O crowd surf girl, some day your image will be encrusted on belt buckles and t-shirts and decals in Hot Topics across America, silhouetted like an iPod ad goth-amatized in the hands of teenage anarchist marketing schemes and overpaid graphic designers. But until that day comes, we will revere your ability to do leg lifts while being propelled through the air by a dozen sweaty palms, your lack of inhibition, your taste for experimental punk noise, your round, buxom smile.
The Fucking Ocean
Did you, O fair crowd surf girl, happen to catch The Fucking Ocean? They were really fucking raw.
Tidal, not so much. Epic, not quite. But you know that feeling when you open your eyes in the fucking ocean? Because that works: hazy, vague outlines, slight burning sensation. Now put Erase Errata a few lifeguard towers away, shouting at you in that erratic way of theirs to come up for air (for gods sake) or risk drowning in that salty stew. Naw fuck that metaphor; get out of the ocean, stake out some tiki torches and get Erase Errata to cool it with their instructional arpeggios and trained dissonance over this particular strain of San Francisco post-punk; basically, get them to risk losing their jobs and loosen up the party, and you’ve got The Fucking Ocean.
dd/mm/yyyy
Now, crowd surf girl, I know that you managed at least a taste of dd/mm/yyyy.
I’m not sure whether you caught their lyrics, which are about girls who, much like you in the midst of punk shows, float above the firmament of normal, sweaty people. “We’re not your typical bourgeois girls! We have the power to change the world!… WE LOOK THE SAME!” or “What do you get for the girl who’s got everything?”
I’m sure you did catch their nimble time changes (because it’s hard to mosh to them), their swat-team style five-man attack that relies on door-smashing dynamics and machine gun rhythmic swacking on double synths and guitar. But did you catch them out of uniform at the end of songs like “Simple Life”, loosely stretching out arhythmically? Yup, you did, because those were the calm patches before the next assault, and it only made you and the rest of the kids that much more deranged when the noise came rushing back in.
Parts & Labor
Let’s pause a moment, crowd surf girl, and reflect on Parts and Labor’s new drummer. Did Christopher Weingarten do hamstring stretches prior to his sets? Well, Joe Wong does. Could Christopher Weingarten overpower BJ Warshaw’s bass and Dan Friel’s snarling toy keyboards and soaring two part harmonies with one slap at his snare drum? Joe Wong can. Alright, maybe Weingarten has that one covered. He also has Public Enemy covered, apparently. But what Wong presented (in comparison to Weingarten’s emotive style) was a cool professionalism that complimented P&L’s digital squall with an almost digital precision. Seems like this new, powerful attack lubed you up for smooth sailing over the crowd, no? Especially on imminently classic anthems like “A Great Divide”. But don’t thank them, they thanked you (and the rest of the kids). Friel sounded nearly ecstatic to be back in Brooklyn after six weeks of touring Europe and North America.Knyfe Hyts
Poor crowd surf girl. Where the hell did all the bodies upon which you surf go for Knyfe Hyts? Have any of them heard of fucking Ex Models? Stalwarts of the underground, predecessors and followers to strains of New York noise and friends to Deerhunter and Karen O? Well, fickle crowd, you didn’t leave any of us disappointed, not even our lady of the human seas, cuz we all finally got enough elbow room to slowly rock them to Knyfe Hyt’s ten ton gravity. We also got to see their stage masks, Zach Lehrhoff dressed as a Jew or a pirate or something and one of the Motia bro’s (Shahin or Shahyar?) dressed up as Gay. (Note the rainbow Mohawk.)
It was epic, as usual, and we can only hope, crowd surf girl, that it will stay that way for many shows to come. May every show be blessed with your spirit, floating through the firmament, accompanied by the lacerating sounds of amplified noise propelling us all blindly through the set and/or the floor.
