Titus Andronicus Played Market Hotel with Winstons and Dinowalrus, 12/14/17

The Best Laid Plans

Yesterday -- Friday -- was a lost day. I got home from Brooklyn at about 2:15am and then had to take CoolDaughter #1 to her swim meet up at Rutgers for a 7:15am warm-up. Even though I don't drink anymore, I still feel a hangover of sorts from late nights and getting only three hours of sleep. I took the rest of Friday after the meet to let my old bones recover. That doesn't mean, though, that I regret my decision to head up to Brooklyn to catch the only headlining set of 2017 from Titus Andronicus. It was totally worth it.

The last time I'd been to Market Hotel was for The Thermals back in 2016. I had tickets for the last Titus Andronicus show scheduled there, but the place ended up getting shut down over some liquor license stuff I think. That show got moved to Manhattan and pushed a little earlier, so I had to miss it.

Market Hotel re-opened back in November; and their solution (for now, anyway) on the beer front is to have a tasting room for Bronx Brewery set up in a separate, little chamber attached to the performance space. The main bar carries only soft drinks, including a wide variety of flavored seltzers, a thing I wish more bars would do. It was pretty funny watching folks walk around the venue with three-ounce tastes of beer.

During my first and only experience at Market Hotel, I noticed that the space was pretty dark. I've been kind of down on fighting for space and standing for the whole show in order to take pictures lately; so I decided to stick the point and shoot in my pocket, not to worry about where I stood, and to make this a non-work night. I got up to Brooklyn by about 8:30 and parked right in front of the venue.

Dinowalrus went on right after 9pm. I hadn't seen them since they played The Saint a summer or two ago. I liked their whole take on post-punk, shoegaze, dream pop, whatever back then; and I enjoyed their set on Thursday as well. Winstons were next. I caught them last when they opened for Twin Peaks at The Stone Pony. They're a two-piece that play blues / garage rock. Drummer Ben Brock Wilkes is one of the most fun drummers to watch live. There really wasn't much trouble standing up front for either set; and I thought about how I really, really don't like watching shows over a sea of heads from the rear of the venue. I kinda just stayed there for Titus Andronicus.

Dinowalrus

Winstons

That got kind of wild. Titus Andronicus opened with just Patrick Stickles and keyboardist Alex Molini on stage for "Upon Viewing Oregon's Landscape with the Flood of Detritus." It's a song I've thought about a lot in the last several months, especially with its reference to drivers' frustrations at being delayed by a fatal car accident. Whenever I've been stuck in traffic caused by a crash lately, I've been making an effort to be empathetic.

Anyway.

Patrick Stickles

From there, the band went into "Fatal Flaw" from The Most Lamentable Tragedy. The crowd went nuts, heaving behind me for, pretty much, the rest of the set. Clearly, some people had either had a bunch of three-ounce beers or planned ahead. I just went with it. It would have been useless to have my camera in that scrum after all.

Down in it

18 songs from the entire Titus Andronicus catalog, about an hour and forty-five minutes. There was the great run from TMLT of "Mr. E. Mann" / "Fired Up" / "Dimed Out" and the quieter interlude of "No Future Part V: In Endless Dreaming" / "Stable Boy." They closed the set with The Monitor favorites "Four Score and Seven" and "A More Perfect Union," finishing with a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days."

Patrick Stickles gave the site and me a little shout-out from the stage, which always feels good; and, even though my feet hurt and I probably have a few bruises on my back, I had a blast being the oldest person by about 15 years who braved the front row. I couldn't help laughing at myself a little. After all my talk about taking it easy and just standing in the back, there I was getting pummeled all night just so I'd have a good view of the band. I'll eventually be "too old for this shit," I guess; but, for now anyway, I can still take it.

Ringo Deathstarr Played The Saint for Little Dickman Records' FUZZ FEST w/ Dentist, Dan Waszay and The Blackouts, Dinowalrus, and Lunch Ladies, 4/8/16

Ringo Deathstarr

Austin In Asbury Park

There wasn't any parking right on Main as I pulled past The Saint on Friday night. I made the left onto Monroe and parked there. A rumble of sound shook the car, and it took me a second to realize that what I was hearing was Ringo Deathstarr's soundcheck from inside The Saint, across the street. Oh. This was going to be good.

Little Dickman Records have been trying to bring some new sounds to Asbury Park. In the past, they've gotten some bands from NYC / Brooklyn who don't play our area very often to come through: Dirty Fences, BOYTOY, Lost Boy ?, Sharkmuffin. They've put on shows with bands from out west like LA's Girl Tears and Tuscon's Burning Palms. On Friday, the label had put a show together around Austin's Ringo Deathstarr and the UK's Desert Mountain Tribe. Dinowalrus from Brooklyn, Dentist, Dan Waszay and The Blackouts, and Lunch Ladies filled things out. Unfortunately, visa issues prevented Desert Mountain Tribe from making it to the show; but it still ended up being an evening of music where every band were on their game.

While calling the event FUZZ FEST may have given the impression that all of the bands would be coming from similar sonic places, things ended up being extremely eclectic. There wasn't much very fuzzy about the first two acts. Lunch Ladies kicked things off with a set of jangly dream pop. Dinowalrus brought some synth-infused post punk. Both bands had a pretty large early crowd and play around with different sounds that always draw me in.

Dan Waszay and the Blackouts were playing their first show under that name, I believe, and were very impressive. The band expand Waszay's dark, expansive, alone on a desert highway rock into a full-band format that also features Amy Malkoff, Frank Calabrese, and Sarah Smith. Dentist were playing their first show back from Austin and sounded as good as ever. The increased confidence they acquired over a few weeks of touring shone through in their performance, and the crowd could feel it.

Austin's Ringo Deathstarr closed things out with a wall of noise worthy of some of the shoegaze legends I love so much. Unlike those bands, though, Ringo Deathstarr bring some other influences to bear on their sound, even including things like hooks in many of their songs. The band engaged the audience throughout the set and included a pair of impromptu and improvised covers of System Of A Down (couldn't tell you the title of a single song) and Metallica (an interesting take on "Enter Sandman"). Once I finished taking pictures, I just took everything in and became a forever fan of this band.

It's pretty rare for a bill that's five bands deep to deliver during every, single set. There really weren't any weak spots on Friday; and Little Dickman deserves kudos for putting together something so solid and fresh for the area.

You can check out pics from the evening in either the Flickr galleries (full rez) or on the Facebook page (squished rez).