The building was labeled with nothing but its street numbers because the venue, I had been told, was underground. The Downtown Eastside studio and stage space was not always legal. I arrived before ten to catch the opening acts for the night’s show. I walked into a darkened room where ten or so other people were clustered in groups on couches. I sat casually on a long wooden bench at the back. The DJ played Eighties style remixes of top 40 songs interspersed with gunshots. Ten minutes later, I walked out.
I returned at ten to catch the opening acts for the night’s show. The room was unchanged. I sat down, stood up, and walked out again. I drank a $4 pint at the Astoria. A man sang karaoke to “Dammit” by Blink-182 to an audience of six, including the bar staff and me. I finished my beer and returned just as the opening act began.
All female band Hick took the stage at twenty after ten as more people wandered in. Their set opened with the soft dissonance of “Travellers” but transitioned to a heavier guitar and bass driven sound over the course of their twenty minutes on stage. Without distinct driving melodies, Hick’s music sounded to me like ambient punk rock; the guitar and bass thrashed to a tune I couldn’t discern. To end the final song, the lead vocalist shrieked what I heard as, “DIE, DIE, DIE.” She concluded with a graceful thank you to the audience.
With the first act finished, I got a PBR from a bar backlit by a table lamp. My attempt to talk to the bartender yielded little conversation so I returned to the long wooden bench. I surveyed the room. Even if I hadn’t made the sartorial missteps that had me looking like Bluto from Animal House, I would have looked out of place in the crowd. I looked like the only person there who had ever been to a Starbucks. I moved towards the stage, leaned against a wobbling table painted with a gigantic eye and waited for the next act to begin.
Darto’s set was the night’s most cohesive. The Seattle-based group played an atmospheric mix of rock instrumentation and synth. Even when Darto alternated between their male and female vocal leads, their set was stylistically consistent. Their ambient sound was reinforced by a series of dream-like images projected and distorted behind them. Of all the sets I heard that night, theirs moved me the most. When it ended, it was like a spell was broken. The audience dispersed to corners and sidewalks for cigarettes and canned beers. Again, I left the venue.
Upon my return, I encountered a photographer to whom I had previously introduced myself. We talked a bit about the bands and the venues, and about our professional aspirations as writer and photographer, respectively. We agreed that it is hard to find paid work when anyone with a camera can fancy herself a photographer. In the case of photojournalism, the best photos come from those who are most proximate to the event rather than from the most skilled photographers. “I nearly quit my job when I heard about Fort McMurray,” he said. I expected a story about his connection to the area. Instead he continued, “I would have if I hadn’t found out two days too late. By that point, the city was already closed to journalists.” He explained his desire to buy a plane ticket to a country where a conflict is brewing so he would be there when the conflict hits its boiling point. Then he would be guaranteed better photos than “everyone with their shitty iPhone cameras.” I nodded and looked to the full moon. We went back inside as the next band began.
Fountain’s set was characterized by its tandem vocals and off-kilter post-punk sound. Their up-tempo set was the most fun of the night, their performance of “Emerald Dripping Flat” especially. Robert Coslett and Evan Jeffery chanted together the song’s chorus: “Sugar, water, cream, water.” The midnight energy in the room peaked as a few members of the audience danced to Fountain’s guitar-driven set.
By the time Tough Customer’s set began at one in the morning, the crowd had grown smaller. I realized that much of the audience was composed of members of the bands that had played and their friends. Tough Customer’s set was performed for those who knew the band intimately. Vocal duties were shared among with band’s four members, with vocalists often following different melodies simultaneously. The result was disharmony across the set. A standout track was the cowbell heavy “Farm of Tom,” even though the drummer’s repetition of “COW!” made me feel like I was on the outside of an inside joke. The set concluded after minutes. I left the discord of the music for the late night streets of the Downtown Eastside with the chant, “Cow, cow, cow” in my head. Through all of the noise, I felt like there was something I had missed.
Song of the Day: In a Drawer by Band of Horses
A condensed version of this review was published in the July/August 2016 issue of Discorder Magazine.
