It was around 7:00 pm that I noticed a Facebook post by promoter The Bowery South stating that there were less than 50 tickets remaining for last night's show by Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks, and that if you wanted to get in, you better hurry down to the godforsaken Masquerade right now. I didn't have a ticket despite multiple unsuccessful attempts to purchase one through TicketMaster (something about redeeming a gift card that I didn't have), so I got to the venue by about 7:45, hoping that it hadn't yet sold out.
There were already people in the ticket-holders line waiting for the doors to open at 8:00, but the woman in the box office told me that she couldn't sell any tickets yet, and that I would have to wait until the doors opened before making my purchase. She couldn't explain why the promoter was encouraging people to rush down to the box office ASAP, except for, well, you know, promoters. So I was the first person in line to wait to purchase a ticket so that I could wait in the other line to enter so that I could wait in a third line to show my id (it was an all-ages show, but I needed to show an id and get a wrist band if I wanted to purchase adult beverages) so that I could finally enter the venue.
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Reasons I Hate The God-Forsaken Masquerade, Number 115.
Reason Number 116 was the audience. If you had a high-school diploma, you were older than the median age of the crowd, and if you were old enough to vote, you were in the far tail end of the age distribution curve. If you were me, you were probably twice as old as the next oldest person at the show. It's not that I have anything against young people, far from it, it's just that I felt conspicuous and, well, downright creepy when closely pressed near the front of the stage in a throng of kids barely a third of my own age.
Which brings us to Reason Number 117 - the venue itself. The sight lines in the Purgatory room, where last night's show was held (the other two stages at The Masquerade, Heaven and Hell, were already full with hard rock and metal bands) are terrible, with the stage barely a foot higher than the floor and a post smack in the middle front of the stage. Add to that the narrowness of the room, such that only about 8 to 10 people can stand abreast at the front of the stage, and you have a situation where everyone has to bunch together in a tightly pressed mass of human bodies at the front of the room in order to even have a chance to seeing the performers. Truth be told, the situation is not that different from East Atlanta Village's 529 (except for the post), but the older patrons of the latter bar have a little more respect for each other's personal space, and you don't find yourself caught up in some sort of bizarre frottage orgy with a bunch of 16-year-olds for the hour between the doors opening and the first band starting.
Baltimore's Dustin Wong took the stage at 9:00 pm sharp. We saw Wong once before when he opened for Beach House at Variety Playhouse, and were quite impressed with his multi-layered, loop-driven guitar playing. Because he works so many pedals, he sits down to perform, rendering himself out of sight for a good 80% of the audience. But despite the lack of visibility, he won over the young audience with his densely layered, fast-paced music and its sudden, turn-on-a-dime changes, and quite a few people in the crowd were noticeably awe-struck by the end of his set.
So that was a nice moment and actually made me forget for a few minutes how much I detest the god-forsaken Masquerade.
During the 30-or-so uncomfortable minutes after Dustin Wong's set, the audience was treated to a dj set by Deerhunter's Bradford Cox from somewhere in the room (I didn't see his set-up anywhere, and wasn't about to give up my spot near the front of the stage to go and find him). He mostly spun ironic, old-school pop songs, but by about 10:00, he started over-dubbing some vintage country music with atonal electronic music to a rather unsettling and even unpleasant effect. This went on for a good 10 minutes before Avey Tare and his band, Slasher Flicks, finally took the stage.
There are many reasons why I couldn't get a good picture of Slasher Flicks last night. First, of course, were the aforementioned terrible sight lines in the room, and second, the stage was lit only by a projector displaying psychedelic images against a bunch of white skull masks set up behind the stage. Add to all that the fact that Avey Tare himself spent much of his time crouching down at his pedals, and the constant craning of necks by the people around me trying to get a glimpse of the performers, and the pictures above is about the best that I could manage.
Anyhow, Slasher Flicks is the side project of Animal Collective's Avey Tare, and his distinctive voice makes Slasher Flicks instantly recognizable as an AnCo spin-off. He's joined by bandmates Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors) on keyboards and backing vocals and Jeremy Hyman (Ponytail, Dan Deacon) on drums.
The sound mix was terrible (Reason No.118), consisting primarily of Hyman's manic drumming at the top of the mix, with the high-end of Deradoorian's keys beneath it, and Avey Tare's vocals way down below and barely audible. I hardly heard his guitar at all. Mixing problems like this are usually resolved by the second or third songs, but it stayed that way throughout the entire set. Which was a shame, as what I was able to make out sounded pretty interesting. This is a band I would love to hear at a real venue some day, not at some sort of playground for high schoolers.
So I know all of this sounds very plaintive and whiny, but am I sorry that I went? Not at all. Wong was terrific, and a project like Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks may or may not be a one-off tour. I had to go for myself if for no other reason than just to see what it was like.
My only regret was that the show was at the godforsaken Masquerade, who did everything they possibly could to ruin the night.
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