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 Everett True

Spotlight – 28: Blank Realm

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I so rarely go out to shows any more, I keep forgetting how much in love I remain with the thrill of live music.

Last night at the Troubadour; I mean genuinely in love. I can’t resist it. After Blank Realm finished I was back in love with the music I’ve always been in love with: spongy, sagging, serrated, full of drummers who never cross their arms and keyboard-players who bounce up and down and flick their hair back like their hair is the only hair that exists in this age. Music that builds and builds, sags then builds, builds and builds, sags then builds. Music that’s full of sweet harmonies and even sweeter distortion, music that rampages and rampages hard and doesn’t care what friends it makes, just knows that you’re stupid if you’re not out to enjoy yourself.

I’m told they were missing a bassist last night. I sure as buggery on a tight budget wasn’t missing a bassist last night: I liked the open-extendedness of the clamorous guitar, the way the guitar and drums kept colliding, the way the keyboard kept colliding too and then all came good by the end of each sprawling eight-minute “song”. I liked the fact I could hear elements of all the bands I loved before (Suicide, The Velvet Underground, 33 different versions of Acid Mothers Temple, 308 versions of 13 different bands I’ve long since forgotten existed) and that I didn’t care – wait – and that I embraced that in the opening seconds, and moved way, way on.

I especially liked the heckle that came back after the keyboardist asked if the drummer’s vocals were loud enough. “Too loud!”

It was a gamma ray blast of an evening.

(Incidentally, if you’re currently listening to their MySpace page as you ought to be following a recommendation from a Man of my Magnitude – don’t. Their MySpace music is like a chocolate bunny compared to the tumbling eiderdown mountain of their live show, least the show I witnessed last night.)

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