Dark Sea Dream - Disco Machine Gun - Caustic Casanova -- Velvet Lounge - April 11 2010

Caustic Casanova - This show is the last DC show for a while as the band will be doing some recording into the summer which should prove interesting. And it was a solid send off. The early part of the set had a twisted art damaged punk sound which really worked well with the guitar and bass battling atop the solid drumming. The set finished with two great long psyche jams that were songs and not just mindless jamming. Their theme was New Mexico tonight (St. Louis previously) and they are at a far more rapid pace to go through the country than Sufjan Stevens ever will. An excellent DC band that hopefully will be delivering some of their fine songs on a CD for each and every one of you.

Disco Machine Gun - From Wilmington, Delaware comes this power trio plus viola. Their sound rocks and there is certainly care in their songwriting. I had trouble coming up with an easy classification which is usually a good thing (it was this time). Between the C.Casanova's first part of their set and some of the snarling jagged songs I was hearing here, I kept thinking back to the pre-punk scene out of Cleveland from about 1975-6. Maybe I was simply anticipating the Styrenes show next week at this same club which I am looking forward too. In any event, this was a good twisted rock band that I would like to hear a couple more times to see where they fit in my listening world. And thankfully, they got the sound man to get the viola sound improved after a quiet start.

Dark Sea Dream - I have not seen an amp to person ratio like this since I saw Nine Inch Nails over five years ago. And then when one guitarist pulled out two sets of effects boards that had cords and cords of old growth on them, I kind of knew what to expect. They did pretty well trying to get this massive set-up up and running quickly, but did not have time to get an annoying buzz figured out. Well, they played over it, through it and around it. This was loud psychedelic shoegaze with not much variation. I think it was a two song set. There were treated vocals and two guitars doing enough different things to make it interesting. With this sound and some work on harnessing it and writing some more songs, they could become Bardo Pond. I am sure I will be seeing their progress some time soon.

Crossword Puzzle Clue of the Week: From the new Sunday Washington Post puzzle... "30 Across: 1988 Syd Barrett album" ...Four letters...