Thank God that’s over. Having finally moved in and gotten entirely settled into the new place, I finally found the time and energy to leave the apartment to go catch Girl in a Coma at The Knitting Factory’s new Brooklyn location this past Friday.
My only real familiarity with Girl in a Coma only extends to the news reports earlier this year when an altercation ensued with two of the members of the band and a cop that resulted in some felony charges. I sought out their music, but what I heard on MySpace was good, but not great. It initially struck me as earnest girl group rock music with very slick production, having more in common with Alanis Morrisette’s first album and the most striking thing was the vocalist’s voice. From there I kind of blew them off until their second release Trio BC came out and I gave the album a fair evaluation, and I really liked what I found.
Strong song writing, strong instrumentation, strong vocals, distinct style and I am happy to say that I was wrong in my initial impressions of their music. How could I avoid seeing a band that caused me to totally reevaluate my initial impressions?
I was unfamiliar with every band on the line up, so I wanted to get there early just in case there were any other hidden gems performing. The first band Des Roar, on paper, should have had me in the palms of their hands. Sarcastic surf pop but it came across as smarmtastic muffed pap. I can’t really say what about their music drove me away. It was played well, it was performed well, but I think the problem was that it all sounded like lifts from other better bands. I was reminded of Agent Orange, the Ventures and Dick Dale, which really just reminded me how much I loved those bands and hated stuff like the Vivian Girls and The Drums and other proponents of “nusurf.” I know what they’re attempting to do, but it just feels so stale in ways that other bands like Reigning Sound do not. If it were just a bit faster, and perhaps less clean, edging closer to rockabilly it would probably appeal greater to me.
Black Gold was great live. Singer / Keyboardist Eric Ronick maintained a high level of involvement and interplay with the audience regardless of the tempo of the song, while touring members Shiben on Bass and Alister Paxton on Guitar used the entire stage to their advantage. Shiben was amazing to watch, strutting around the stage while he played with an askew hat almost like a parody of how you’d expect a bassist to perform to exaggerated effect. The keyboards weren’t pulled very loudly through the sound system so they weren’t as effective as they are on the album, but the rest of the band, though largely rhythm based were able to carry the music effectively for the performance. The music on their self titled album is “electropop” encompassing all that the term means veering from a strong dance sound for tracks such as “What you Did” to the almost British Quirk of “The Comedown” which starts of simply and builds to hand claps and fuzzed guitars. Because of the sound engineering a lot of the subtlety was lost in the performance of these songs live, but I think that’s more due to a miscommunication with the soundboard operator than any fault of the band.
Girl in a Coma was amazing. They played for an hour and a half straight with no breaks beyond “thank you”. All three members in perfect sync as the band veered from wild punk rock that would have made Allison Wolfe jealous to deceptively simple songs which seem almost surreal on first listen
The crowd was probably the most eclectic mix I’d yet seen at the new venue with bike punk girls in cropped hair sang along next to Hispanics while white hipsters came dangerously close to moving their bodies in time with the music. The audience’s enthusiasm built from song to song, showing appreciation from the first songs with clapping, to the songs towards the end of the set with wild slamming of fists onto the stage. Wrapping up the set was an almost religious experience as Nina Diaz sang to the crowd with just herself on stage, illuminated in blue, singing A Simple Man before they closed out with a version of Radiohead’s creep which stripped out all the unnecessary bits and sped it up by about half, sending everyone home happy. If you get the chance to see Girl in a Coma perform, GO!