After a productive afternoon of record shopping and conversation with The Casket Girls at Som Records, we meet up with the eerie-pop act from Savannah Georgia at DC9 to catch their live show and capture a few photos of the ladies in action.
What seemed like a revolving cast of interchangeable band-mates through the night’s four-band line-up was in actuality a roving tour of musicians that play together on each other’s sets seamlessly. The guitarist from the third band was the bassist for the first, the guitar player from the first group played keyboard in the fourth band’s set, and so on. I even think the drummer played on three out of four sets that night. It was obvious that this tour was a tight-knit operation, and all the musicians played extremely well together.
Coined as the “Graveface Roadshow 2014,” the evening’s line-up included The Casket Girls, The Stargazer Lillies, Dreamend, and special guests Creepoid.
Dreamend is a Savannah-based group with a revolving set of players and is seemingly the main project of Ryan Graveface. Graveface is the owner/operator of Graveface Records and has been in or associated with groups like Black Moth Super Rainbow, the Marshmallow Ghosts, and the Casket Girls.
Creedpoid is a band from Philadelphia, and their sound is a mix of hardcore, psych-rock, and blues. They were the second opener of the night, and for me, they were the stand-out act of all three opening bands. They stood out to me mainly because the band seemed to be pretty self-contained with no interchangeable players like the other acts on this bill, thus giving Creepoid a sound of their own. All things considered, they seemed to fit the overall tone of the evening quite well. Creepoid is listed on Graveface Records’ website in their band roster, although the band’s second full-length release, the self-titled album Creepoid, will be out in early March on No Idea Records. The band will rejoin The Casket Girls and the rest of that night’s cast for the Graveface Fest 2014 in Savannah on March 22.
The Stargazer Lillies played a short, saturated, and noise-riddled set with more guitar effects than most human brains can even process. The guitarist’s pedal board looked just like the electrode guns in Plan 9 from Outer Space. I’m convinced that if we could somehow hook up his pedal board to a human mind, we could start producing ghoulish zombie creatures to obey our every command. And oddly, I mean this in the best possible way. The Stargazer Lillies made this work to their advantage, and the guitar treatments came across as very beautiful layers of sound to complement their soft and hypnotic vocals. I really enjoyed their set.
Before The Casket Girls started their set, they pulled all the fans in the front row by the stage into a football-style huddle to get the show under way. Armed with fishnet stockings, lace outfits, and trademark eyewear, they danced in unison and fed the crowd gathered before them their sullen brand of vocal harmonies with an over-energized pop feel. At some points, their music take these dark and distorted turns behind them as they push their dazzling vocals over the entire mix.
The Casket Girls were a lot of fun to watch, and they were clearly having a good time performing. At one point in the show, the girls even left the stage, went out into the crowd, grabbed a few gentlemen, and started to dance and spin themselves around in the middle of the floor.
You can catch The Casket Girls later this year at The Graveface Fest in their hometown Savannah, Georgia, and also at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
CREEPOID
THE STAR GAZER LILLIES
DREAMEND
