A Tuesday trifecta, courtesy of reviewer Jenn Bress:
Finally, a show where it’s worth an early arrival despite a raging hangover. Dirty Beaches, Minks, and Dum Dum Girls took over the Black Cat, Tuesday.
First up, Canada’s Dirty Beaches: hello Asian/Elvis/Alan Vega, I dig your violent sound assault. Pitch black stage, nothing but vocals, I’m kinda like WTF, is this a spoken word night? Then the distortion kicks and the guitar erupts into a storm of grinding pulsations. Very Suicide, very dark drone, minimal, fierce, think Nick Cave circa Her to Eternity with a lo-fi Cramps-esque rockabilly swagger. A very rad Johnny Cash cover of The Singer is performed and it might even be a subtle nod to Mr. Cave, who also covered the song.
Just when I thought the show needed a little spice, Alex Zhang jumps in the audience, hands his guitar to someone and says “Ok, DC, what you got?” Mr. Zhang, you’re snake bite sound sends delightful shivers down my spine.
Enter Captured Tracks, sweethearts, Minks. I’ve drawn a heart around your band name in my notebook. You take me back to when I was 17, living in my friend’s basement because I was kicked out of my house. I’m listening to every single 80’s new wave song I ever fell in love with, all at once, spinning on a dizzy edge, dreaming of all the different ways to make you never stop playing this set. This band makes me want to make out. (Captured Tracks, I dare you to find an artist on your label that I don’t like.)
Minks play a high energy set reminiscent of early New Order and the Cure at their best (Pornography, Disintegration), “Funeral Song” boldly exposes those influences, but the make this romantic new wave sound their own and I really had no choice but to fall in love with them. The final song literally knocks me over as the lead singer, Sean Kilfoyle bursts a shoegaze swelling climax that has me wishing I listened to the title of the song, instead of being under the spell of that moment.
Dum Dum Girls are tight and they even wear sexy lace tights (Yum yum, girls.) They open with “Play with Fire,” and they pretty much are on fire with flawless pop-punk girl rock, assault numero dos of the evening. Are they 60’s punk angels sent from above to rescue me from this mundane planet and take me on a journey through time and space? Yes, I believe they are.
Their stage presence is not the most captivating, but I’m not complaining, but it goes with the territory. The ladies are powerful and sullen, building a wall between the audience that solidified their rock-goddess status The “buzzsaw” jangle of guitars of each song are secured by a moody yet upbeat architecture of harmony and danceable indie-pop structure. “Catholicked,” performed furiously with little time transition between “I Will Be” left me feeling as if I were riding on the back of a motorcycle in “Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill.”
