Fucking in the Streets

At Sasquatch!, the young gentlemen of Mad Rad literally
elevated their game, with Buffalo Madonna scaling the scaffolding of
the Yeti Stage to howl the final song of their noontime set,
gargoyle-like, from the stage’s unbearably flimsy-looking
corrugated-metal roof. Then there was their usual grind: They’d come
out hoisting giant cutout copies of their grimacing faces; Buffalo
writhed around shirtless and dived into the crowd; everyone got in some
good between-song banter; and later, P Smoov got every celebrity and
musician he could find backstage to go on video saying “Out for
Stardom.” Of that between-song banter, the most telling was: “We met on
Capitol Hill, but we don’t really play there much anymore… it’s a
long story.”

While the crew may be barred from Neumos, Chop Suey, Havana, and the
War Room, they’re not too much trouble for the Comet. So Friday
night’s show there felt not only like a victory lap from the fest but a
homecoming to the neighborhood that birthed and then banned them.

They celebrated in typical style. Darwin, more often standing on his
DJ table than doing any visible queuing, pushed the club’s PA until
Smoov’s bass beats were all blown-out farting; Buffalo spent most of
the show either lost in or surfing on top of the crowd, soaked in
sweat, eyes rolled closed, screaming. The sound kept cutting out
because the sold-out crowd kept pushing into the band’s gear,
accidentally unplugging cords. I haven’t seen any local act—rock,
rap, electro, or otherwise—tear the Comet up like that in a
minute.

The next night was a more subdued party, a basement show benefiting
826 Seattle, but with more rewarding musical performances.
Headliners Truckasauras played a fantastic “rock” set, the
band’s usual heavy-duty synth setup stripped down to just a Game Boy, a
keyboard, and Tyler Swan beating the shit out of a drum kit, filling
the Truck’s songs with huge, hollow snare cracks, crashing cymbals, and
tight, time-signature-fudging fills. It’s maybe been mentioned before,
but Swan is a fucking monster on the drum kit. Before that was Pica
Beats, who despite a too-low vocal mix and a muggy room managed to
still give me actual chills with the chorus/coda of “Poor Old
Ra”—goddamn, that song kills me every time. The surprise
highlight of the night, though, was discovering Brain Fruit, a
new trio featuring Jon Carr of Bow + Arrow that sound like a
homegrown counterattack to Battles. One instrumental song was
all aggressively jazzy drumming, strobing guitar drones, and glittering
synth arpeggio. Another song featured militantly barked vocals over
fast funk bass and stabs of guitar skronk, which all seemed to
accelerate (at one point the band all stopped and Carr spat out to
drummer Garrett Moore, “Okay? No? Ready? Hurry up!” before the song
resumed, in what I think was all part of the act) until a terminal wash
of feedback drowned everything out. Their next scheduled show is July 5
at the Comet. Highly recommended, even if there might not be
crowd-surfing.