BANDS:

The Juvinals as SAM COOKE
Zoinks! as THE CLASH
Shane Forster as THE MOUNTAIN GOATS
Members of Swahili and Short Hair as THE BANGLES
Members of My Flag is on Fire and Missing Organs as SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES
Megan Anne Boldway as LADY GAGA
Hopscotch Whisky as VIOLENT FEMMES
Wasteland Witch as BLONDIE

Mount Eerie. Photo by Britt from the Holland Project.

BY CLARISSA LEÓN—At last Sunday’s Mount Eerie show, it wasn’t surprising to discover Laxalt Theater was made for theater— not for music. No Kids front-man Nick Krugvich stopped his playing midway and identified this problem. “Can I just say something?” he said, as he looked up from his thick-rimmed glasses. “It is so weird playing in rooms like this. I can see all you guys.”

Everyone sighed and laughed, as he had just pointed out this big elephant. There were two problems. The audience could see the musicians, and the musicians could see the audience. Prop living room lamps illuminated the bands, but in an annoyingly awkward way. The bands were performing to a sea of creepy, attentive faces. After the lights were switched off, the theater still reached cave-like status as the double doors stayed open for the entire night, leaving a burst of fluorescent light to the right of the audience. And, of course, the theater was not good for acoustics.

The first band, Motorbikes, kept asking to stop the music for a sound check. Not much can be said for lead singer Paul Adam Benson and drummer Nicholas Weber. They made mistake after mistake, which left me harboring deep resentment for paying a mere $5 to see the show.

“We are playing two out of the almost 30 shows this tour,” Benson said. He wore sandals and black cutoffs with glasses. Without warning, he stopped playing. “I can’t hear myself at all.” If you understand that, you can understand it was equally hard to hear him from the audience. Motorbikes was a mixture of indie music with easy, repetitive lyrics. This is probably the best I can say for an irregular performance. As Benson sang, “ The question is not what to do,” he had sung the wrong words. The answer to the question? Stop playing, admit defeat.

Then No Kids, a Vancouver, British Columbian band, stood on stage. They looked out of place. But after they pointed out the problems with the room, and the lights went off, their music revealed new levels of electronica indie. Tones reverberated throughout the tiny theater, with a plethora of oohs and ahhs from frontman Nick Krugvich. Julia Chirka’s electric keyboarding and slow-moving harmonies elicited feelings of 1980s romance flicks and early 1990s hip-hop.

The band sounded like a mix between the Flight of the Conchords’s song “We’re Both in Love with a Sexy Lady” and Chromeo’s “Fast Footwork.” With a few intelligently planted pauses, the band’s mood shifted from upbeat to deep. However, Krugvich’s repetitive oohs and ahhs were almost too played out and when he sang any slows songs it was almost as if you had walked in on some personal mantra of his. Depending on whom you asked, they were either awesome or too much. “I thought of YouTube videos with monkeys,” admitted attendee Sterling Hall.

When Mount Eerie walked on stage, the lineup became even more perplexing. Everyone in No Kids and Motorbikes was also in Mount Eerie. Phil Elverum was filling in on drums for No Kids. He moved up to Mount Eerie lead singer. Then, Paul Adam Benson from Motorbikes became a drummer and Nicholas Weber remained a drummer. It was this multi-faceted, giant band. And they had a gong.

The work of Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum has long been something of a mystery. Mount Eerie’s music was a mixture of thematic statements that could have been anything—life and death, technology and nature, the city and destruction. Throughout the show, Elverum fascinated the audience (and possibly himself) by lifting his arms in Jesus-like fashion. His eyes were closed for much of the show. He only opened them to move to the next set of songs which were all overflowing with wind and nature imagery, correlating to their recent album’s title: Wind’s Poem.

Elverum sang: “But now the wind speaks in the bridges/ But now the wind speaks in the sands/ Singing, ‘Hold on to something and watch it go/ Everything you love will end up in a breeze’/ The roots that kept the tree down left a deep hole in the ground of water/ Reflecting the sky.”

The Mount Eerie show was nothing short of complete ambivalence. On one hand you had the ethereal singing from Elverum and then you had his terrifying destructive chords. There was quietness and then chaos in its purest form.

My Flag is on Fire. Photo by Britt from the Holland Project.

As an almost anti-climactic, but equally entertaining performance, My Flag is On Fire closed the show. My Flag is On Fire didn’t seem to fit the other bands as they are a Reno favorite and their music is more like a folksy Radiohead. Many Renoites have listened to or at least heard of My Flag is One Fire. They have taken their cues from numerous genres, instruments and inspiration, and together, they have created a sound that is unique and unmatched in Reno, or anywhere else.

As we sat in the audience, listening to the somber melancholies of Ty Williams, it seemed as if My Flag is On Fire were the resolution to the end of our play. They had found solace in the chaos, in the loving coos of all the songs. Williams was singing his heart out, and we were letting him because after hearing so much, we needed to know the ending.

Video by Michael Gjurich

Saxophonist Peter Epstein and Bassist Hans Halt of The Collective Playing at Se7en

BY ERIK STABILE, PHOTOS BY ERIK STABILE, VIDEO BY BRAD NELSON—The Collective, a jazz ensemble featuring the University of Nevada, Reno’s own jazz studies faculty, played at Se7en in the West Street Market last Friday. The group attracted a diverse crowd, filling Se7en’s 14 barstools and remaining tables. Those left standing tapped their toes through an exquisite jazz performance that experimented with Bulgarian modal techniques.

The group is pianist David Ake, trumpeter Larry Engstrom, saxophonist Peter Epstein, drummer Andrew Heglund and bassist Hans Halt. Together they played both original and borrowed compositions from Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington to name a few, but among the many moments of jazz virtuosity, their most striking piece was a Millto Levieva composition, a fusion between jazz and Bulgarian wedding music, perhaps impervious to a pigeonholed Western genre.

Epstein first played the Levieva composition while receiving his undergrad at the California Institute of the Arts as an understudy to his Serbian mentor, Miroslav Tadić, who specialized in Bulgarian folk music from the Balkan region. Epstein says he was always attracted to this traditional Eastern sound.

“When I would hear music that was modal or coming out of that tradition, it would always intrigue me,” said Epstein. “It just has a lot of energy.”

Epstein also recognizes how audiences react to this music, which is played in a 10/8 meter, the traditional meter of Bulgarian wedding music rarely used by Western musicians.

“The music really grabs them,” Epstein says. “Especially an audience that hasn’t heard that type of music before.”

The rest of the band filled in perfectly, hitting every note to create a full-bodied composition, at times reminiscent of  Ivo Papasov, a legend of Bulgarian Wedding Music and a leading figure in the genre “Wedding Band.” Larry Engstrom played in unison with Epstein, creating a sort of snake charming melody.

Of course, The Collective also plays traditional Jazz. Their latest album, Once and Again, exhibits some mastered originals. You might catch a few at the annual Reno Jazz Festival, which will be turning 47 next year.   In recent years the band has opened for the festival.

But Collective would like to play more regularly, and Se7en may be their venue of choice. Epstein enjoys playing venues more focused on the music, rather than selling items on a menu. The Green Room, which is closed indefinitely, was a venue that the Collective would frequently play.

“I have missed the Green Room. We use to play there regularly. It was one of the few places in town where you could really play jazz and non-commercial music, and there’s not people eating dinner three feet away from you,” said Epstein.

The Collective perform Thelonious Monk’s “We See.”

BY JESSICA PACHECO, PHOTOS BY ERIK STABILE—On August 29, the first sounds of Chinese Gore, a noise project made from members of Reno band Swahili, crept out of Clinton Sleeper’s house like the low growl of an ulcer. Inside, now a darkened cave, bystanders stood against the wall like prey while Chinese Gore’s creation unraveled before them. Four members all dressed up and huddled in the middle of the tiny living room. The bassist, wearing an elaborate animal hat knelt before the amp to pluck aimlessly at his instrument. This, surprising to some, started the show. The abstract noises attracted some, confused others. But they developed. Behind him was another drummer dressed up as Robin. And to the side of both of them was the second drummer, dressed in grandmother garb.

The music Chinese Gore creates remind some of power, others of pictures of evil. It sounded like the inside of a nightmare. Regardless, Chinese Gore has the ability to take you somewhere. Where you go depends on what’s inside your head. That’s half the fun. The mixture of the abstract sounds made by the bass and the poundings of the drums is haunting. But the drummer disclosed they won’t be doing many shows, so you either experienced God or you didn’t.

Next to come aboard was the Santa Rosa band Starskate. Their sound was more metal and was definitely more orchestrated. They still left your mind and soul wandering—but your body was there rocking the hell out. Because of this, there was a lot more movement in the room, whereas with Chinese Gore you analyzed everything, staring either into oblivion or the drums as they bored through you.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: A Pack of Wolves (another Santa Rosa band) also played this show, and we briefly knew the inner turmoil of a disco light. We are sorry, Pack of Wolves, for having no pictures of you nor any video, but at this point most of the staff abandoned the house for night-soaked pastures.—BRAD)

(ALSO, EDITOR’S NOTE ABOUT VIDEO: So prior to filming this show, Courtney Laubacher purchased a video camera for RENO NOISE purposes and I made first use of it here. During filming I discovered that this camera was made of bullshit—it refused to focus and the footage refused to be edited in anything but the terrible software provided with the camera. Thus: the transitions are awful, the title text was purposefully made as awful as humanly possible (just to vent my rage, man) and everything is blissfully out of focus. It shall never be like this again, I swear.—BRAD)

STARSKATE VIDEO TO COME SOON!

BY BRAD NELSON—This is terribly late but on Thursday June 18 at the River School (which took me two frustrated attempts to drive to after I missed my turn and 4th Street cut my reluctant path to I-80) Daniel Francis Doyle and local band Manacle performed music full of sharp angles as many experts of fire-tossing with poi decorated the oncoming night in fierce orange blazes.

Against the scenery of trees and the background murmurs of the Truckee River, Austin musician Doyle acted as a veritable one-man band. He started each of his songs with guitar lines that initially seemed like soundcheck cast-offs.

But then they didn’t stop.

After looping his abortive and jagged guitar, Doyle would rush to his drums, warping the guitar sample with a pedal—so that a rushed and rhythmically fractured guitar line could later be transformed into crushing doom metal or whatever else he needed it to be—while madly pounding drums and screaming bloody terror into his attached microphone.

The final effect was that of convulsing noise rock hammered through jazzy, unsure time signatures. The final effect was exhilarating.

The two acts were separated by a brief set from Santa Cruz indie rockers That Ghost, but by that time my camera’s powers of persuasion were slowly being dulled by the night. It is with great regret that I even post my photo of Manacle, who went after.

Daniel Francis Doyle

Manacle

Night had fallen and we all smelled of campfire and that previous week I had been the sort of depressed that lacks knowable origin and that anchors any body capable of movement to a bed forevermore (the same depression that had left me unable to post these photos for almost two weeks), but three bands deep and surrounded by people who also seemed to have a predilection for bizarre and unpredictable music, I felt a part of something. Not in the I-smoked-up-with-people-of-ill-repute-at-a-Dead-concert “part of something” sense.

In the sense that there is great art being made everywhere and perhaps just glimpsing it is reason enough to get out of bed and get lost and frustrated on the way.

BY ERIK STABILE—Don’t have Over Vert’s new album, Gagging + Swallowing? Then here’s a substitute: take every violent occurrence since the big bang, stuff into massive cannon and point at face. No, I’m not quoting Alan Watts, but rather describing Over Vert, a band that plays with calculated ferocity over a beautiful pallet of concrete waves.  

The band’s seven track album is short, like a fuse. So my only suggestion is to listen to it twice, three times, or whatever it takes to let the aggressive lyrical content  soak in, or rather stain your inner ear with prose of snuff flicks, dicks, tortillas, explosives and a little bit of love.  

That’s so punk rock, I thought after my first listen. Every song seems to put the listener into a state of anxiety and discord, giving them only one option, move or fall into a state of panic, perfect for any skateboard-wielding lunatic. 

Morgan Travis sings with effort that amounts to a drowning man overboard, fighting for air. Scaught, Chris and Justin play with the same fighting effort. 

The album art, illustrated by Omar Pierce, seems to match Over Vert’s sound and style perfectly. It’s chaotic yet complete. I would gladly pay an extra few dollars if the inside cover folded out into a full poster of Omar’s artistic vision.   

Gagging + Swallowing is a true quality not quantity album. Rightfully so, as the album was recored by the great Steve Albini, who once upon a time, engineered the records of many great musicians such as Nirvana, Pixies and The Stooges.  

Check out Over Vert at http://www.myspace.com/oververt or pick up Gagging + Swallowing at Dicology of Reno at 190 California Ave., Suite 201B.

PRAYING FOR GREATER PORTLAND: “THE TEMPEST”

Emo: does the word inspire in you visions of blinding haircuts and songs meant to sear the flesh of ex-girlfriends?