Compared to the small music venues I lurk around, the Cornerstone feels massive. I arrived a few minutes early to the show and there were only five people in the room. The amount of empty space at the time probably emphasized the scale, but by the end of the night the room would be full.
I came to this show knowing nothing of the three other bands performing besidesTokyo’s Melt Banana. I like to come to shows “cold” like this because I like to be surprised. And I was. The first surprise was that the first band, Dream_Mega, turned out to be a solo act. Joel Kyack started out playing a flute, and then another wind instrument more difficult to identify, and then did deep pitch-shifted vocals for the rest of the set. This was all accompanied by a hypnotic drone, lush sonic textures, and subsonic beats.
Next up was Coffin Prick from Los Angeles. Despite being the pseudonym of Ryan Weinstein, a five piece then appeared on stage. I’m going to assume that some of the musicians on stage are the same as on his latest album Loose Enchantment, but I can’t confirm that Kathy Lea was the artist playing saxophone, bongos and cowbell in rotation. This added a complexity to the sound which sometimes seemed reminiscent of the mid 80s a la Roxy Music, especially on “Shortly Forgotten”. “Smooth Rubber” had a throbbing catchy beat with lots of sax.
I think a lot of us in the room were there for loudness and noise, so these openers were somewhat of a surprise. That didn’t stop a man with a braided beard from dancing near the stage. Folks started wandering in who were clearly there for Melt Banana, like a girl in a Decora-esque dress though sadly I’m not up on my Japanese fashion. But these newly-arriving fans would have to wait a little longer.
Deaf Club’s set started like a consensual slap in the face. The music was like being trampled but in a good way, maybe by cats. Everyone in this four piece was full on. The vocalist Justin Pearson had a great command of the stage and the crowd. Jason Klein’s great bass riffs, Brian Amalfitano’s amazing complex guitar arrangements, and Scott Osment’s drums for days all drove the sound forward with massive energy. At some point, Pearson ran into the crowd, picked up a small child and ran around some more, deposited her back with her parents and returned to the stage – all without missing a beat. The music was relentless, only stopping for Pearson to give a warm and heartfelt thanks to the crowd towards the end of the set. As the penultimate song began I was thinking it was surprising there was no moshing, but in a flash there was a pit and I was shoved out of the way. The funny thing was, the person who shoved me unexpectedly apologized.
After this awesome set made me a fan, the shover mentioned above came over to me and apologized again. He had a larger feathered mohawk, kind of the cotton candy of mohawks. I said, ‘dude, it’s a mosh pit, I was shoving people too,’ which was met with a laugh. He said something about punk. I told him I’m in a punk band, and then we had a pleasant chat. I guess I looked feeble to him, oh well.
I didn’t see him again because the room got packed. I was near the front but, within a minute of Melt Banana taking the stage, a huge pit opened up and I ended up unwillingly transported to right in front of the stage. There were some very short women near me so I stepped behind them so they could see. I was right at guitarist Ichiro Agata’s feet and that ended up being a great spot.
Although Melt Banana have been around for about 25 years, I only discovered them about five years ago with this as my first time seeing them. I missed the full band version of them but that’s fine as I am a fan of duos. This tour was only seven venues on the West Coast.
Yasuko Onuki was holding a device that seemed like the console for the best video game ever invented. I guess it was. She was clearly very familiar with it, pushing the various unlabeled color buttons without looking at it. She often pressed it while swinging her arm out and behind her, which was Agata’s cue to lay into the mesmerizing guitar sounds, and then she would start screaming her high-pitched vocals.
Is it punk? Is it noise? Is it no wave? Yes. It’s all this and more.
There was no visible set list, so it’s hard for me to review a particular song, yet each time I was swept up in the music. Agata had two pedal boards and sometimes was standing on pedals on both boards to sustain a sound. He created an immense range of guitar textures while Yako used her console to add ripping deep beats and various sounds to accent the vocals and guitars. I was leaning with my right side to the stage, and to my left was a vortex of smiles spinning by me that didn’t stop during the whole set.
Even though they were on stage for about an hour, the set was over all too fast. I hope I’ll be able to catch them again. We’re lucky with all that’s going on in the world that they were able to come and share their music in our little corner of the world.
Review and photos by Artemis Jones
