Brat summer is over. It's time for Femme-Indie-Soft-Grunge Fall.
I'm starting a review column of local Athens shows with an absolute banger of a bill. After getting ramen at Jinya and getting subsequently drenched in a pent-up downpour, my friends and I headed to see Zoe Bayani and her band start the Saturday night off strong at Flicker. Squelching into the stage room, I saw the venue's new neon “Band Merch” sign shine boldly above some killer shirt designs and two long tables of merch in the corner. The room felt tighter and more intimate than usual, which is always good energy for the type of show that was about to go down.
Zoe and her bandmates drew everyone to the front of the room with an entrancing trochaic tetrameter barrage of earnest vocals on a descending chord structure that sounded like a serene, bittersweet heartbreak. Then came the fun part: a heavy, 2 second triplet drag into the chorus of her single: “Contemplate”. Guitars were blasting, people were thrashing, and the room was vibrant. Her fans seemed to be mostly younger and more prone to party than me and my head-bobbing friends in the back, and it lent credence to the idea that this really is the next big musical move. The drummer made tasteful and extensive use of tom fills throughout the set, and the vocal harmonies were simplistically forward and powerful. Bayani herself puts the emotion in her disenchanted vocal style through fluent stage decorum and dances. You can only catch the full experience at her shows, but her new album: “You Don't Want Help” is out now.
Then, Athens classics Honeypuppy took the stage with a bit more of a cowboy twang, but still rocking hard in the alt indie style. It was a cleaner and tighter sound but no less effective than what had just came before. The occasional big tempo swell and massive distorted guitar changes got everyone moving and grooving. Advertising their “Dirty TV” project coming up soon, the band brought a more friendly feel by joking with each other and the audience between songs. E-bows and slide guitar surfaced occasionally during the set and some harmonic bends brought the sound just a little closer to the likes of Modest Mouse. The vocals were clear and sweet with plenty of hints of sarcasm throughout songs like “Penny Press”, which is available on cassette and streaming alike.
Still with puddles in my shoes and sleep on the brain, I'm glad I stuck around to see the touring act Willa Mae from Nashville area. The aesthetic was an otherworldly punk that brought the energy back up for one last hurrah, and the experimental vocal backing track and spoken words were hypnotically cool. This was the first show of the band's southeast tour and they certainly gave it their all. It was a much darker flavor of punk than the other two acts but still energetic and imaginative. Each song played with dissonances and cadences like they were well loved toys: often, and without hesitation. Willa Mae has plenty of material out to enjoy, but I particularly like “Flirt with the Idea”.
This is about when I noticed the recurring theme of femme-presenting front members in all three bands really going all out for their stage fits, and with the masc-presenting support often settling for t-shirts. It certainly helped put the attention where it should be during the show, but I've never really taken it to mean a lack of effort. It reminded me of Jacqueline Warwick's piece, “Midnight Ramblers and Material Girls: Gender and Stardom in Rock and Pop,” from 2015. It's definitely worth a full read, but the idea that men in music are supposed to show effort while performing and women are supposed to be effortless icons could be changing in the local scene. That was just a passing thought as I left the building.
Not completely dry, I got a ride home with my friend visiting from Atlanta. He had invited me to the show in the first place, in the interest of seeing Zoe Bayani after her performance at The Masquerade. I'm glad Athens has always had a quasi ‘British invasion’ relationship with the greater Atlanta area, exporting our best and importing many of theirs. Yet I find myself wishing for high speed rail more often so that I don't need to brave spaghetti junction just to support the scene's spread. Witnessing the Atlanta scene to me is just alien enough to be interesting and just comfortable enough to be familiar. Comfortable unlike my shoes, which are still hung out to dry.