Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Vivian Girls vs. Screaming Females vs. The New Brunswick S.W.A.T. Team


Well, they’re onto us. The New Brunswick Police Department seems to have discovered the Internet over the winter break
as well as the joys of Googling oneself. With a few keystrokes, they had the whole Hub City basement scene at their fingertips. Rumors and paranoia spread after musicians with phone numbers posted online began receiving calls from suspiciously inquisitive new “fans,” and house-venues succumbed to threats of being charged with everything in the book if even a peep came out from their basements.

After successfully scaring the bejesus out of the city’s music community, the precinct caught wind of an even greater storm coming over the horizon. The Vivian Girls, the blogosphere’s “it” shoe-gaze girl group, now set to perform at this year’s Coachella festival, were scheduled to swing by their old haunting grounds, January 4th, to give the kids a taste of pure Brooklyn hype. New Brunswick staple Screaming Females would join them on the bill, their own explosion onto the national scene still dormant until the release of their new album on Don Giovanni Records. Everyone and their grandmother were prepared for the years of bragging rights that a chance to see the Girls and Females go head to head would provide.

The New Brunswick Police Department, though, would have none of it! Those coppers decided it was time to show the ruffians who was boss once and for all. A new threat went up: if by chance the “illegal assembly of dangerous proportions” actually went down, the local S.W.A.T. team would come round and put a stop to it. The image of armed & armored officers tear gassing The Loft and pulling basement kids out by their collars seemed just too downright preposterous, but no one was willing to call their bluff. Luckily, The Court Tavern, one of the last bastions of beer and live music in this town, was more than happy to make their space available for such a high-profile event. The change in location, though, made all those under 21 years of age unable to attend, lowering the turn out as well as the morale.

But all was not lost. One of the highlights of seeing bands perform at the Tavern is being able to actually hear the music, thanks to the bar’s semi-professional sound system. The first to make use of it was Mirrors & Wires, a local instrumental surfrock act that impressively made use of a Theremin throughout their set, an instrument little seen/heard around these parts. Soon after, Screaming Females tore through their set with a professional ferociousness that left the crowd awed and their time onstage feeling all too short. After having had the opportunity to witness the group perform in basements for
the past three years, their sound hampered by poor PA systems, it was a pleasure to stand in the front row and actually hear every note, beat, and ominous lyric come from the stage.

The Vivian Girls, on the other hand, did not fare as well. The Tavern’s resident sound-guy could not get a grasp of the band’s
sound, commonly compared to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, and eventually mishandled their balance of echo and reverb. From the front row, where fans tried desperately to reapply their faces after the Females’ performance, an overwhelming cacophony burst through the speakers, sounding as dishearteningly different from the Girls’ studio recordings as possible. Even from the farthest corner of the room, where the mix seemed to settle, every song sounded exactly the same as the next. Even the stage banter felt uncomfortably tense, exacerbated by the catcalls of a shadowed heckler.

So, was it worth the hubbub? Will I brag about it for years to come? Of course, but not because I got to see the Vivian Girls live in a dive bar instead of a desert festival. If anything, I’ll casually mention that night sometime in the future because it was when I realized how ready Screaming Females were to finally bust out of this damn college town and get a taste of the success they rightly deserve.

And really, who’s going to stop them?

The S.W.A.T. team?

Pshaw.

(Originally Printed in The Rutgers Review Vol.38 Issue 1)

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