In the nonexistent handbook of The Painfully Obvious it states that drought, famine and straight-up hard luck can lead to some rather extreme behavior. Just ask the Donners. While not exactly a resort to cannibalism, my response to the lack of touring bands who make it a point to stop in Baltimore has rendered me rabid and desperate for anything remotely interesting a mere cab ride away, and in consequence, has led to my attendance at some rather peculiar shows.
And I'm not even talking about a want for remotely popular touring bands, either. Certain smaller Midwest or Memphis acts whose decrepit, ramshackle vans could probably benefit from a night's stop in The Greatest City in America would suit me just fine.
Out of this desperation has come a series of unexpectedly good nights and some pretty bizarre ones. None have ever really been "bad," as I can usually find some comic (not necessarily redeeming) quality in even the worst live performance -- though maybe it's just the beer. In this latter category I have been subject to the tedious manipulation of laptop noises by some hulking figure in a stained bunny costume and the relentless, 40-minute long drone of three unchanging guitar tones by two guys who didn't even have the decency to face the audience once while playing. The Air Conditioning show at the Talking Head Club this past Thursday, March 30 was another in a long line of stabs-in-the-dark, and while not life-altering, was thankfully nothing like these aforementioned stunts.
The first band of the night was Hollywood. That I could hear instrumental echoes of the last minute or so of their set as the taxi rolled up E. Davis Street isn't saying much, as virtually anything going on in the Talking Head can usually be heard a few blocks down. Except for that time Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower took the stage for a half hour and didn't really play anything.
Perestroika and the New Flesh went on second and third, respectively, and I could have done without their sets in favor of more from our headliner. Baltimore locals Perestroika acted like little more than a few kids jamming in some wood-paneled basement, finally cohering their shuddering guitar and punching bass around a taut rhythm for the last 60 seconds of the set. Had their entire performance been of this quality, I definitely would have left at the end of the night more comfortable with the $7 cover charge.
The New Flesh seemed to have arrived at the venue with a healthy dose of confidence, presumably due to the fan club in tow. The usually empty area up front was replaced by a small though formidable horde of choppy-haired girls and a few guys attempting to out-irony one another via plaid, and only plaid. There was not much to distinguish the New Flesh from Perestroika other than more frequent vocals and a forsaking of meandering, untamed guitar lines for a bit more structure. The parental basement jam quality was still present. To their credit, though, I'm happy to report that neither of these bands resorted to laptops or bunny suits.
Now call me downright moronic, but based on the Web site description of Air Conditioning, I had seriously prepped myself for a night of witnessing "telephone wires as strings and hubcaps for picks," as paraphrased. (Seriously though, how awesome does that sound?) The "tree trunks for sticks" bit should have let me in on this glaringly evident use of literary license, but as I suggested before: moronic. While not the biblically epic, show-to-end-all-shows I'd been led to believe, they played a solid set saturated with all the eardrum abuse and mangled guitar you could ever want. Noisy as all hell, yes, but also with a solid base that serves not to alienate listeners but actually draw people in -- shock and awe, if you will. They too kept the same three member guitar-bass-drums setup as the previous bands, but ultimately produced a far more potent product.
During the final two minutes of the set, the floor and my nerves began to shake, the sweltering air of the bar vibrated against my temples, and the entire atmosphere became very, very still. Air Conditioning had turned the venue into the very antithesis of the band's name -- a stagnant swamp of deranged pariahs, a chrome factory caught in a blaze, a hellish inferno. At less than 20 minutes the set was far too short, but I may have gone deaf otherwise.
