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I bowed to the loud
12-12-99
(printed in C-Ville Weekly Vol. 11, No.51)
The Ex - Fugazi - Lake Trout - Alexandra Scott
Clare Quilty - Earth To Andy
The Ex - Fugazi - Lake Trout - Alexandra Scott
Clare Quilty - Earth To Andy
Eighties overlords and Washington, D.C.-based edge legends Fugazi came to Trax Tuesday night for a sold out show. What a spectacle. The place filled up fast at $6 a ticket - a steal for heroes like Fugazi, but that's the way they do it, being known for refusing to play for more than $5 a head. Supposedly, after a recent show where the venue charged $6 a ticket, one bandmember scooped up the cash, went to the door and proceeded to give a buck back to every patron as they exited. They're pretty serious about their rules.
Holland's the Ex opened the show with a trouncing sonic assault of pure European noise art rock. The five of them pummeled through their set, slowly winning over the Fugazi crowd. Quivering with frenetic energy, they gushed walls of displaced noises sewn together in an orderly mayhem. More intense and bizarre instrument tweaking and chanting are rarely experienced. The guitar players were doing all kinds of wierd stuff like cramming sticks under the strings of their instruments or tuning a single string down really low and then holding it away from the neck of the guitar with one thumb and playing it with a small piece of metal, producing shrill wavery diode noises. String breaks were generally ignored except by the bass player who stopped to put a new one on. The pounding whirlwind behind the drumset was a woman who also sang and chanted. I was truly impressed but my old chum, Jam Wormer, was feeling the other side of the coin: "I came to hear rock you could bounce a quarter off of, not that!" So we got our change out and waited for Fugazi.
Fugazi are as nonchalantly defiant as any rock band ever dreamed of being. Their music has never been strictly punk -- it's more of an industrial art rock kind of thing -- but they are archetypical of one aspect of the punk ideal: uncompromising seriousness and intelligence combined with an overpowering will to rock. Between tunes (when the band actually stops for a moment, which they don't often do) one of the singers is at the mike, holding a discussion group with the first few rows of squished revelers. He tells them why they aren't playing Richmond this year (security was rough on their audience last time) and admonishes thrashers, calling out to one crowd surfer "Sir, sir, sir! Could you please not do that tonight." It's a little hilarious because Fugazi's music naturally drives people into a frenzy, and every so often the floor turns into a big happy moshpit despite the band's best intentions.
Their playing was spot on. A true legend of the art-punk movement since their first shows in 1987, they've been redefining the boundaries of punk rock in much the same way that the Clash did for a previous generation. Their tunes are colored by the manic poetry of one savant-like lead singer and the "stomp and chant" melodies of another. Power chord crescendos and drop-and-stop breakdowns abound. They combine an urge to scream with a will to sing and then kick you in the chest with the whole mish-mash. I find them irresistable, and it's hard to imagine there ever would have been a Green Day or an Offspring (as distant as these two groups are from our subject) without the sonic explorations of D.C.'s own Fugazi.
On Friday night I found my way down to the Tokyo Rose for the Clare Quilty show. Talk about a whole other side of Charlottesville. The local art community was out in full force, all underweight with shaved heads and turtle necks. I was half-expecting Andy Warhol to show up when Alexandra Scott came on to do a set of her semi-electric folk/pop, warming up the stage nicely for local indie darlings Clare Quilty. Clare Quilty are, quite simply, a great little rough and rockin' alternative pop band, charming as hell with hook laden tunes and (dare I say) a foxy two-girl front line. Their stuff occasionally verges on obvious but they are totally satisfying and rumors of their coolness have not been exaggerated. If they don't make MTV (which they could), they ought to at least make heavy rotation on national modern rock stations -- if their record label, DCIDE, would just release their latest disc.
-Cripsy Duck
e-mail- cripsyduck@mindspring.com
Fugazi rules. Deny it, and I swear, I'll spit on your car.
On Thursday I couldn't resist checking in on Lake Trout at Trax, just to see if I was hallucinating the last time they were here. Nope. They really are amazing with their minimalist drum n' bass from Baltimore. They recorded a live CD that night. 
On Saturday I swung back through Trax to witness power-pop spectacle Earth To Andy. Holy Cow! Loud as a chain-saw at the breakfast table (louder than Fugazi!), they are a metal-head's Beatles, bringing a jagged edge back to pure pop. Andy has a great voice and prescence, all burly and bare armed, jumping around and having a great time. They all sing beautifully and play a polished show that just keeps pumping. The rumor mill has been spewing on their behalf as well, and I can see why: if Charlottesville doesn't get another footnote in rock history for these guys, then there is definitely someone asleep at the wheel in radioland. 