By: Pat O'Brien
 |
|
Dallas Orbiter - Photo by David de Young
|
You can and should expect almost anything at the Varsity Theater. It’s decorated (tastefully, mind you) like a bordello and the cavernous room somehow seems foreboding in a way. Friday night though, as Daughters Of The Sun were ambling their way through a psychedelic, bongo-heavy set, the room seemed a bit warmer, smaller. DOTS are a quartet that I was previously unfamiliar with, the music was both quiet and dense, it left me with an odd feeling afterward, I’m still not sure if I like them or not—but it was certainly an intriguing way to start off the night.
A few songs into the set by The Chambermaids, I was reminded of how much I loved ‘90s alt-rock. They would have fit in well next to Nirvana, Mudhoney, et al circa 1992, and also next to Gang of Four circa 1979, but at the same time they don’t seem stale or warmed over at all. The guitars sometimes devolved into earsplitting noise and it wasn’t always pretty, then again that seemed to be by design. Colin Johnson’s capabilities behind the drum kit were formidable and Martha Weir, taking the lead vocals every so often, softened the exceptionally sharp edges on a few of the songs.
Speaking of sharp edges, Ouija Radio had a few of their own to put on display. Lead singer/guitarist Christy Hunt howled like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O, repeatedly jumped up on the drum kit and generally made a spectacle of herself during their set. Ouija Radio throw a synth into a few of the songs and that tended to mellow things out (a little bit), but overall it was a full-on audio assault. The grinding, feedback-infused set wasn’t for everyone, and to be honest Ouija Radio isn’t an easily accessible band. But if you listened though the noise, the fuzz blasting through the amps and really took note of Matt Belz’s funky basslines, you could hear turned-on-their ear, almost inside out pop songs. They just chose to dress up those hooks in a blanket of feedback with the volume turned all the way up.
Headliners Dallas Orbiter are one of my favorite new bands of late. Their new album, Motorcycle Diagrams, will be in heavy rotation in my car’s CD player for quite some time—I can’t stop listening to it. I think part of the reason lies in the fact that they don’t stick hard and fast to any one genre.
Dallas Orbiter - Photo by David de Young
On this night, the band was space rock-ish, but pretty funky (and lead singer Mark Miller writes killer—and I mean killer—hooks). The songs were all at their core, pop songs, but they had been tweaked, prodded and had additions built onto them, giving each song its own rich texture and undeniable magnetism. They played a few songs from their 2004 debut, Magnesium Fireflies, as well, and while those songs were enjoyable, they didn’t entrance me like the songs from Diagrams, did.
The instrumentation was interesting to say the least. It included an organ, a synthesizer and the usual guitar, bass, drums, etc. but the whole was more than the sum of its parts. Everything was used in near-perfect fashion, from the weirdo, almost timeless looking film that played on the screen behind them—Magritte and Dali paintings come to life and invading that old MTV show "Liquid Television"—to the instruments themselves. There were big organ flourishes here and there and the occasional random guitar struck in the middle of everything, but nothing came off as showy or forced, it just seemed like exactly the right the thing at exactly the right time, much like Dallas Orbiter themselves could be in the coming months.
Location Info:
The Varsity Theater
Artist Info: Dallas Orbiter, Daughters of the Sun, Ouija Radio, The Chambermaids
Share this story:
Article comments powered by Disqus