No Age at Club 770 and Deerhunter at High Noon Saloon
Ed Templeton
No Age, presumably taking a breather between awesome shows.
No Age, a young duo of L.A. art-punks, treated Madison to a transcendent set of raucous noise-pop on Monday night, combining 50 years of innovative rock 'n' roll into 50 engaging minutes.
While No Age often weaves through swirling guitar loops, textural sampling, and blistering noise-pop, guitarist Randy Randall's diverse range of sounds is the backbone. The tone however, did not come easily. The flannel-clad guitarist's setup at Club 770 included three amplifiers, two mixers, a sampler, and a mess of pedals. Drummer/sampler/vocalist Dean Spunt played a minimal three-piece drum kit with raw aggression, often switching between pulsing rhythms and scattershot drumming to complement Randall's noisy, ethereal passages. Spunt's vocals are a raw balance between Henry Rollins and Bob Mould, adding a pop sensibility to the hissing punk blasts.
"I know we're at school, but we aren't really at school, and you can't fail the fucking party exam!" Spunt screamed before slamming into "Miner," the opening track from their recent Sub Pop debut, Nouns. The set also dipped into their 2007 singles collection Weirdo Rippers, a Gun Club cover, and a couple of uncompromising new numbers. One particularly scathing new tune was tentatively titled "Fuck Prop. 8 In The Face."
The stage at Club 770 was lit like a fucking salad bar, and Spunt's requests to dim the lights went completely ignored. Despite the cafeteria-venue's ever-weird vibe, kids were flailing and tumbling onto the stage, screaming along to every song, and bringing big, surprised smiles to the faces of Spunt and Randall, who had never played in Wisconsin before. The young crowd went fish-out-of-water apeshit during the climactic feedback monster "Boy Void," with plenty of the crowd surfing sand stage diving that's so rare at Madison shows. Randall himself even jumped into the audience during the single "Eraser." During the set's closer, "Everybody's Down," Spunt got up from behind the kit to sing before jumping back to the drums for the final blast.
Deerhunter at High Noon Saloon
Playing its Wisconsin debut Sunday night at the High Noon, Deerhunter was determined to make a good first impression. The band strutted onto the stage as the house speakers played “Born To Run,” and seemed to take their cues from The Boss's crowd-pleasing anthems, transforming shoegazing drones into fairly straight-ahead rockers. Shying away from the abstract soundscapes that pepper their records, songs like “Operation” and “Agoraphobia” emphasized the punchy beats underlying the feedback. Still, three guitarists ensured that the sound remained good and dense, and the band found plenty of opportunities to stretch out and sneak in a harmonica solo. After all that cacophony, closing ballad "Twilight At Carbon Lake" seemed downright old-fashioned, at least until it too descended into noisy bliss.
Playing its Wisconsin debut Sunday night at the High Noon, Deerhunter was determined to make a good first impression. The band strutted onto the stage as the house speakers played “Born To Run,” and seemed to take their cues from The Boss's crowd-pleasing anthems, transforming shoegazing drones into fairly straight-ahead rockers. Shying away from the abstract soundscapes that pepper their records, songs like “Operation” and “Agoraphobia” emphasized the punchy beats underlying the feedback. Still, three guitarists ensured that the sound remained good and dense, and the band found plenty of opportunities to stretch out and sneak in a harmonica solo. After all that cacophony, closing ballad "Twilight At Carbon Lake" seemed downright old-fashioned, at least until it too descended into noisy bliss.
As usual, singer Bradford Cox’s shenanigans between songs were half the fun, and nearly stole the show. The schizophrenic back-and-forth between this friendly, effete personality and his lovelorn, hermetic songs created an emotional whiplash that was like seeing Radiohead fronted by Andy Dick: downer, giggle, downer, giggle. Adding to the incongruity was the stage full of straight-men—no one in the band so much as cracked a smile during Cox's charming banter, which meandered through such topics as cannibalistic gerbils, boners, and teriyaki sauce.
But Cox unwittingly opened up his biggest can of worms with this fatally divisive inquiry: "So, what's the best band in Madison?" Audience members yelled for everyone from Blueheels to Sleeping In The Aviary to Garbage for fuck's sake, stopping the show dead in its tracks. Taking off his guitar to address the crowd, Cox restored harmony with a bit of hippie-spun wisdom, delivered in a dubious Jerry Garcia impression: "It's all music, man." Tough to say if Jerry would be down with Cox, but his rapidly expanding discography suggests Deerhunter fans will always have plenty to choose from. Indeed, by the time you finish reading this sentence, two new Atlas Sound EPs will have been been leaked.
