My experience with Ty Segall began, pleasantly enough, by accident. I had recently heard of Bark Bark Bark and bought that album from Retard Disco. As the label had a ton of music with which I wasn’t familiar, I went ahead and picked up some additional acts by random. It was there that I grabbed The Elipsons’ Killed Em Deader ‘N A Six Card Poker Hand, fourteen tracks of teenage garage rock replacing angst with swagger and replacing swagger with angst. It seems contradictory until you listen to “I Hate (Your Face)”, “Teeny Boppers” and “Stronger than Dirt” which carry forth a great shotgun marriage of teenage folk and teenage hormones. It’s not amazing, but it is fun and it was great to find young punk music that catered to this sound rather than three chords of fury. I didn’t follow up on this release or really pay attention to the band enough to even know that they broke up. Then I heard that the lead singer/songwriter, Ty Segall had struck out on his own after the demise of The Epsilons.
The music that Ty made on his own wasn’t really the same straight-ahead garage rock of his previous band. It was still captured in the same intentionally low quality manner but it was more opaque, more intentionally artistic. Time spent in the company of John Dwyer (of Thee Oh Sees) shows in a kind of softening of hewn edges.
I enjoyed it, but didn’t find it to be music for rocking out. Still, I wanted to catch Ty Segall live and this past Friday, Death By Audio gave me that opportunity.
Brooklyn band Zulus is the reason you always, always, ALWAYS get there to see the opening bands. There’s a chance you’ll not really grasp what a band is doing, or you may find the band too rough to enjoy (like last week’s Cool Intentions) but there are the times when a band like Zulus performs and just spins you around and kicks your ass to the floor.
Zulus is a three-piece standard configuration with the drummer providing vocals. The sound is half noisy garage tinged hardcore but done in the “mysterious guy” style; impenetrable vocals hidden beneath effects, bludgeoning bass, excessive noise and grit in each song. The drum patterns are good and would often go in unexpected complex directions that made the time keeping and singing rather impressive. The songs would hit a groove and would explore it, not afraid to loop simple melodies for longer than expected, but also with a great ability to keep your interest.
Zulus has only been around about six months and they’ve already had to trade out a bassist, who had started playing with them about three months ago. They have a seven-inch coming out in September on Wizard Mountain records and I look forward to picking it up. They’re doing a Show Paper benefit soon-ish but they didn’t have any further details for me and a quick peek at showpaper.org didn’t turn up hints either. After that they head to California to play a handful shows there. See them if you can.
The Moonhearts were also a three piece doing straight ahead garage rock with a slightly romantic edge and a surf appeal that makes them sound like eating a sloppy joe sandwich at the beach. All the pieces are there for a good meal but you keep getting sand where you weren’t expecting it. Unlike that tortured metaphor, the grit in The Moonhearts is appreciated.
Moonhearts is surf rock shot through the standard garage rock filters giving it a Beach Blanket Bingo Bikini Bounce viewed through salt crusted eyes. Part Ventures, part Agent Orange, Part Jay Reatard. There. That’s your “pick three” if you like any of those bands you’ll most likely enjoy the Moonhearts.
On stage Mikal plays the part of Screaming Jay Hawkins yelling at the microphone like it owes him money while dropping to his knees in a fit of passion while he wrestles his bass to the ground. Stepping away to shake his head clear of bad memories and keep his eyes clear of the copious amounts of sweat that had found their way to his eyes. Charlie, on drums, seemed half on stage playing drums and half thinking about what was for lunch tomorrow as his eyes wandered to the ceiling and the floor, anywhere but the kit or the audience. Roland trimmed the tremolo onstage and was quick to switch styles with out a slip in fingers or time.
Taken as a whole, Moonhearts were pretty incredible and I luckily managed to snag the last copy of their brand new album. You can get your own copy (and you really should) for $14 physical or under $10 digital.
I’m certain everyone in The Babies is a great person, donating blood, walking dogs for invalids, volunteering for meals on wheels, and I know for a fact that Cassie Ramone went back in time and kicked Hitler in the teeth in a time machine built by Kevin Morby in-between projects, but tragically they couldn’t follow the showmanship on display by Charlie and the Moonhearts. The Babies had atmosphere and dreamy pop hooks well in hand but as that doesn’t grab me at the best of times. It wasn’t really doing it for me here, tucked in the middle of sets by flailing rockers.
By now the smoke and the crowds and the heat were conspiring against me so I hid in the back room for a bit, missing the entirety of the Royal Baths performance.
I’ve had a few days to collect my thoughts on Ty Segall. On the one hand it was great to see him live in that setting where the front half of DBA turned into a sweaty insane rock-n-roll hoedown good time mosh pit from hell filled with French people, on the other hand Ty was fun, but taken as a whole it became kind of monotonous and atonal. So the sweaty crush of the crowd didn’t make much sense as it hit wall of drone and the only difference between “Sad Fuzz” and “Finger” was the speed at which you were introduced to your fellow man’s torso.
It was undeniably a great time, to be a part of that crowd singing, holding people aloft, and shooting the drenched and ecstatic faces, but it blended together and just became a wall of washed out “nows.” No real peaks or dips in the performance.
At one point someone was pulled on stage to sing and for one of the two encores and Mikal from Moonhearts was brought onstage and Ty and Mikal sang a song from their collaboration album Reverse Shark Attack.
In the end, it was a fun time, but it wasn’t as great as I had hoped. Opening acts Zulus and Moonhearts were worth it, and Ty was enjoyable from the spectacle that comes with being in a crowd that’s one hundred percent dedicated to the artist on stage, but I can’t say that I’m ready to give total fealty to it just yet. However I am excited to hear what Ty continues to release as he moves towards to yet unknown musical horizon.