Wavves - Cloud Nothings - Farewell Republic -- Rock'n'Roll Hotel - June 25 2010

Farewell Republic - After missing out on my earlier plans, I arrived in plenty of time to catch this band. They had a guitarist, keyboardist and rhythm section. The early sound was kind of droning psyche neo-Bauhaus sound. The keyboards were surprisingly droning and nothing really seemed to happen. The songs moved into different directions and the last couple were pretty good. Still, something seemed disjointed between the players with the drummer sounding like John Bonham too often and the transitions being too noticeably odd. As the keyboardist sang more, there was a decent Akron/Family fun to the proceedings and they seem like good guys. They are recording soon and are kind of new, so I will grade this incomplete for now and look for improvement next time. I suspect they can do it.

Cloud Nothings - From Cleveland, Ohio comes this four-piece with a two guitar attack. First there was the Choir, then the Raspberries, and now comes this band. Yes, I am skipping a bit of history but these guys fit into that power-pop pattern with a post-punk attack of which I will make further comparisons without alliteration. I was hearing something between the Buzzcocks and 999, a bit closer to the latter. There was also a lot of the early punk-era LA scene evident. They really had the hooks similar to great cult bands like the Nerves or maybe even the Zeroes, although some of the songs were more at Dils-like speed. Some really good guitar interplay at times and the encore had an almost Pere Ubu like break in it (which I wrote in my notes before I learned they were from Cleveland). Great band, great set and a perfect pairing with out headliners tonight.

Wavves - Things have changed since the last time in this club. Wavves excellent drummer is gone and in Memphis, Jay Reatard died but had split from his rhythm section anyway. So the Wavves guitarist/singer hooked up with the two from Memphis and kept it going. Funny how I saw both acts, and I had consciously thought of how similar they were. So this made perfect sense and even with the added bass, was not terribly different from the previous show. The songs are excellent if you dig through the massive reverb and high energy fast and noisy playing full of punk and psyche moves. It was a little shambolic tonight with broken strings on two different guitars and various other odd moves, but it kind of fits the spirit of this crazed pop music. A very young crowd was seriously into it and the club was a little more full this time around. I like these guys and will recommend a listen to their tunes via recordings or through a fun night out like this.

Quote of the Night: After Wavves drummer was rambling on about something, the guitarist and drummer duelled  - "Can you take the drum vocal out of my monitor?" crowd chuckles
"Yeah and can you take his mic out of my monitor? Fuck you."