flipper (I thought they were playing "Sex Bomb" as their third song, but they weren't). They're still working on it. Some guy who I'm guessing doesn't own "Jealous Again" got up on stage to tell jokes. Titles played about seven or eight songs. Adrian from Titles had a short in his set-up, got shocked right away through his microphone, and sang his back-ups away from the mic after that. "Fuck It" got changed-up to a more languid pace, sounding folky. Brad's phrasing for "Pillowcase" became almost soul, or something. "Who To Hold" rocked. I didn't feel like working and only took a couple of pictures. That's it.


Titles -

"Going Down To Die"
(Danzig cover)

I've Got To Hand It To You, Those Paintings Aren't That Great

I was most likely a little late in getting on board re: Lemuria, and then it took me another year and a half to finally go see them, which happened last Saturday at the Fucking Discovery Zone in New Haven. If you haven't heard Lemuria yet, think of '90s Dischord stuff like The Warmers combined with the measured response of a band like Titles or Soft Effects-era Spoon. Their recordings are all crafty stuff, though typically it's their singles compilation ("The First Collection") that I hit the most-- much like Chinese Telephones "Democracy", where the hodge-podge of odd early vinyl seems to stack up better than any of the regular full-lengths.

I kinda figured I'd just end up watching Alex's drumming the whole night, since he sounds pretty amazing on all of Lemuria's records, but I ended up leaving more impressed with Sheena's guitar playing, which in a lot of ways is the sort of playing that I can get myself square with the most: not overtly flashy, with a willingness to throw in some feedback here and there, alongside a hefty dose of chunky metal power-chording like those Texas is the Reason songs that I used to really like. When they kicked off with "Hours" I meant to watch the slick little part that Alex plays at the beginning, but I was still dicking around with my camera and forgot to pay attention, right up to when Sheena paused in mid-verse and a couple of burly-sounding dudes who were standing right behind me shouted out the "got your nose in, in my hair" part, which snapped me awake because it sounded so goofy. Along the way it became obvious that Alex's mic wasn't working, which sorta took "his" songs out of the equation (not to mention his backing vocals on all the other songs, which are usually pretty key), so I don't know if that affected the set list or not. They played two new songs; the first one was pretty straightforward, nothing special, but the second one (don't ask for any song titles) had an extended hard-rock instrumental part that sounded really cool.

The two songs I'm posting below can be found on "The First Collection", though these are my own vinyl rips from the original 7", recorded five years ago (so don't hold it against them).


Lemuria -

"Home for the Holidays"

"Piranha"