Battle Scars

Right from the start, I liked Battles. That was partially to do with the fact that the group includes an ex-member of Don Caballero (bubble-gum lover & hockey-stick guitar guru Ian Williams; by the way, to my knowledge he doesn’t do the Bubbleyum bits anymore), and partially because on an introductory sampler track of unknown origin (OK, I’ll fess up, it probably came via Pitchfork) that included an intrusive mixtape-style DJ shouting stuff over excerpts from their earliest EP – stuff like, “Battles, son!” or whatever. There were probably gunshot sound effects, too.

Which is perhaps a way of saying that it did not come as a surprise that these dudes, despite their avant garde-slash-indie rock bonafides, are equipped with a well-formed sense of absurdity and silliness. Does it bear repeating that this is a good trait for 99 percent of rock bands? So be it. Furthermore, maybe it wasn’t so surprising that the lead single from their fantastic first full-length, “Mirrored,” would have pitch-shifted, vaguely sinister chipmunk vocals and sound like a hard day down at the Keebler Elves factory, if all the elves were in fact troubled androids. I should probably also note that “Atlas,” the song in question, is outstanding, and will one day be known and loved by sports fans the world over by its true name – “Rock & Roll Pt. 3.”

That introductory graf is also a way of saying that when I went to see Battles Sunday, I was going with the mindset of pretty much any reasonable person who willingly plunks down $10 for a ticket – I was going because I liked the band, and was ready to be excited. Because who really likes heading into a situation primed for disappointment? Not this guy. So throw out the standards of objectivity, even the foggiest ones held by the carriers of the sleep-deprived ‘zine tradition. Granted, this is a blog, which is Latin for biased, so the following shouldn’t come as a revelation: Battles were totally awesome, and can best be described as being purveyors of dance rock for amped-up paranoid androids.

That’s what occurred to me to type, at least, as I leaned into the charming Lee Harvey Oswald mural at stageright (possibly stageleft. I was not a drama kid; my wardrobe was not monochromatic; I would’ve liked to read Beckett in high school but was plenty pretentious as it was). Also, they were staggeringly loud, the kind of loud that makes even stupid young men like myself wince while they’re soundchecking, because you’ve situated yourself just a few yards away from a huge stack of speakers and the bass player has a sort of menacing look in his eyes.

They opened with “Race:Out” and then “Tij” and for a moment I thought they might be playing “Mirrored” in its entirety, in reverse. This wasn’t the case, but might’ve been sort of interesting. There were songs, possibly new, possibly ancient, that were cool – one began with a sequence of dueling keyboards that morphed into a pretty heavy jam thanks to the superlative performance of drummer John Stanier (ex-Helmet?). Like a lot of bands that could be tagged math rock (could be; these dudes really shouldn’t be), Battles can sound sort of bloodless and distant on record (not always a drawback) but that feeling vanishes about a minute into their live show, as Stanier lunges up to bash his flamboyantly high crash cymbal, or hunches over to keep the pace, veins bulging but hair remaining caked in place. Truly impressive.

The highlight, of course, was “Atlas,” and not just because the song is a.) the one everyone in the room was most familiar with (& therefore most amped to hear) or b.) the one that got the goofy dude in front of me swaying the most expressively. It was actually the fact that midway through the song, the stage lost power, dropping everything but Stanier’s drums and the crowd’s glossolalic singalong. I can only guess it was all the wires and technology that overloaded the club’s circuits – perhaps Battles simply brought too much rock – but the drums continued even as the other three players looked somewhat bummed. The crowd kept at it – a show of enthusiasm I’ve just got to label unusual for Emo’s – and for an instant I felt like an English soccer hooligan. It was a cool feeling, like when you really want to punch a guy for no good reason.

Anyway, the day was saved shortly. The power returned, and singer Ty Braxton launched us into take two. Did they spend longer on the awesome take-no-prisoners vamp that opens the song? Could they have played that vamp for the entire hour and fifteen minutes? (Yes, and without a word of protest from stageright, or crowdleft, or what have you.) He later said something sort of self-deprecating about how if you want to hear the songs as they’re supposed to be played, listen to the record – and maybe they didn’t reciprocate the crowd’s support quite enough (J.’s observation) – but still, it (the excitement) was there in spades, and that was pretty cool.

They shut it down a little after 1 a.m., and I waited in the longest merch line ever for a t-shirt. It’s hard to complain, though, when it was half the band that was handling the transactions (I was happy it was Braxton who handed me my shirt and not Stanier, who is probably still wiping sweat from his brow).

Also notable: openers Unwed Sailor were enjoyable, if a bit workmanlike in their instrumental rocking. Maybe I describe them that way because the centerstage bass player looked like someone I worked construction with several summers ago. He broke a string after a few songs, after saying they had two tunes left, and didn’t seem all that bummed – “I think we accomplished what we set out to do” – and that was it.

That pleasant surprise was followed by Ponytail, probably the least attractive band I’ve ever seen in person. At first, they looked like a trio – maybe they’d also be sans a traditional singer? – with two guitarists (one an extraordinarily androgynous Asian dude, the other a disconcerting blend of Weird Al and Albert Hammond Jr., in green soccer shorts) and a goofy, afro’d drummer. Then came the singer, apparently a 14-year-old girl with a killer mullet and baby fat for days. Her black t-shirt had the outlines of hands stenciled over the breasts, and when she stretched J. said he saw her tummy jiggle, gelatinously.

I’m not just going to rag on the way these dudes looked – honest. Because the band could flat out play, shifting gears like the Deerhoof-loving spastics they have it in them to be. The problem, and it was, as I hinted at, was a big one – the singer, whose vocal stylings were the unholy union of Yoko Ono and the archetypal screaming airplane baby. Also, she kept shaking her hands like she’d touched something hot, and squatting as she belched out some horrible noise or other. I remember telling J. I couldn’t figure out if Ponytail were the best band I’d ever seen or the worst – but, it was definitely one of the two. If they do turn out to be geniuses, they’re the kind who make records you buy and maybe even like (you’re not a poser, are you?) but that you absolutely never listen to. “Oh, this? Yes, it’s groundbreaking and wonderful, I support them 100 percent – but please, anything else.”

Another very Ponytail moment – after the first song, which I think was the first like 95 percent of the crowd had ever heard these folks, the singer asked for more vocals in her monitor, to which some guy quickly yelled, “Don’t do it!” That was funny; not funny were the jackasses who filled the spaces between Ponytail jams with impressions of whatever idiot noise the singer had made in the previous jam. Don’t you guys know that it’s far more polite to clap quietly, wait a couple of days and then type several hundred words bashing the hell out of a group of well-meaning (probably) kids? I’ll even end with a special note:

Dear Ponytail,

Don’t stop believing. Just lose the singer, k?

Love,

Austin, TX