By: Jim Brunzell III
Music takes a strange path to find you sometimes. Usually I hear about bands or music from friends, but where that takes place can be the strangest places too, like a grungy basement leaking water from a broken pipe at a house party in NE Minneapolis. Two years ago this is where I found out about Q And Not U, a punk trio from Washington D.C. I only vaguely remember the conversation, but I do remember my friend holding a beer in each hand saying, “Even if you don’t like their music, you’ve got to see them live.” Why would I want to see them live if I don’t like their music? I thought. Is it like saying, I don’t like Britney Spears, but I don’t mind watching her videos?
Q And Not U took the stage at the Triple Rock Monday night and received a pleasant reception from the crowd. Drummer John Davis perused the audience before settling in behind his kit. Harris Klahr played with his synthesizer tapping a few notes, and Christopher Richards walked over to his electric guitar, bass guitar, and keyboard to make sure all were in working order.
“S.O.F…..T.P.Y…..R.A.M…..I.D.S…” Richards sang quietly, into the microphone and the audience hollered. They opened the show with “Soft Pyramids,” and it was a definite highlight. (Oddly enough, it was the first song I ever heard by them.) Richards waggled back and forth from the microphone stand to the other band members. With his guitar hanging around his waist, clapping his hands, he danced back to the microphone stand and pulled out an oversized kazoo to finish off the song.
Their next song, “Wet Work” got a different response from the audience. You could see who were the newer Q and Not U fans because only a few people in the audience were singing along compared to with “Pyramids.” I’ve yet to pick up their newest and third release, Power, but after hearing the five songs they played off it, it sounds like it will be different than the two previous efforts, No Kill No Beep Beep and Different Damage. Power seems more accomplished and coherent than Kill and Damage. Whether that’s a good thing or not, it’s coming from a band that was compared to another band from the D.C. area, Fugazi, when they first arrived on the scene.
Playing everything from, “Air Conditions”, “So Many Animal Calls”, and their newest single, “Wonderful People”, Q And Not U gave the audience music with addictive sing-a-long qualities and emphatic messages behind them. (Some may call it brainwashing. I call it clever songwriting.)
Halfway through the set, Richards (who could be a doppelganger of Hollywood actor, Peter Sarsgaard) asked the audience where they were going to be November 2nd. He told the crowd, “Well, we’re going to be in San Diego. Just so you know, we’ll be voting that day and everybody here needs to get out and vote too. We need a new beginning in this country and that’s the day it starts.” The crowd applauded these words, even though, a third of them were probably under eighteen.
But until near the end of the set, I felt it never lived up to the potential my friend promised. It was lackluster until the final few songs where the group finally let everything fly. The vocals became high-pitched screams, the drums were louder and more abrasive and the synthesizer made abstract noises that were anything but clear and solid.
Unfortunately, it didn’t end there. In the final song of the evening, Richards stood with his back to the audience strumming a guitar for a few minutes until he turned around and began singing, “I was born in the U.S.A.” After chanting that for another few minutes, which felt like hours, believe me, he then turned the lyrics “U.S.A.” into, “Wash-ing-ton D.C.”
My friend didn’t warn me that the finale of Q and not U shows can sometimes turn into drawn-out Kumbaya sessions, which left me wondering why after so many great sing-a-longs did Richards have to end the show with a boring rendition of a great song
Location Info:
Triple Rock Social Club
Artist Info: Q And Not U
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