Velcro Stars/Bunnygrunt/Cars Can Be Blue/ Great Lakes/Dark Meat: Popfest Reports on 40 Watt 8/14/08

Great Lakes

Photo Credit: Waites Laseter

by Casey DeHoedt
08/15/2008

Rounding the Hancock/Pulaski corner a lush breeze chimes through the air and I hear a faint bassy rhythm... Can I hear the 40 Watt calling me already? To the south the horizon is gray with a red tinge; maybe it was thunder... Maybe it’s an ominous sign (tip: in rock ominous often means guaranteed good time). With a caffeine drink in one hand and cigarette in another I begin the mental preparation for another six hours of Popfest: the crowd, the bands, the hustle and bustle.

Stepping up to the venue, the smoking area is clear. A group lines the outside of Flicker – perhaps a few lingerers from the evening’s shows.

Is it too early?

No, it was the calm before the storm...

Inside 40 Watt, small groups cluster and socialize. The Velcro Stars strike up the set and these clusters disperse as attention draws to the stage. This quintet from Murfreesboro, Tennessee croons out canvas shoe tapping songs. A little diet lite, an aperitif for the feast ahead. In a sound reminiscent to Polaris, the band’s jangly yet rhythmically clever catchiness is soothing as fest-ers begin to settle in. Around the third song, Jonathan Brock’s bass concentrates the music out of a plasmic thinness. Soon after the tempo and volume kicks up considerably and the Velcro Stars go from present to felt. It was their last song... too bad.

More clustering as others join the 40 Watt space. Some have already propped themselves on the stage to assure their proximity for one of the more anticipated bands of Popfest, Bunnygrunt. The Saint Louis band maintains fluidity between their songs. The dynamic energy is uncorked as the five members exude a relaxed confidence through their music. Halfway into the set Dustin of Little Birds presents Bunnygrunt with a tray of shots poured into Dixie cups. “It’s not Popfest unless you buy Bunnygrunt a shot.”

“God I love this, it’s the drunkest day of the year... It’s like a holiday. It’s like Christmas,” says bassist Karen Reid as she bottoms up.

Reid with her Kim Gordon-esque demeanor is cool-as-a-cucumber as the band plays on and more and more shots arrive on stage. However, the fever picks up as the band sings “Frankie is a killer.” This briskness carries as the set draws to a close. Guitarist Matt Harnish warns “This is our last song. The only thing wrong about it is the tense.” ”I’m gonna get drunk tonight. Tonight, tonight, tonight.” repeats and the crowd cheers.

Unhindered by a snapped treble string, one guitarist solos in high registers, feeding off the reverb, while the other crouches as he cradles his instrument like a cello. The song builds into an extended jam before drawing to a satisfying conclusion. “Thanks for getting us wasted. We love you,” exclaims Harnish before exiting the stage.

Next up is one of Athens’s most tempestuous acts – Cars Can Be Blue.

“I’m Lindsey Buckingham, and this is Stevie Nicks,” claims Nate Mitchell as he squats behind his drum kit.

The set starts sweetly enough with songs such as “Sun Blows Up,” and “Seems We’re Breaking Up.” All nostalgic of fifties radio. However, sweet turns to saucy quickly as the duo progresses into “She Needs It.” A nearby on-looker chokes slightly on his beer upon the first utterance of the song’s hook ”D-E-E-P D-I-C....”... Well, you know the rest.

Cars always exhibits an intuition for their audience’s sense of comfort. Sometimes singer/guitarist Becky Brooks portrays a Courtney Love-ish vulgarity while Mitchell may try to control her outspoken rage through Ike Turner tongue lashings. Yet tonight’s performance is more about X-rated flirtations and innuendo’d banter. Brooks bends to fiddle with her amp cord – her mini-skirted rear exposed to Mitchell: “Yea, you remember my butt. You miss it bitch?” Mitchell retorts “Yea, lotta memories there, lotta good times.” As always, Cars breaks the audience’s tension through the duo’s tense relationship on stage.

Their last song of the night is a cover of Peter, Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks,” performed with guest artists Kate Stanton (maracas), Jeff Tobias (bass), and Jason NeSmith (bongos). NeSmith steals the stage as he hams it up as the quintessential bongo-beatnik oft seen in campy beach movies. The cover proves that Cars Can Be Blue not only gets the ball rolling through humorous lyrics and performance but with musical chops as well.

Between sets the fest goers have taken command of the Washington Pulaski corner with black-framed glasses and greasy hair lined up past Flicker. Friends huddle, others mix and meet in various conversations and brands of cigarettes. Some look tired, more and more are looking dazed.

Meanwhile another twosome takes the stage. Great Lakes. Initially the two – comprised of guitarist Ben Crum and drummer Kevin Shea – offer a respite from the steady bpms of the previous performances. However, this is deceptive as the two thunder out in displays of musical virtuosity under the guise of fried Southern rock.

Not at all distracted by the subdued ballads, the crowd is just as thick as Crum bends and vibratos into extended solos on his Gibson hollow body. Shea’s technique is not a steady/typical “oohm-chuck” but a series of fills packed with rolls and syncopations. The two seem to improvise simultaneously, subsisting one another through – though a not-quite-in-keep – call and response standard of blues practice.

”I’m beggin' no trouble please” sings Crum as he showcases his tasteful reserve for embellishing notes and attacks rather then cramming as many ideas as possible into the lick. To his back, Shea’s use of delayed expectations jumps off the beat and offers an array of musical morsels for the connoisseur. With dark themes of redemption and damnation Great Lakes begins to raise the mocking question “Who the hell are Queens of the Stone Age and what do they know?”

The set starts to wind down. Crum stands at the mic: “Doubt you guys are old enough to remember... But we used to live here.” As he’s saying this, previous members of Great Lakes jump on stage to perform “No More Conquistadors.” The song breaks into an utter jam of a start and stop nature with each section exploring out of limits before blending and blurring into the next.

Ah, rock improv – done well – is so rare.

Great Lakes strikes down and people begin to drift outside. Behind the scenes a rented Pontiac Grand Prix absconds the 40 Watt parking lot to fetch the most eagerly awaited Roky Erickson.

In comparison to the previous night’s Little Kings crowd, the indie kids have been forfeited to an older generation of music enthusiasts. Eyes start to gleam as the anticipation mounts for the evening’s headliner. Stories of Roky are traded, others make speculations. This is how the time is spent during Popfest’s longest set change.

To re-cap, we’ve seen two quintets and two duos. And these bands combined don’t equal the numbers on stage as Dark Meat crowds in front of the 40 Watt’s signature bulb. I do my best to count (why not? It’s a scavenger hunt question), fourteen people? More emerge from crouched positions and I’ve completely lost track. A piccolo, several violins... A guy in a Burger King crown... Another pated in a headdress similar to the pagan costume of Wicker Man. An anarchist’s orchestra. The longest set change... Can you blame them?

Most watch as the sound is checked. Toward the back I catch a smile twinkled from disbelief of the extravaganza. The piccolo calls on “Humoresque” as each wind player checks their mic... Fuck this is gonna take forever. The smell of patchouli hangs over head as Jim McHugh expresses his joy for sharing a stage with Erickson. “I’ve had a three week gig boner since I’ve heard about it.”

Both performers and audience are packed into respective spaces like sardines. The body mass on the floor isn’t enough to absorb the attack launched at them as everything quakes from sonic vibrations. Delimiting the musical detail is a task... Let’s just agree on the term “force.”

A few members move around the stage – this seems haphazard as someone is liable to fall off. McHugh chats about their second song “Last Frontier:” “It’s about being alone.” Ha ha.

“I’ve always noticed that Popfest crowds are really well behaved. So let’s try to not continue that,” notes the singer.

The bass pulses dance rhythms into connecting fibers. There are moments of atonality as each wind player keys out their own independent sound. It’s loud to the point of physically unsettling as this stridant symphony literally radiates a heat.

For the last song, there’s some bustling as a few members switch instruments. McHugh tells us that the last song will be a cover of Erickson’s “Be and Bring Me Home.” The singer states that as a college-radio DJ he’d been given the album for review and was so moved by the song he played it three times in a row. It’s a soothing chorus of sweetly singing voices giving homage to a hero.