Iron Plaid Fighter

Balance and Composure @ The Warehouse, March 23

April 11, 2011 at 5:00 PM (Uncategorized)

I began seeing fliers for this show around the VCU coffee shops a few days prior to the show.  The collage of pseudo-political symbols drew my eye.  Band names like Hold Tight!, POA, and Time in Youth hinted at something punk or emo.  The fliers provided time and price, but for location, they only listed “The Warehouse.”

A google search didn’t yield much more.  ”The Warehouse, Richmond, VA, music” only provided a couple of allusions on out of the way event and message boards.  I easily found facebook and myspace pages for the bands, but they didn’t give any more specifics than the fliers.

Unfortunately, such secrecy has become necessity.  Last year, the City of Richmond passed a more specific (more oppressive?) noise ordinance.  Whether or not the basic effect of the law changed, the publicity around the legislation has emboldened the local police in actively going after underground shows and musicians.  Even without complaint they can step in to stop practices and small basement and living room shows, the grassroots lifeblood of all musical culture.  I have seen their overbearing ways first hand.  Last spring, police stepped in to break up a peaceful show with a relatively subdued crowd in a living room just blocks from VCU’s campus.

Such laws could severely hamper a music scene.  I appreciate art and music because talent and vision can occasionally break through in spite of the official structure.  The elimination of home practice puts up one more wall to such a victory.  It takes approximately 10000 hours of practice to become an expert.  One must practice at home.  Not everyone can afford a practice space.  The noise ordinance creates one more advantage for the wealthy elite.  Not everyone can or wants to step onto stage at an established venue.  You afford such venues too much power to direct the local music scene instead of allowing something more spontaneous and organic.

Honestly though, I should know better.  The underground music scene charges on undeterred.  The empire tries to snuff them out, but they simply fade into the urban landscape and adjust their guerilla tactics.  They create the mythical “Warehouse.”  Luckily, I have resided in Richmond long enough to make an acquaintance or two.  One such acquaintance, an elder of sorts in the Richmond hardcore scene, offered directions.

I enter into such hidden venues with my own preconceived notions.  I spent many a night during my undergrad years finding and infiltrating such locales.  I loved those small, cramped basements: the hard concrete floors, the support beams rising up through the small, packed crowd, the wooden rafters covered in dust and cobwebs.  The sound overtakes you, bouncing off the walls in such a cozy burrow.  Just being there makes you feel special, like a little kid spying on the neighbors from behind the bushes, the Mission Impossible theme playing in your head.  Or perhaps the experience feels more like an intrepid explorer discovering some untouched forest glade for the first time.  You understand your solitary place in this unique piece of history.

As my two companions and I enter  The Warehouse, I realize this venue compares to those in my mind in the same way my Richmond home compares to the sleepy Blacksburg in which they resided.  The key points remain, but my current layout simply has more space to breathe.  Rather than some residential domicile, the Warehouse inhabits the first floor/basement of sorts of an industrial building.  The concrete walls, bare floors, and dusty rafters remain, but I can’t simply reach up and touch those rafters this time.  Including band members, seventy to a hundred students and young adults mingle about with room to spare for three times that.  They even create a makeshift stage consisting of a single layer of pallets covered in old rugs.

Any time I enter a new scene, I try to take it in, not unlike a young beast encroaching on some unexplored piece of African savannah.  You tread softly, watching the other creatures in their habits so as not to violate their social norms.  You keep a sharp eye out for any potential predators.

The symbols indicate something straight edge.  Three XXXs on a door here.  A XXX tattoo on an arm there.  The words “straight edge” printed on a t-shirt, a hoodie.  The complete absence of alcohol at the venue  and Xs marked on every hand at the admission table only confirm such suspicions.  The legendary Minor Threat first advertised this method of life in the early ’80s.  The clean living advocated freedom from all drugs, freedom or moderation in alcohol consumption, and the rejection of casual and unprotected sex.  These punks rebelled against the “Sex, Drugs, and Rock N Roll” lifestyle of not only mainstream rock, but self-destructive, nihilistic punks as well.

However, even straight edge can possess a radical, militant side.  When Boston bands like SSD and Negative FX adopted the straight edge ethic, some rumored their fans went so far as to physically attack anyone audacious enough to even drink a beer at their shows.  Luckily, I saw none of that aggression in this young crowd.  On the contrary, when my friend Brian began to feel a little ill, one of the scene’s elders – someone my age, mid- to late-twenties counts for an elder in punk – offered Brian a bottle of water and then checked up on him as he returned to our side and again when we left after the show.  I appreciate when a scene looks after one another.  We should.

Overall, the crowd remained, for the most part, subdued.  A smaller room or a larger crowd would have incited more moshing.  The fans really only took to such activity for one or two songs.  However, this didn’t hurt my opinion of the outing.

Hold Tight! took to the pallet stage first and opened with a bang.  I really enjoyed their drummer.  He played with an energy and precision reminiscent of MxPx and those other great left coast punk bands.  Though the lyrics remained unintelligible, I enjoyed the vocals and the harmonies.  They only added to the skate punk persona.  I look forward to seeing this Richmond band in the future.  Their facebook page indicates they plan on playing the “Stay Sweet! Fest” and twice at the “Rock Garden” around Richmond in the next month but I’ll have to search the web or ask around before I know more.  Go catch a set if you get the chance.

POA followed next.  The band initially interested me because they maintain ties to Sink/Swim Press, a local upstart independent publishing and producing company.  They show a lot of promise, but they still felt a little flawed.  The drum sound bothered me the most.  After the great sound from Hold Tight!, POA’s drums sounded hollow, almost like the drummer tuned them too tight.  It had no warmth, no deep vibration.  For someone who loves drums first and foremost, I found this difficult to move past.

POA’s singer could also use some growth, maturity, and experience.  He doesn’t have a bad voice, but he lacks stage presence.  He doesn’t have any kind of a believable confidence when singing and his banter between sets seems more like nervous hoping than a man fully in control of the crowd.

However, I really enjoyed POA’s guitars.  When I looked past the other problems, I found interesting and harmonious guitar riffs.  They represent what the band could become with the right amount of time, practice, and experience.  I can’t give POA my stamp of approval yet, but let’s just watch and see what they morph in to.

Time in Youth offered something tonally darker than their other two Richmond predecessors.  I appreciated their bassist.  He offered more interesting riffs, walking lines, etc than I expect from most bands, not just punk.  Still, I found my attention wandering during their set.  Most of their music just blended together after a while.  They just didn’t do anything that really wowed me.

Pennsylvania’s Balance and Composure really impressed me with their brand of alternative rock.  Their myspace page really doesn’t do them justice.  The sound brought to mind what would happen if Something Corporate’s Andrew McMahon had grown up listening to too much Foo Fighters.  The lead singer brought such an intense, emotive presence.  You felt the music, without any drop off, from the beginning to the end of their set.  When the crowd insisted upon another song or two, I felt I could have easily remained for another set.  I didn’t buy their recording, but I would love to see Balance and Composure again.  I would love to give them another opportunity to change my mind about that purchase.

As much as I enjoyed the bands, I felt like the Warehouse stood out as the real star for me, not just the building but the people who organize the shows.  I hope I can return there again soon, but I still won’t tell you where it hides, not on electronic media anyway.  Such things stay better secured within the trust of face to face contact.