I say this often, but I've tried to put limits on how often I catch live music each week. On this particular week, I hit my limit by Wednesday. Each day out was magical so no regrets there. I decided to go over my limit on Friday as I thought I was going to get a press pass to catch an artist at a local DIY venue (I'll leave out the name of the venue as someone might be able to figure out who the artist was). Anyways, I never got any response back from my contact, but in my mind I had to do something on Friday night, because I was planning to go out anyways. I was putting together my weekly show alerts for the upcoming week and took a look at what Harvard & Stone had on their schedule. I noticed that on Friday night they had Chalk Teeth as their headliner and Nail Polish in support. I had recently seen Nail Polish (you can read my song spotlight review here). Then I noticed that Chalk Teeth was part of Buzzbands' latest playlist. It was also a free night. Put that all together and the result was a strong GO replacement signal.
 |
| Chalk Teeth at Harvard & Stone |
Chalk Teeth was a revelation and I'm happy I went out. The band's Spotify bio has the following description, "Shoegaze-tinged, motorik dark wave. Black glass synths, washed in noise-rock guitar, with Polish vocals, propelled by relentless drum machine pulses." What does motorik mean? My Internet search tells me it is a 4/4 constant drum beat that was used in Germany experimental rock during the 1960s/1970s. The Polish vocalist would be Karolina Wallace. On guitar is her husband Adam Wallace. Providing those motorik beats was Jason Miller on synths and bass.
 |
| Chalk Teeth at Harvard & Stone |
What did I notice at the start of the night? I walked up to Harvard & Stone and ran into the manager of the venue (Adam). We had a brief conversation and then someone came out to ask him about duct tape. The individual was carrying a short tube. Once inside, I noticed that he was attempting to attach it to a fog machine. It wasn't one of those standard fog machines that you see at venues across Los Angeles. The fog machine was a box contraption that someone had put together -- loved the DIY experimentation. I'm not sure they got the outcome they were hoping for, because the Harvard & Stone air conditioning system was causing the fog to drift away from the stage.
Karolina Wallace came up on stage wearing chainmail. The style choice along with the dark wave music gave the night a mysterious medieval touch. She was always in stylish movement motion, making it feel like her singing was actually an incantation. There were other times when her mouth seemed to swallow her microphone -- as if she was going to devour the audience.
 |
| Chalk Teeth at Harvard & Stone |
The final song of the night was "Paskuda!" Zumi Rosow of The Black Lips and Crush played saxophone for the song. It wasn't a surprise appearance as the set-up was done prior to the start of the set. It took a few beats for Rosow to make it up on stage. Karolina Wallace kept on calling out, "Zumi Zumi." When she got to the stage, the band kicked off the song before Rosow was even ready to go and she spent a few minutes trying to get her saxophone connect and ready to go.
That song drove the conversation of the set as one person in the audience asked: Is this your single release song? The response was: "We already performed the song."
 |
| Chalk Teeth at Harvard & Stone |
The song spotlight goes to "Floor It," which was the reason for the night as it was the song's single release party. It is a 7 minute hypnotic tune that drives forward and, if willing, will send the listener into a trance state on the dance floor.
Scanning through their Instagram page, we can anticipate an album release this summer.
Setlist: Hi Vis, Struck, Oscillopsis, Floor It, Casket Casino, Old Mill, Paskuda!
Playing Permanent Records Roadhouse on May 10th.
No comments:
Post a Comment