The Scene

MusicDetour.com’s commentary on music, performances, and the DC metro area music scene

The Talking Head Club, a separate back room at Baltimore’s Sonar, with a separate entrance off the alley, hosted Baltimore’s best band (just ask them!), The Expotentials.  Another Charm City band, The Jagged Hearts and The Izzy’s from New York City opened up. All three bands had to compete with bass from a hip hop show in Sonar’s Club Room thumping through the wall.  The common theme among these three distinctly different acts is a certain bluesiness mixed with other elements.

The Jagged Hearts began with three blues/rock numbers before settling into their country comfort zone for most of the rest of the set.  However, even some of their twangier songs featured rocking guitar solos by frontman Jeb.  I am not going to run out specifically to see The Jagged Hearts again, but I certainly hope they continue to share bills with bands I like or expect to like.

A more cynical man than I might say that an alt-country outfit from NYC rates a little too high on the hipster-o-meter.  But that man would be unfair.  The Izzy’s bring bluesy rock with a twang, and I imagine them equally at home in a punk club or a college bar.  The blues, rock, and country canons all contain odes to cocaine, and The Izzy’s’ version is a crowd-engaging sing-a-long.  Telling cocaine that “yer gonna rot my heart / yer gonna rot my brain,” lead vox Mike personifies the narcotic as a lover that he knows is gonna break hurt him, but he delivers the lines with knowing exuberance.

When the headliners came to the stage, they did not disappoint.  Since they are a two-piece blues-and-punk band that produces an amazingly full sound, it is easy to compare The Expotentials to The White Stripes, but Chuck is entirely too good on the skins for the analogy to go too far.  The dude is an absolute ninja back there, and The Talking Head’s low stage makes that even more clear.  With his kit set up right out front, his anguished face and thrashing limbs were on full display for the crowd.  Chuck’s right foot somehow plays not just bass drum, but bass on the drum, underneath Matt’s guitar, which comes through a bruised old Marshall stack in layers.  On the mic Matt is a pop-punker one minute and a blues shouter the next.  Their complex style adds nuance to lyrics that would sound vapid coming from another band on songs like their anthem “Lock and Load Rock and Roll” and “Who’s Holding?”  I really hope one day to be telling people that I saw The Expotentials all the time back when they were still playing the small rooms.