5/29/06: Hi-Red Center/Maps and Atlases/Witties/Mewl

Last night's show was the best one to date at Mice Pace; it rivaled the Battle Royale/El Minotaur/Sadville show as the best show I've ever booked in Cookeville. A decent turnout and four sets ranging from badass to unholy-ly badass made the night memorable. Witties opened the evening with his usual drone/psych/Hot Lixx set. Admittedly (on Witties' behalf) a little rusty, to those of us who hold Witties' tunes close to our hearts, he was a little rough around the edges. To those getting their Witties' cherry popped last night, it was a goddamn treat. He opened his set with the bowed drone-with-pickin' over it song and followed it with a sweet improvised guitar-based, knob-twistin' jam that surely melted a few minds. Next up was his show-stopper--the Hot Lixx doomy drone epic, complete with "shredding" and sickeningly grim melodies. Witties closed his set with a Hot Lixx-based psychedelic improv that finally melted all minds that had not yet received the melting. Witties says he's going to practice more and write some new stuff. Sweet.

Maps and Atlases played next. Hailing from Chicago and having recently played the post-rock monolith Russian Circles' album release party, Maps and Atlases absolutely brought it to Cookeville. Their set of finger-tappin' frolics above maximized drumming floored the crowd. While Maps and Atlases run the risk of overkill with the noodling and the continuous maximum, these dudes offer their technicality to an unconventional framework: the pop song. Oh, and the noodling is fucking catchy as hell. It's not often that a band like Don Caballero gets stuck in my head, but Maps and Atlases got me mouth-riffin' several of their parts over the course of the rest of the evening. And the crowd loved it.

The third performance of the evening came from Brooklyn's Hi-Red Center. The quartet entertained the audience with a set of catchy yet bizarre pop songs. Big vibes, Beefheartian guitar, and loose, jazz-based instrumentation set Hi-Red Center apart from most other pop bands I've encountered (live or on record). In comparison, Xiu Xiu comes to mind, but still, Hi-Red Center is traveling down a different sonic boulevard than Jamie Stewart's bizarro pop outfit. I found out that a couple of the dudes frequent the Brooklyn Academy of Music (where my good friend Franklin is employed) and are into experimental musicians such as Steve Reich, Alvin Lucier, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. And this was evident by the way they approached their instruments and the pop song.

My band Mewl played last. Our first performance was on Mice Pace's opening night: walls of shrieking, harsh noise with blaring horns over it--the few people who didn't get chased out by the awful screeching ran around in circles and did their best attempt to conjure up all that is unholy. And one person spraypainted "It will never be ok" on the wall...over a Sunn amp head. This time around was different. And a lot more pleasing to the senses. I started off with a quiet, Metal Zone-based drone, Anthony crescendoed on some tremolo and fuzz, and Mikey laid down some sweet swells on his cymbal and floor tom. We (predictably) built up to a rather psychedelic drone--the peace fingers were a-swirlin' in my mind throughout the set--and Mikey laid down some cool licks on the trombone. For our second show, we did quite well. We sold a few of our cd-rs, and several people complimented us on the set. It's always good to hear praise, especially when we are so young as a band. Hopefully we can continue the positive momentum into this beer-filled, psychedelia-drenched summer.

Best show at Mice Pace? Definitely.