This was a night where the kids (including me) had to hang out in a chilly line-up outside the venue, but unlike most nights, this time we had entertainment. The whole line of people was watching an older gentleman try and fail repeatedly to parallel-park his car across the street from the club. He had a construction dumspter bin on one side with a couple feet of spare room, but for some reason kept almost scraping the car in front of him, and continually bumped up on the curb. Finally, he made it, got out of his car, and the entire line of people erupted in cheers and applause for him. The man, startled, turned around, realized what had happened, and proudly gave us a bow.

Now anyhow...

This one's a bit of an oldie. Yeah, the show was in January. Why are we running it so late after the fact? Because a couple of these bands you really need to know about, and no, one of them is not the headliner.

No, my friends, you need to hear about JamisonParker. And then you need to hear about Vaux. Alot. Both bands will shake you up, but in a completely different manner. The early night began with JamisonParker. I, like many people, imagined this was actually one guy named Jamison Parker, but it's actually a collective name culled from the two band members' first names. Jamison Covington sings and plays guitar, and on this night, was also dashing back and forth from a laptop computer that comprised their 'band.' Parker Case plays a lot of things, but tonight, he sang and played guitar. Apparently they were trying something different on this tour, by going out just as a pair, playing a plugged-in set to a looped band. They also do acoustic shows, and full-band electric shows, so it would be pretty cool to see them again and see what they come up with.

The two slight guys stood at the edge of the stage, both with their moppy haircuts completely covering their eyes in a manner that made you believe they really didn't want to see who was at their feet (which unfortunately, at this time of night, was almost no one... maybe that's why they did it). They weren't completely active on stage. In fact, Covington, who took most of the lead vocals, was essentially a statue up there. Rooted to the spot, barely even moved his head. Case had moments of breakdown, where he'd suddenly loll his body off to one side like those little plastic jointed animal figures on stands with the little button underneath that made them collapse. What were those things called? I probably just confused a lot of readers. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, ! Anyhow, the band... they were crowded to close to the edge of the stage because both of the other bands seemed to have every last bit of their gear stacked up on the stage behind them.

The set they played was pretty short, and not the best thing to watch necessarily, because they really didn't move much, as I said. But that's okay, because they played that brand of angsty, storylike, downtrodden, shoegazery emo stuff that is more conducive to laying in a corner and drinking yourself stupid and really not paying attention to the world at large because your internal struggles consume your entire being. That might sound cynical, and that's only because I'm very aware of the breed of music. But that doesn't mean that I don't like it or cant identify with it in some way. In fact, I fuckin' love it. The power this band held, the completely-stripped-down emotive quality they put forth, the anger and hurt and pain, even peppered though it was with so many bleeding-heart clichés, was just so honest and real. These boys were laying it on the line for us right then and there, and it looked like having played these songs for a year or whatever hadn't made them any less personally symbolic, nor rid them of any of the demons that created them in the first place. Meek, gentle and sensitive. And then angry and torn and damaged. They covered all the bases. They have a five-song EP called Notes & Photographs that is just as tear-jerking. Go listen to it and enjoy, but be aware you might get pissed off at fate afterwards.

The second band was Vaux. After the "lovelorn" JamisonParker, I was absolutely not prepared for what Vaux was about to unleash on the room. The people there evidently knew, because suddenly just about everyone there was crushed to the front of the stage. The techs worked between sets to place gigantic spotlights all over the stage, facing mostly straight upwards. Some were orange, and some were white, and two of them were on either side of me, burning my face and my arm clear off. But that's okay - in a moment I would feel no physical pain at all.

Holy crap. Vaux didn't use the house lighting rig at all. They just had those insanely-bright and hot spotlights all over the place, and more smoke than one would find at a three-alarm fire. And the band just killed every expectation I had of them. Loud. Loud. Loud. Wild. Crazy. In your face. Shrill screaming. Veins popping out of temples, sweat flying in all directions. This was a massively insane punk show. Singer Quentin Smith was all over the stage, more than I've seen anyone be all over a stage in the longest time. He got as close to the audience as possible, without actually being in the audience. He slapped hands with everyone in sight, grabbed peoples' hair, let people sing (yell) with him. Bassist Ryder Robison slithered around on the far side of the stage, but then at some point turned towards drummer Joe McChan and was bathed in this insane orange glow. It just looked cool. A lot of bodies were in the air a lot of the time, and yeah, I had knees and groins and guitars thrust towards my head numerous times. The music? Just loud, ear-splitting, raging, moody punk. These guys, in startling contrast to JamisonParker, couldn't have been more loud, abrasive, and not hiding behind their hair.

After that, Coheed & Cambria came on. Again, things changed gears a bit. They were sort of an intermediary between the two openers. They fell a bit flat though, and perhaps that had something to do with the incredible energy put forth by Vaux. There was a lot of hair, but generally they just weren't as lively as their recorded material would indicate. They were really quite bland. A shame really. I don't have an awful lot more to say about them.

Go see Vaux and JamisonParker.

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : April 22, 2004.