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The Cheater
Slicks with The Hunches and This Moment In Black History
The Beachland
Tavern
06-29-05
Jay-Z was spinning in the back ground all night long
and STILL the highlight of my evening was seeing the lead singer of This
Moment in Black history get hit upside the head with a tall half full can of
pabst. It was in response to his call to make the overused adjective “beer
soaked” seem more authentic. Further more, I can’t believe I just used the
term “upside the head” but the can seemed to hit Kulsar in the neck, then
roll up, around, and eventually over his head, so “upside” seemed
appropriate. As far as the music, well, the band seemed excited to be
playing (until the beer incident damaged the sometimes working keyboard,
retiring it for the night). There were some new songs and some new rants and
some new sounds. The songs were catchy, but not catchy enough for me to
remember the following morning. The rants, as always, seemed only
semi-passionate and meant mainly for comedic value. The sounds…oh the
sounds. Do you remember that scene from Dumb and Dumber where Jim Carrey
attempts to make the most annoying sound in the world, This Moment in Black
History was making sounds that could easily rival that infamous movie
attempt, luckily those sounds were made before and after songs were played,
not affecting the songs at all. This Moment in Black History is always hit
or miss, if the band is in a good mood then it is evident to the crowd,
things stay light hearted, the songs seem better, and dancing in public
doesn’t seem nearly as stupid as it actually is. Last nights performance by
This Moment in Black history left me with my dancing shoes laced up.
I just got this strange urge to find out where The
Hunches are from. It took about 18 seconds to locate their website, but
there was no useful information there, so I just gave up. The Hunches
definitely inspired some toe tapping and some quick-thinking sidestepping.
Does that even make sense? No. Okay, I’ll elaborate. The singer, who may
have been drunk (the culprit behind the throwing of the pabst earlier in the
night), or may have just been strange, spent most of the night on the floor.
Dressed in black he scooted (“scooted” what the fuck is wrong with me
today!?) across the tavern floor in the prime position to look up the skirts
of those in attendance. Those with skirts had already left the building not
interested in seeing the second band at all, so mainly, the singer was lying
on the ground, singing up the leg of a fat guy taking pictures. There was
then some mid-show occurrence between the locals that distracted everyone
(band included) but was soon forgotten, at which point I could actually
begin to listen to the music (as you know I am easily distracted). The guy I
was with hated the band, plain and simple, he thought they sucked, but never
told me why. I, on the other hand, kind of enjoyed The Hunches. True, there
were a lot of outside occurrences that could have inspired this joy, but for
the most part, the music had a good beat and didn’t make me hate them (which
is more then I can say for many bands). They had kind of an indie/garage/whatever
the fuck you call it sound, that normally I’m not into, but it was gritty
enough for me to think unlike most bands in that genre their album was
probably not hugely overproduced. However, I don’t know, I don’t have any of
their 8-tracks, so I have no idea. Anyway, this Hunches section is going on
much longer then I originally anticipated, so I will end by saying If you
like the white stripes, but wish they rocked harder, and the feedback
overpowered Jack white’s voice, then maybe you’d be into seeing The Hunches
live. Even if you aren’t into the music, the band was fun in a weird yet
interesting way.
Finally, The Cheater Slicks. I had big expectations of
this band because they are on In The Red Records, which is a little known
label (host of at least on of The Dirtbombs albums) that I happen to like a
whole lot. The sound certainly delivered, they sounded good, not the best
ever, but good. They are one of those bands that when they play live it
sounds a lot like the records; no fancy bells or whistles (“fancy bells or
whistles”…c’mon!) just a stand up band. Like that guy, he asks you out and
has to meet your parents, and when he comes to the door your mom is like
“nice to meet you?” but when he leaves she forgets what he looks like and
starts freaking out and is all “If my daughter gets murdered I can’t even
describe her date!” Actually, that never happened to me, it was more then
likely an episode of Roseanne…either way, that’s what The Cheater Slicks
were like. A good band that neither exceeds nor falters your preconceived
notions. (Feowyn MacKinnon)
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