Apostrophe S

Drag the River played The Domino Room on Wednesday, and they impressed the dozen or so people who were there.

Some other blogger told me that what I write about isn’t interesting. Well, she’s mostly right. Except that she writes about less interesting stuff than I do. But anyway, here’s my attempt at something interesting. I went to a show last night at The Domino Room to see three bands I didn’t know. (One member of one of the bands went to high school with a friend here. That was the impetus for attendance.) The result was a night of enjoyable music and a measure or three of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I would like to extend a thank-you to the 12 or so people who came out to support one of our best local music venues. Shame on the rest of Bend.

Confederats

Nothing wakes you up from domestic bliss like the thrashing sounds of a hard-working punkcore band like the Confederats. I honestly can’t remember a single lyric or rif from their set, but I don’t think that’s what it was really about. They were loud, in tune and had tremendous skill with their instruments. You can’t ask for much more than that. My only real complaint is that they kind of fell into Cookie Monster Vocal mode.

I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the House

I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the House radically changed the feel of the music in the house with about their third chord. The punk kids who were thrash dancing during the Confederats set stopped and stood around for a while, then moved to the benches, then pretty much just left. Which is fine. Because I couldn’t see past their moussed mohawks anyway. ICLASOBITH confused me. I couldn’t really figure out what sound they were going for. It kind of started out as run-of-the-mill southern rock, then drifted into rockabilly. At one point they sounded like Metallica dipped in the Mississippi, at another they sounded like Bryan Adams if he were homeless. One song even sounded Steve Earle-ish. But none of the songs were what I would call memorable. The best genre I could come up with to describe them was swamp metal, if that has any meaning. I enjoyed several of their songs, but I kind of found myself looking at the time and wondering when the next band was going to start.

Drag the River

It turned out the next band arrived in Bend from a gig in San Francisco about 30 minutes before they were supposed to go on. But Drag the River didn’t miss a beat. They got their shit set up in record time and when they started playing, it sounded perfect. Drag the River is an alt-country band through and through, but they often reached points of intensity that lifted them above the fray. I couldn’t help but see influences from Uncle Tupelo to the Jayhawks to the Old 97s, albeit less optimistic than the latter. I’m really surprised this band hasn’t popped up before on the alt-country radars that I frequent. That is to say, if you like alt-country, this is one of those great acts that all of your alt-country friends have probably never heard of. Until you act all cool and lay it on them.

Drag the River: “Dirty Lips”* [mp3]

(*Could be legal, could not. Download at your own risk.)