Aside from the Or Best Offer show I detailed here, the first third of 2024 was rife with concerts from genius bands pushing rock music forward in interesting ways. Whether through sheer charisma and heart or angular explorations, these artists craft sounds and songs that thrill and inspire while illuminating how we live now. Here are some brief words about the ones I caught, as well as videos To give you a clue about everything I saw and heard, here are some brief words about the ones I caught, plus videos.
March 9th: Them Airs and Programmique at Pianos
The New Colossus Festival programs over 100 bands at several NYC venues every spring but my experience with it has been limited. That continued this year, but I was able to shoehorn a pit stop at Pianos into a jampacked day. That’s just a reflection of how desperate I’ve been to see Them Airs, a very clever band that arose in New Haven five or six years ago.
Featuring Cade Williams (guitar, vocals), Evan Nork (drums), Adam Cohen (bass), Amina Rustemovic (synth), and Luke Schroeder (guitar), their songs combine the attitude of hardcore punk with art rock’s off-kilter angles and hip-hop production techniques. I wasn’t sure how this would all translate to the stage and the results turned out to be purely thrilling as they launched into song after song with the crackling energy of serial lightning strikes. At times, it almost seemed the songs were playing them rather than vice versa as they overcame minor technical hurdles with steamroller efficiency. Through it all, Rustemovic was an oasis of calm, cross-legged on the floor and making fantastic noises. When I caught up with Williams he told me Them Airs is moving to Philadelphia. I think they’ll find a good scene there alongside Empath, the remnants of Palm, and other art rock greats - but I sure hope they return to NYC early and often.
Programmique was on first and these devotees of post-punk (mostly Wire!) were super tight and comfortable enough to take the sound to some artier environs that felt very much their own. Programmique is Brooklyn-based so opportunities to see them should be fairly frequent. They have a date at TV EYE on June 30th with Lip Critic - a cool new band from my alma mater, SUNY Purchase.
March 24th: Foyer Red, Frances Chang, and The Cradle at Union Pool
Not only have I been itching to get back to Union Pool, having last been there to see Drinker in May 2019, but I’ve been angling for a glimpse of Foyer Red on stage ever since Mitch Myers sent me their first EP of clever post-punk/chamber/art-rock songs.
Led by Elana Riordan on vocals, keyboards, clarinet, and flute, Foyer Red is a tightly drilled quintet, with Myers and Kristina Moore on guitars and vocals, Eric Jaso on bass, and Marco Ocampo on drums, and watching them play provided revelatory insights into the structure of their sound. One key is the interlocking guitars, with Myers and Moore occupying distinct tonal realms, the former’s often incendiary lead lines meshing with the latter’s ultra-clean chording and arpeggios. Then there’s the rhythm section, with Jaso’s bass both a propellant and a source of witty asides and Ocampo’s percussion following the twists and turns of the melodies or grooving away happily. Over these levels and layers, Riordan’s sweet-tart voice conversationally relates cut-up fantasies, sometimes in concert with Myers or Moore or in counterpoint.
“she was a brave tangle
dual wielding, charm locked ankle
her saber marbled vermillion
feigned vengeance into existence
she buries her blade down deep in the sand” (Barnyard Bop)
Myers also leads sometimes, speak-singing while Riordan tootles away on her clarinet or flute. Everything is delivered with conviction, a sense of fun, and an ease that must belie intense preparation. What a great band! Catch up with Yarn The Hours Away (2023) soon so you’re ready for what comes next.
Even though Foyer Red was the nominal headliner, the night was also focused on Frances Chang and celebrating the recent release of Psychedelic Anxiety, her wildly creative second album. She took the stage with a bassist and drummer and completely disarmed everyone in the room with her wayward melodies, stop-start song structures, and clever, relatable lyrics. Her guitar playing was a masterclass in finding your voice on a common instrument, with distinctive touches throughout.
She also delighted in putting down the guitar and playing a small MPC late in the set, including on a performance of the mind-bending album-closer, Rate My Aura. Based on a voice-memo improv, Aura is an instant classic in the vein of Laurie Anderson or Cassandra Jenkins’ Hard Drive. I was so happy she played it - but then the whole set made me happy and I was glad to return the favor at the merch table by buying a copy of the album. How could I not, especially after she told us she had just lost her day job?
The Cradle opened the show with sprawling, emotionally connected folk-art-rock. I was not familiar with this project of Paco Cathcart - or Cathcart themselves, for that matter - but found the set highly compelling and inspiring further investigation. Besides a wealth of live releases as The Cradle, Cathcart is a busy person on many fronts, including a new solo project called Junior Missy and as a member of Will Moloney’s “freak rock” collective, Climax Landers, whose first album in six years comes out May 10th. Oddly enough, I was already tracking the return of Climax Landers before I saw The Cradle. It’s always fun to connect the dots, especially after such a night at Union Pool, where the love and support between audience and artists, not to mention artists and artists, was palpable.
April 13th: Friko at Brooklyn Made
Even from the first listen of Friko’s Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here, this Chicago band’s galvanic debut, I knew they had to be fantastic in concert. While the album is beautifully produced, the songs are built for the stage with powerful dynamics, bursts of noise, and plenty of quiet moments to rivet an audience’s attention.
So I leaped at the chance to see them at Brooklyn Made, a Bushwick venue I’d been meaning to check out for a while. I was so excited about the show that it wasn’t until the day before that I realized Friko wasn’t the headliner! They were opening for Willis, one of those bands I’ve never heard of that has an inexplicably large number of followers on Spotify. I checked in with the sharp minds of the Rosy Overdrive Discord and none of them were familiar. No shade on a band that breaks through at this fraught moment in the collision between creativity and commerce that is the music business, but I quickly determined Willis was not for me. The locus of their success seems to be a song called I Think I Like It When It Rains, a “lite soul” number in the mode of I’d Rather Go Blind, which has about 140 million more streams than their next most popular song.
In any case, I wasn’t going to miss Friko for anything and I figured this gave me the option to head home early. I got to Brooklyn Made only a few minutes before set time and, while the club wasn’t at full capacity for the sold-out show there was a healthy crowd that had made it their business to be there for the opening act. I took an unofficial survey of two gentlemen behind me and learned they, they, too were there for Friko and hadn’t heard of Willis either.
Though now officially the two-piece band of Niko Kapetan (guitar, keyboard, vocals) and Bailey Minzenberger (drums, guitar, vocals), Friko took the stage as a trio with a bass player (whose name I didn’t catch) and revealed themselves as a fully-integrated juggernaut of sound. While Kapetan is undeniably charismatic, radiating passion and intensity with every gesture, all three players shined bright as they rode these terrific songs to glory.
Kapetan’s aplomb as a performer was evident throughout, but especially in those unexpected moments, as when a guitar string broke on the first or second song, or when he tried to chest-bump the bassist in a burst of exuberance and ended up face first on the stage. Fortunately, his guitar broke his fall and he was uninjured. The guitar was not so lucky, so halfway through the show he was already down to his last instrument.
None of this slowed them down as they delivered committed performances of songs both tender and explosive. One of my favorite moments was during the second to last song, which Kapetan delivered solo. As he strummed, plucked, and sang in his distinctively aching croon, I looked over at the bass player who was seated on the floor, gazing up at Kapetan adoringly, a stand-in for all of us who knew we were witnessing a special talent unfold.
After the show, a solid line of 50 or more people had amassed when I got to the outer room where Kapetan was helming the merch table. As I waited, one of the guys I had talked to before the show emerged from the scrum, triumphantly holding two t-shirts and an LP. I’ll bet he’s not the only one who will be thinking about this show for a long time. I’m also fairly certain Friko will be headlining a show next time they come to New York - and I hope to be there.
From the archives:
Live Log 2024: A Night In Purgatory
A Song For Friday: Friko
Record Roundup: Guitar (Usually) And Pen
Friko are coming through Denver twice in May - both times as openers (!) as well - even more excited now after seeing this coverage....