Bird Cages of the 1930s

only those involved will really find this worth reading (and even then, i don’t know).

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by TP staff writers

Surprisingly, it took Nana Grizol a few songs to realize the kitchen island could be used as a sort of riser for the horn section.

We arrived at last Saturday’s house show and walked in on a wedding.

The living room of the secluded farmhouse just outside of Geneseo, NY had been transformed into a press room as a crowd of age-and-dress appropriate showgoers brandished cameras and cell phones to capture the moment for the happy couple (and also for youtube).

This kind of intense, impromptu lovefest is typical of the house show culture. The music might be louder, but the atmosphere reflects on a mostly-departed era of communion and idealism (maybe we’re just jaded). The food is vegan friendly, the bands mingle with the showgoers, and the donation jar for bands having to drive farther than a few miles (which, after a spontaneous band break-up caused the absence of the three scheduled bands from NYC, turned out to be only Georgia’s Nana Grizol) is robust. Maybe it’s a counter-culture backlash against the presiding mean-ness in the world. The masses had fun, serious art and culture were consumed, and the bands even turned a profit (presumably). Why can’t life always work out so well?

Upstate NY’s New Socks opened the show, playing selections from this year’s New So(ck)(ng)s as well as some, uh… new songs, previously unheard by an audience. The first of two unreleased songs that ended the set was “Robin Skull,” a reflection on innocence and death (actually, innocence and death are two common themes among the New Socks catalogue), and the second was a highly personal song by the Socks’ Molly Kerker (who wrote New So(ck)(ng)s’ “Pushing Up”).

The New Socks sit on floor, encourage others to do same.

After a quick set by local favorites Black Mold Lightning and a break to eat, what we lovingly refer to as “the loud portion” of the evening began, with Buffalo’s Unwelcome Guests drawing pot luck participants hypnotically from their food with their high energy set.

Buffalo’s Unwelcome Guests, paradoxically very warmly welcomed.

At first, we had our doubts about Nana Grizol’s decision to set up their equipment in the kitchen. Completely covered in dull, reflective surfaces from floor to ceiling, the dangers of muddiness and relentless, piercing feedback were all but assured. But our doubts were null and void once, after a quick speech by Becky Lovell of Awesome Geneseo Shows, guilting the last few freeloaders into donating, Nana Grizol began their set.

Before the band itself, we have to highly recommend seeing a band play in a kitchen sometime; what could have become a sonic disaster ended up providing a nice reflective capsule to project the band’s very loud, very full (two drummers?! horn section?!) sound. But anyway, Nana Grizol launched into a high-energy set, much of which can be heard, at significantly fewer decibels, on 2008’s Love It Love It.

Becky Lovell of Awesome Geneseo Shows makes an appeal for band donations. Lovell has managed to supply the small college town with a rotating live roster of alternative Athens bands like Nana Grizol, Circulatory System, The Music Tapes, and Apples in Stereo.

An NPR review of that record claimed the band exudes “an earnest and irresistible charm.” And they’re right. Frontman Theo Hilton maintained a captivating if non-sequitous (which isn’t a word) dialogue with the audience as the rest of his seven-piece band swapped instruments, jumped on counters and drank steadily behind him. The highlight of the set was the horn section’s ascent to the kitchen island for Love It Love It’s “Tambourine-N-Thyme.” This was the first of the set’s more relaxed moments, which were still pretty energy-packed (if not from the band then the crowd, a very condensed group of fans at this point).

Nana Grizol, in the kitchen.

All in all, we tend to judge the overall success of a live act by whether the ringing in our ears at the end of the night—a reminder of the sure onset of tinnitis—was worth the eventual permanant hearing damage to which it will contribute. In this case, resoundingly, it was.