RIFF MARKET

haVeBlue
Sin-e
June 11

Download: "DES"

!!!
Northsix
June 11

Download: "Intensify"

Given that haVeBlue's lead singer talks about the Red Hot Chili Peppers pretty much non-stop when we're at work, no surprise his band sounds something like them. Early RHCP abstracted Go4 punkfunk into something less punk more funk, less brittle more radio-ready, and I see haVeBlue as something of a further, grungier abstraction. Song sections come very pronounced, and the choruses come big and dumb and big and massively FX'd, nothing too hooky, the force in the kinds of sounds pumped out, the confidence of the playing, etc. Strikes me as very 90s altrock, in the most unspecific sense.

Etc etc etc.

Really I'm more interested in indie-by-default bands like this because they seem to exist almost completely outside the critical dialogue surrounding new music, the current barometers for success, the nature of hype. From talking with two of the haVeBlues: They've never heard of Pitchfork, don't know who Christgau is, think most people haven't heard Tool. The last thing's probably true but still. They care about new music obviously because they're making it, but so much of this game is right place right time right sound, so you need to know what's out there. Most times that's more interesting than the music, that's what I think, prove me wrong.

Anyway I don't think haVeBlue really care about those things, hence a sound that most people might consider dated. Not sure how I feel about that exactly, whose loss that is or whatever, but I do think it's the listeners considering how full-on balls-out and so on haVeBlue played last night, to just a few people but nonetheless. I can't find the song on myspace but I think it's called "Halt!" which got me thinking about the Clash. So many bands have tried to do something like a "London Calling" (the song), confident but silly-dramatic but not Weird Al silly-dramatic (so the album too I guess), and I thought these guys came close when they started the tune by explaining, simply, "This is not a Police song."

---

I don't think I would have gone to see !!! had I not had something at stake, which was: I was trying to break a curse.

The curse is as follows. Three years ago in Boston I went to see !!! with my brother, my friends Rob and Simon, a few others. I think the Rapture opened for them too, though it might have just been the Gossip. It was July 20, 2003. Around the first or second song of the !!! show, I got a call from Matt LeMay. I didn't pick up because at the time I had T-Mobile, which had terrible service in the Middle East Downstairs, but LeMay kept calling. So I picked up.

"The Exploding Hearts died in a horrific car crash."

I tried to keep the news to myself at the show but I sorta lost it and told everybody there. I didn't scream it but I kept saying it a lot in my immediate vicinity. Eventually it caught on and we left. I dunno, something about three awesome dudes we just met dying like that, it made me not really give a shit about "Me and Giuliani" and all the uncomfortable slam-funk dancing going on. It really put dance-punk in perspective for me.

Matt and I wrote a quick EH obit for Pitchfork that night. The next morning, I received an email or a text message or something from my friend Rob: "Did !!! kill the Exploding Hearts?" I was worried about this too. This was too fluky of a death not to be caused by an average to above-average dancepunk band.

So last night was the first time I remember being able to see !!! since 2003. I've been telling myself for three years that this band has the power to kill bands I really like a lot--at the very least cause them serious harm. Who knows how many bands I would have liked had !!! not already killed them.

Then Rob backed out. I had to brave the show alone. I sat through an opener, I watched a girl bring some kind of cleanser she used to rub off the "X" on her hand that kept her from drinking, then I noticed I was surrounded by young Asian kids with washed-off Xs on their hands. I wondered what the big deal was with Asians and !!!. Maybe they know something I don't re: !!! and the killings? I doubted it.

!!! played eventually. "Shitscheissemerde," lots of new stuff, "Intensify" from their first album (2001!) which remains the best and I'm not sure how I feel about that. The band brought in Jerry from Turing Machine and Juan Maclean on drums, who's rock-solid, though I wonder what happened to Chris Powell from Man Man, who was supposed to be playing with them. I hope that band's OK.

As for the new songs: I'm reserving judgement. At this point !!!'s a studio band, with much of the sell on their song-not-songs being the production values. Three dudes on percussion could mean some sick polyrhythms and not the usual double-up-the-drums sorta stuff, but live it's just a blur of guys banging on shit at exactly the same time, no rhythmic differences, the two guitarists playing vaguely the same chord through effects for ten minutes, the lead singer clucking and gyrating and talking, probably, about how fucked the government is like usual. On one hand it's really tuneless stuff, completely subservient to the bassline, very functional music and yes people were dancing last night. Then again I listen to a lot of tuneless stuff. So I hope !!! get/got a good producer for their next album.

Additionally: The band also did a song with Sha-Na-Na from TK Webb and Kill Whitie and a few other Williamsburg-centric deals. All you Kill Whitie haters from afar, !!! lovers from anear, I hope you have fun wrapping your head around that one. Me, I remember it being the best song of the night since she can sing, and she sang, and her crumping on stage really got the Asian kids going. Past that I can't remember much--phone call.