Chelsea Light Moving, Talk Normal, and Merchandise at The Earl, March 8, 2013

I'm falling slightly behind in my concert posts, so I'll just keep things going until I catch back up.

Last Friday night, Thurston Moore brought his Chelsea Light Moving project to The Earl while on his way to Austin for SXSW, with Merchandise and Talk Normal in tow.  Once again, I had to drive from Birmingham, Alabama to Atlanta to see the show, but this time without the specter of having to drive back the next morning.  I'm back home now, at least for the time being.

The opening band, Tampa's Merchandise, kicked the evening off in a muscular fashion, playing an energetic post-punk/punk-pop hybrid, with elements of Echo-and-the-Bunnymen New Wave goth thrown into the mix for good measure.  Or something like that.  Here's a sample for you to be the judge.

For the last couple songs of their set, they brought an alto sax player on stage with them, lending a James White/Contortions-like bite to their sound.

Talk Normal were up next, introducing themselves with the line, "We're a Brooklyn band."  Guitarist/bassist Sarah Register and drummer/vocalist Andrya Ambro play a unique blend of driving noise rock, with feedback-drenched guitar tones and jarring rhythms.  To give you some idea of their performance, on the second or third song of their set, Ms. Ambro placed a guitar over her floor tom and played it by beating the strings with her drumsticks.  Their songs at times sounded tribal, other times primal, and always interesting.  Due more to the compatability of their sound than due to the similarities of their names, they should consider touring sometime with Portland's Talkdemonic.

The stage was lit with two red spotlights placed on the floor, rendering photography nearly impossible, so apologies in advance for the quality of these pictures.

Here's a picture from their Facebook page of all of their equipment "politely ejected out the back door" of The Earl after their set.

Headliners, of course, were Thurston Moore and Chelsea Light Moving.  Commenting on their March 2 set in Hoboken, NJ, NYC Taper noted ,

"I had to remind myself at several points during this show that the exuberant, youthful guitarist and vocalist on the cozy Maxwell’s stage in his band’s own t-shirt was a 54-year-old member of rock royalty who I had seen perform in front of crowds hundreds of times this size. Sonic Youth may be on hiatus or it may be gone, but Thurston will keep playing – and keep playing well – for as long as he’s breathing. Chelsea Light Moving, as a band, isn’t Sonic Youth, but it isn’t just a dim facsimile of it, either. With Samara Lubelski (a well-known solo artist and member of Thurston’s solo band) on bass, John Moloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man) on drums and Keith Wood (Hush Arbors, Wooden Wand) on guitar, Chelsea Light Moving has an accomplished cast and its own personality. In some ways, CLM feels more like SST-era Sonic Youth – younger, hungrier, rawer. It seems fun to be in this band, in a way that’s almost impossible in a more established one."

Chelsea Light Moving is more a real band with real songs than a Thurston Moore & Friends jam session.  As a bandleader, Thurston Moore was calm, engaging, relaxed, and free of expectations. Chelsea Light Moving stands as a great band in its own right, and as a second act, it’s a more than worthy one.  By their own description, "the band is ready to detonate any birthday party, wedding or hullaboo in any country, planet or stratosphere that doesn’t support right wing extremist NRA sucking bozo-ology."  Keeping true to their word, and prompted by a Brooklyn Vegan comments thread, the band recently played a birthday party in a basement at a house in Northhampton, Massachusetts (video below). 

Chelsea Light Moving delivered a great set at The Earl, opening with Burroughs (one of the first songs ever posted to this blog) and including all the songs from their debut album that I know, including Groovy and Linda, Lip, and Alighted, as well as Empires of Time (dedicated to Roky Erickson), some new material, and my personal favorite, Frank O'Hara Hit.

On a personal note, I have to point out that somehow I managed to wind up standing at the best possible spot in the whole club, right at the stage and directly in front of Mr. Moore.  Two feet from a modern rock legend.  The pictures below weren't shot with a telephoto lens - I had to go wide-angle on Mr. Moore's face to avoid documenting his dental work.