Moral Panic and The Twaynes at The Gardens

I had received a text from my roommate asking if I was still coming when I remembered about this show. He had mentioned it as an acoustic show  Practicing in the local Gamelan at the time, I let him know I would be making it late, apologizing to both him and the members of the Gamelan for being skimpy before slipping my shoes and coat on and dashing off in my car to the Union Building. 

Surprisingly, I found parking quickly in the usually crowded lot and stepped outside again, shivering and unprepared for the upcoming winter before finding heat in The Gardens downstairs, the university bar hosting weekly shows of music and stand-up through the student-run StudioWYO organization. The stage-area is fit with partitioning speaker-monitors in front of performers, a collection of rotating multi-colored stage lights situated on an aluminum frame, and a dark curtain backdrop, often lit purple or green. This is further accompanied by a wordless television playing advertisements and football, a series of pool tables, an assortment of tables, chairs, railings, and old and young people filled with at least two beers each. 

I found my roommate, who immediately began asking me ideas for some "live tweet" assignment or something the whole show. The constant buzz of conversation and the clatter of pool balls and glass cups filled the silences between the notes of the performance, not entirely dissonant to the casual music.

The Twaynes

The Twaynes are the father and son duo of Jack Wallace on fiddle and Shane on an acoustic guitar plugged directly into the mix. They were dressed straight in tuxedos with hair slicked back and glasses fit snugly to read what may be sheet music or a loose fake-book from the stand before them.

My roommate tells me I missed two songs, but after a few songs, I wonder if this was really so significant.. Each song consists of the fiddle player making a tone cry from the strings, often mellow and bittersweet over a series of bumbling cowboy chords, played in a plucked or root-strum sequence and circling around some standard American-folk progression. The guitarist's voice is a deep bass, while the fiddle's a higher, older croaking.

There is some old-time influence, some occasional swing renditions, some Holy Modal Rounders at times maybe. It seems to be a fairly general and restrained folk sound, and I'm not even sure if any of the compositions are original honestly. The band plays a cover of the Loy Clingman murder ballad "It's Nothing to Me," taking a couple pointers from embellishments found in Jim Reeves's version. The stripped down fiddle-guitar pairing behind the deep warbling drawls of "I see the way he looks at yoouuuu" makes for an emotionally potent experience, and minor key walk downs are extended to make for what must be one of the saddest covers of this song I've heard.

The general air of the room is relaxed, the songs bumbling along and broken by jokes like "We're not used to light shows, playin' in them" accompanied with awkward laughter before starting into a surprise bouncy gypsy-jazz piece. Jack's fiddle renditions are pretty skilled, squeaking a little in tonight's performance on some faster parts, but displaying decent finger work and a well-placed variety of notes. His face was incredibly stern with aging lines frowning across his forehead, but I imagine he still has fun.

The execution is particularly phenomenal on the final song, a piece decided after the audience responded the obvious to Shane's "Do you want kinda spectacular, or spectacular?" Shane sits on one chord much of the song as his father aggressively stabs his bow across the strings, sometimes drawing the notes out in dissonant slides, making the fiddle growl at one point, before galloping away into another bouncy fiddle-line at a breakneck pace. Jack is not making this look easy, and the effect is pretty dazzling. He even briefly carries chords to give Shane space for a few elegant guitar licks.

By the end of the show, the audience has been a little more engaged, and the response is casual and pleasant. I walked forward to thank Jack for his performance, who charismatically delved into his past playing music in Wyoming. He lamented the decreased interest in such music recently, remembering a recently canceled Shoshone festival and a six-piece he played in in the 60s and suggesting such a setup would not be sustainable nowadays. He states that "I was raised in Wyoming, I play Wyoming music, and its what I enjoy." He asked me if I played, to which I referred to playing drums in the grungy, short-lived Smoked Ham Club. He reiterated the importance of restraint, especially in playing drums, and advised me to keep practicing and playing however I can. I walked away more than a little inspired from his open attitude and perspective in spite of the generational gap.

Listen to their music here.

Moral Panic

Moral Panic is the local folk/acoustic rock band fronted by professor Caskey Russel (Introducing himself as "Dwayne Stevens") on vocals and guitar and accompanied by Ken Gerow on Bass, Julia Obert on fiddle, Jascha Herdt on drums, and Bob Moore on an assortment of auxiliary percussion, particularly a washboard with "Sunnyland" burned into the wood hanging from his neck. The band began playing the song as Caskey holds his guitar a little punky on his hip and asks his bassist "What's this song about? Oh, classy girls don't kiss in bars," as the whole band cannot keep from laughing, clearly a couple beers down. Caskey wanders off the stage, facing his back to the audience. The song is a standard I-IV-V with a turnaround to end Lydian, played upbeat and fun, a trace of campfire playfulness (I think of Microphones, but much more country and less messy) throughout and sung out in a sweet tenor voice.

I go to the counter to get a Pabst at this point as Julia remarks at the song's end that it was the "Longest he's ever lasted," to which I proclaim an immature "That's what she said!" and the band can barely keep any composure as Caskey acknowledges "a complement." He states they're only playing a three-song set before continuing on to another upbeat song, the drums tight and vaguely "Morning Bell" with its fills. The beer is cool and woody on my tongue and fits the room's atmosphere perfectly. An older couple is dancing in the corner by the speaker, and the band sustains good energy, Caskey keeping a smile plastered to his face as he sings.'

Restraint became a common theme in this music as well, the standard formed verse-chorus structure almost getting a little repetitive. But this structure allowed the band flexibility, breaking from bluegrass Americana to the country-protopunk romp of Dylan's "Tombstone Blues." One song sounded vaguely like a bar shanty, while a preacher-megaphone performance from Moore even felt like the wild style of the drawling vocalist in some Residents. This was all very subtle, however, and a Bright Eyes alt-folk simplicity unifyied the sound throughout.

The choruses distinctly created a quiet-loud dynamic with the verses, and angst persisted in lyrics like "There's nothing left/but lust and sex/but I can't tell the difference anymore" in "Nihilistic Drinking Song." I was reminded of Caskey relating his past-life in Seattle playing grunge in The Village Idiots (okay...the link is not actually his band, but it would be funny if it was). He also mentioned the opportunity of bumping into Kurt Cobain at a surprise underground secret show. When I asked him about his old band after the show, he said he had experienced extreme tinnitus, making this band a relaxing alternative for his ears.

Their Facebook page with short videos of some music can be found here.

The band covers Simon and Garfunkel and "S.O.B." as the night goes on, but I find myself running into the typical issue of small-time singer/songwriter acts and find the songs blur into one another after a while. I join my friend in a game of pool and blend in with the distanced crowd as the music hung over our heads, becoming a smaller part of the air and sounds around us.

The particular thing I enjoy more so about these bar and open-mic shows is a sense of community. Each song carries a story and particular sound, but the emphasis lies more in engagement with each other and feeling the relatively social atmosphere in the room. One can have a beer and casually have a beer and talk to the bartender or dance in the corner, it doesn't matter. The music, more than anything, provides a good excuse to come together and go out for a fun, casual night. 

Dancing Plague and Entresol at The Green House

Working a weekend night shift while studying at UW, I have recently lost my regular sleep schedule and developed a reputation for prolonging sleep in the evening and arriving late to everything during the day due to unintentional naps and burgeoning sluggishness. Having realized I had woken up at 7 for the 7-11 show thus meant throwing on whatever clothing I found scattered on the floor and veering around corners to park on Ivinson between 11th and 10th and jog across Grand to reach The Green House, a house venue recently opened by musician and local Laramie resident Alex Soveroski. Their first advertised show in the trademark psychedelic design seen above occurred inhttps://laradisesounds.blogspot.com/2018/11/dancing-plague-and-others-at-green.html August of this year, offering what seems to be an alternative to the typical punk-oriented bar shows in the Laramie area.

Entering the house reveals a typical college living room plus differentials and algorithms scattered across whiteboard walls. Walking through the kitchen and down the stairs leads to the basement, a tight, carpeted area fit with white-brick walls, strung Christmas lights, a counter-clockwise clock, and a six-speaker PA system fit with a mess of cords running back to a mixing board under the stairs. A partition separates this from the merch table and an area consisting of computer and vinyl collection among assorted junk. 

This place also has a coat-rack, helping relieve me of some weight from my shoulders.

Having arrived 20 minutes late actually gave me about 20 minutes to stand against a wall and throw out names like Daughters and Pg. 99 to anyone who cared to hear. These local shows are fairly social settings, after all, and a few shows will reveal familiar faces and exchanged numbers while waiting for a show to start on "punk-time." But around 7:40, the time had come for Soveroski to thank everyone for coming out and move to the front stage for the opening act.

Yegarma

Yegarma is the solo project of Soveroski himself, labeled as "Math Pop," instantly suggesting for me the solo works of Zach Hill. Soveroski steps to the front of the room behind his keyboard and mess of pedals, boards, and switches, strapping a guitar and checking a mic while asking someone to say a joke. After some awkward mumbles, he delivers a sardonic "What happens when the elephant enters the room? Somebody dies." and activates a loop to trigger a noisy, effects-drenched wall of sound with a club beat fading in behind, paired with chopped, sequenced samples being scattered and looped through the room. The beat is complemented with glitchy flourishes as the beat becomes more erratic (akin perhaps to the subtler sections of Iglooghost), looped with some zany keyboard and distorted guitar, and then sang over in awkward melodies like a baritone Avey Tare. 

The song barely settles for a second before falling apart in a series of glitches and polyrhythmic suites evolving with mathematically-precise tempo shifts and washed out, often sugary waves of noise. Zach Hill sans double-bass certainly shows prominently, but not without his electronic side shown in CHLL PLL or glitchier configurations of Death Grips along with chiptune synth stylings, incredibly pervasive late-Animal Collective and Breakcore influences, further breaks in erratic time signatures and key changes, and the occasional surprise of ambiently-strummed guitar or spoken word, all heavily processed and distorted in effect pedals. 

The sound is a little claustrophobic, and incredibly overwhelmingly visceral, but one cannot help but be carried along with the entrancing frenzy, feeling carried away in the incredibly trippy and subversive sound. Soveroski is clearly working hard to keep this trance up, bouncing from instrument to modulators and filters, constantly focusing everywhere at once and yet, still keeping some kind of light, unified cohesion.

If you have not already, you can follow his music link here.

Entresol

Entresol is the "melodic noise" project of John Lervold hailing from Oregon. I had been busy in the backyard with the smell of cigarettes and faint weed when the windows began rattling from the sound, signifying a descent back to the basement.

The lights were dimmed as Lervold stood tall over a narrow table draped in a ghostly sheet, stacked with an assortment of sample boards and distortion pedals. The sound was an incredibly industrial strain of noise-drone with the occasional processed drum samples, displaying the moodiness of Coil with the full destructive power of Ramleh, all played incredibly LOUD. 

Over this, Lervold softly sings in a weak Jamie Stewart register or delivers an anxious monologue, such as the circular "I don't care, and I swear that I'm telling and I'm telling and I am TELLING, and I don't care" repeated and rising in a climactic panic attack, imitating the haunting loops he sings alongside. At other times, when the rhythms fall into a slow, heavy banger, he may sing more forcefully into an overdriven contact mic concealed in an Altoids tin, mints rattling into the thick noise.

The effect overall is quite dark and foreboding, luring the listeners into anxious ambiance before trapping and drowning them in complete terror, flooding the space of their souls in its darkness. One feels dirty and introspective listening to such music, and the sound is harsh and depressing. The minimal setup is made up for in the peculiar sound design (such as the Altoids) and the disturbed stage presence. His list of merch included the offer of free hugs, a necessity after a show this intense.

Check out his music here.

Dancing Plague

Dancing Plague is the musical darkwave project of Connor Knowles hailing from Spokane, Washington. He music has been featured on prominent German and Italian darkwave labels as well as the Florida-based Crass Lips Records. He projects black and white footage from "old horror films and personal camera stuff" onto the wall behind him. I ask if he enjoys Begotten, and, removing his glasses and brushing a hand through his top-heavy punk cut, awkwardly states he will have to look into it. The lights are dimmed, a synth blasts sound into the room, and, after the inclusion of a film dialogue sample, a minimal 808 beat kicks in with an infectiously bouncy synth-groove and some icy, shimmering synths overhead.

Each song develops into an impressionistic sound palette of synths and sampled drum patterns, dark and retro enough for any 80s goth party. The motif of film dialogue breaks up each song, and at one point, the inclusion of John Hurt's seminal line from The Elephant Man incites a collection of grins and knowing nods from the audience. A strobe emits from below the same cloth-covered table from the last set, creating an irresistible aesthetic experience in need of only fog and heavy incense.

Much of the sound is not entirely separate from much of the modern independent post-punk like Forever Grey and Lebanon Hanover, albeit entirely synth, like a John Maus played straight with goth. But the act is truly brought together by the signer's charismatic performance, black shirt buttoned to the neck and booming shouts conjuring the haunted spirit of Ian Curits meeting perfectly halfway the wavering of more Maus and even a trace of the emotional wails of Robert Smith. His body bounces up and down with his synths, composing himself briefly before shouting lyrics like "If I took my own life, would you celebrate?!?" with full conviction in his eyes, often looking on the verge of breaking down in an emotional crisis before being propped up by the relentlessly pounding beat. His energy is something difficult to not be taken away by, and I find myself naturally nodding along moodily to the pulses of dark, yet energetic sounds.

His music can be found here.
and a music video for the song "An Endless Want" here.

Spiral Shaper

Spiral Shaper is the project of one Jason G., the local producer of a vein of electronic music he terms "cyberpunk." After the lights are turned up once again, he plugs in his laptop and mixing board to play. The electronic composition of bare synths starts off carrying a synthwave mood to the audience before really breaking in with a series of drops, wobbles, and chirps already hardwired by the likes of Skrillex and everyone else in the modern EDM/Rave scene, albeit a bit production and a little messier.

But there does seem to be a bit more variety in the music. Occasionally, a Daft Punk disco-funk sequence may feature in the sound, or a vaguely trap-influenced beat (sans rattling hi-hats and brass) may take hold. As this music continues to evolve much as a typical DJ set, it's hard to say it ever gets entirely repetitive, but after the 10th high-pass sweep segue to a drop, it does feel a little exhausting.

I will admit, this has never been quite the type of music that appeals to me. But there does seem to be an audience for it, as what remained of the crowd this far into the night witnessed a few individuals, as pictured left, dancing in a trance, a short woman in a black sweater matching part flowing hand motions, part jerking with a tall lanky man wearing plaid pajama pants and a psychedelic cat shirt with the phrase "Drink water" printed in large block letters on the back. Vape mist flowed through the air as someone excitedly proclaimed "This music, this is like Zelda!!" before wildly thrashing to another drop. The audience would occasionally clap to a section of music as if applauding a horn solo, to which the producer would raise his hands and point fingers in bravado. If not my cup of tea, it was all at least quite a scene to behold.

If this is your style, his music can be found here.

But surely, the energy died out by the end of the night, and Spiral Shaper was the only one still dancing to his set. He played a fast tempo jungle piece to close the night and thanked everyone for staying through his set. This particular show featured a chess-set raffle, the winner of which was luckily still around. The crowd had diminished to a fourth of its size from the beginning of the night; a four line-up show can be tedious on a Monday night. But alas, everyone exchanged thanks for what was certainly an interesting evening, grabbed their coats, and headed home to the drones of tinnitus singing lullabies of restless sleep.