The Scene

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

Big In Japan have enjoyed a kind of residency at The Windup Space in Baltimore, playing every Sunday evening in August.  Instead of merely having another band open for them each week, they have invited their guests to collaborate with them on stage.  I cannot imagine how much extra practice this entails, and when one considers that these shows are free, the monetary rewards must be even more limited than they usually are for such bands.  These shows are rock for art’s sake, and I highly recommend that you check out the final show of this series on the 30th when they will be joined by Katrina of Celebration.  This past Sunday Big In Japan’s guests were The Expotentials.  Details of the best show I have seen in a very long time follow after the jump.

First, since this was my first trip to the fairly new Windup Space, I need to tell you about the venue.  The Windup Space is located on North Avenue near Charles Street in what is known as the Station North Arts District, where city and state governments have encouraged artsy development to counter decades of blight to what was clearly once a lovely bourgeois neighborhood.  Now businesses such as the Windup Space and Joe Squared have become favored hipster gathering places.

The Windup Space has jumped to near the top of my list of favorite places to catch a show.  It is one single, fairly large, warm and inviting room.  The club advertises itself as an arts space and bar, and its primary decor consists of an art exhibit.  The work currently on display is a series (or multiple series) of abstract paintings by Allyn and Ed Harris.  A vast and fantastic landscape over the bar held my attention as I sipped a few very reasonably-priced ($3-$5) cocktails pre-show.

First Matt and Chuck, the Expotentials, took the stage for a set.  I wrote a fawning review of them a few months back, so there is no need to describe them in detail here, except to say that they are amazing.  They included a couple of new songs that display Matt’s voice better, but I still like them best when they thrash.

Then Big In Japan played a set.  Based on the samples on their MySpace I was expecting an experience as if Ornette Coleman formed a punk band.  Instead I felt like I was seeing Coldplay in a small club.  That may be the backhanded compliment it sounds like, but I mean that Big In Japan sounds like Coldplay when they remind me of Radiohead, not U2.  In the tradition of prog, glam, and Brit punk, Big In Japan is as much an art project as a band.  Their music as an ethereal quality, complemented by Mike’s drums and James’ bass, but carried primarily by Matt Pierce’s keyboards, flute, heavily digitally affected vocals, and MacBook Pro.  They moved from graceful ambient numbers to more rocking stuff, and back.

For the next stretch of the evening, Matt Naas of the Expotentials returned to the stage and the new assemblage alternated between Big In Japan compositions and Expotentials songs.  While I lack the perspective to adequately express what Matt N. added to Matt P.’s songs, it was really interesting to hear Expotentials songs in this way.  Their aesthetic is normally so bare, but here the songs were rendered lush.  I could not tell if Mike was really dialing back the percussive intensity or if there was just less space for him to fill with bombast, and I felt the same about Matt N.’s vocals.  Matt P.’s keys shared lead with Matt N.’s guitars and gave the imression that they belonged there.  As much as I love blues/punk minimalism, James reminded me that the bass guitar exists for a reason.  As Matt N. noted between songs, the members of Big in Japan really made his songs sound good.

This collaborative project concluded the evening with covers of The Who’s “Magic Bus,” ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down,” and the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.”  An additional guitarist took the stage, while Chuck declined an invitation to come up and find something to hit, content to enjoy the show with the rest of the crowd.  Considering what I perceive as the headiness of this show, the gang delightfully built their version of “Magic Bus” around a Bo Diddley beat.  As they extended it into a jam, I felt compelled to add the chorus of Mr. Diddley’s eponymous tune.  The final two tunes were simultaneously as intense, beautiful, and fun as intelligent rock should be.  “Helter Skelter” featured all the organized chaos of the version on the White Album.

The entire program felt less like a rock show and more like a dissertation on the subject of what rock can be, and the Windup Space was the perfect venue for it.