Live show preview
The Eternals + The Up On In
Wednesday December 6, 2000, Brownies, New York City
The Eternals are a Chicago trio spearheaded by Damon Locks and Wayne Montana, former linchpins for the criminally underappreciated Trenchmouth. With the addition of drummer Dan Fliegel ---a major league rhythmic dynamo who has worked with Tortoise and Brazilian Dadaist Tom Ze ---the threesome retain the angularity of their former combo (e.g. Nation of Ulysses, Fugazi), but remove the guitar bluster and smear the remainder with a thick dub paste. Synthesizers crash-land like circa-’76 Pere Ubu, exclamation-pointing Locks’ vocal mazes, which in turn accent chanted word games. It’s a bracing mix, and live the trio push beyond mere reproduction of their fine eponymous debut album (Desoto Records). Numbers like “Stirring Up Weather” transform into Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry lock-step; shards of noise bloom, then shatter like a hammer on a windshield. In other words, they jam (but not like Phish) well enough (especially Fliegel, whose gradually shifting rhythms are consistently soulful) to make improvisation a feasible live strategy. Like King Tubby channeling Tackhead, The Externals have furrowed their own niche on the Chicago landscape and with a manifesto that currently includes only infrequent live shows, this might be your only chance to get in on the ground floor.
Zach Barocas of The Up On In is, like The Eternals’ Fliegel, a tirelessly inventive drummer working with a trio, though his three-piece favors tight fitting indie rock arrangements instead of loose fitting dub. Barocas (ex-Jawbox), Charlie Bennet (bass) and Ryan Grayson (guitar) weave quality instrumental rock---somewhere between the snaky post-post-surf of Pell Mell and the lo-fi brashness of Uncle Wiggly--- and should make a crisp appetizer for the Eternals’ weightier dub excursions.
Time Out New York, 2000
