Last Saturday night, the release of the new Rat Paws EP "Trite You Are" (now available on cassette or digital via ratpaws.bandcamp.com ) went off with a bang. OK I'll go first: Rat Paws' performance reached a certain level of intensity that's not necessarily a given at our shows . I have a theory as to why it happened: it was that thing where the band before us brought a big scrum of enthusiastic young people, and then as I was just sidling up to the mic, I could just feel the exodus happening as ppl flowed out past me. Some insecure part in me started yelling, "Hey, you're going upstream now! Fucking step on it, bitch!" So we did. We worked up so much steam trying to get up and over that damn hurdle that we quickly crested and found ourselves barreling down at an almost uncontrollable speed. This was only aided by my compulsive squatting down to steal a swig of beer between beach song. People seemed to catch wind of the abandon as there was some rambunctious dancing in the crowd, especially during the closer, a cover of The Feelies' "Doin' it Again," which is a song about being in a relationship with a girl who lies and does hot crazy girl shit that she can't explain.
Speaking of hot girl shit, Rio the Bear, a sugary, irreverent solo loops-samples-guitar-vox concern, was v fun. I like bands that make me laugh, and such petulance as a chorus that starts "I'm unique, I'm unique.." is def one way to do it. Quirky minimalist dance beats and feather-light vocals. I think this is what was what bedroom pop was before dudes with chorus pedals showed up to the party?
I was busy running around doing my set lists and being frightened of the college kids when the Absentees played, but from what I can tell, the 80s are alive and well. There was something naggingly authentic about their set, as if this is what a typical Friday night at the Middle East would've been like in 1986.
As I cowered like the waif that I am from a bar stool after the Rat Paws set, Dog Dog pulled off a weird as fuck suite of gurgly noise and pedal-sickened guitar. As I said to Esa after their set, I couldn't tell if they were purifying the space or summoning evil. Having seen a lot of Esa's sets (they used to perform as Sweet Creature, and they booked a lot of my very first shows in Seattle), I can say that there's a super dark murky struggle taking place between the layers of sound in their 20 min-ish set. "No one gets out of this life without suffering," it seems to say, but it still sounds quite beautiful.
Pls come to the next show, Thursday March 16th at the Tractor Tavern with AP Macroeconomics and Dining Dead ($10)
P.S. I dropped off three tapes at Sonic Boom and two at Neptune Records, so if you want to support record stores and Rat Paws, that's the way. Or as Montreal hockey dads like to say, "thatsaway!"
Full list of upcoming shows
3/16 at Tractor Tavern with Dining Dead and AP Macroeconomics
4/13 at Central Saloon (Seattle) with Wall Drugs and Diirt
5/19 at Blue Moon Tavern (Seattle) with Jesus is Weed and special guests
5/27 TBA
6/20 TBA
Let's hear it one more time for the 80s...
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