Sunday, September 18, 2005

CMJ Marathon Highlights: Uh Oh, It's Detroit again

My one participation in last year's CMJ Fest was a primarily Motor City affair. The all night cavalcade at the Mercury Lounge featured The Paybacks, The Sights, Blanche, and Cincinatti-Detroit wanderers the Greenhornes (along with friends Holly Golightly and Mr. Airplane Man) was my one CMJ show. This year I got the chance to see two. And while there were indeed more than a handful of intriguing non-Detroit acts to check out (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dressy Bessy, International Noise Conspiracy to name some), I wound up at two Detroit gigs.

Gore Gore Girls; Fireball Ministry; The Black Halos; Crash Kelly
@Continental
New York, NY – September 15, 2005


This is what the annual CMJ Marathon festival does. It slaps a 60’s garage retro throwback onto a night of another label’s set of bands…who have nothing in common with the headlining act. Granted, the musical and stylistic differences of these acts did make for an eclectic line-up, but all on a variation of metal. Metal. Nothing to do with the Gore Gore Girls for sure. The Gores (now armed with a Gore Gore Boy on bass) were much improved from their lackluster opening for the Cramps at Irving Plaza, which was when I saw them last. This much smaller club venue, the legendary Continental (think CBGB’s exactly, but with only half the commercialization inside), had the sound and appeal for the retro garage fun of Amy Gore and the gang. Amy’s leadership was more animated and fun and enthused from when they played Irving…considering they play clubs consistently, this was what I should have expected.
As for the multi-metal acts, southern hard rockin’ Fireball Ministry was surprisingly good (as they were not as thrash as they looked – in fact, they weren’t thrash at all) but the “other kinds of music suck and is for pussies” rants got a little old after awhile. The Black Halos were actually more hardcore punk than anything else but the Crow-look is done (and the aging lead singer was essentially Dee Dee Ramone…some combo)…and Crash Kelly were an 80’s hair metal throwback….they weren’t the Darkness…nuff said.

The Avatars
@Trash Bar
Brooklyn, NY – September 17, 2005


I have to admit the Detroit music…scene…has been getting a bit stale from an outsider’s perspective. There hasn’t been the constant flurry of bands to be discovered outside the city in over a year. One of the last bands to catch my eye were the Avatars, who had dynamite songs on their site…and were heavily pushed by Motorcityrocks.com. But they never toured outside their Ann Arbor-Detroit area circuit…until now. As part of the CMJ tour, this Get Hip Recordings/No Fun Records show in Williamsburg began with this quintet. I was expecting a good show…but I did not expect to be absolutely floored. The Avatars are utterly perfect. Ranking up there with Detroit’s best (and therefore the nation’s best and the world’s best)…the Avatars offer a mix of pop, punk, and garage rock (which are all music snob ways of saying they play Rock n Roll)…but what makes them stand out is their solid skill. While other bands revel in their sloppiness, including musically sharp and talented acts like the White Stripes and the Dirtbombs, the Avatars deliver on crisp, tight goodies (only the Paybacks really remind me of this band). It was stunning to listen to the synchronicity of this rock. But it isn’t polished! It isn’t slick! It is raw, loud, and hard. The Avatars perfectly combine tight, skilled melodic hooks with fierce, straight-outta-da-garage intensity. The guitar players remind rock n roll fans of Angus Young and Johnny Ramone (an awesome combination to be sure)…the bass is fun and noticeable…the drums are intense but controlled (which is an apt description of the whole band) and lead singer and tambourine shaker Mariah Cherem is a dynamic spitfire dishing out intoxicating vocals (on-key and everything). It will be too long before the Avatars come around the East Coast again…but when they do…you see this? I can’t finish the thought. That’s how good the Avatars are.

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