Decadence: Stength, Guau Guau, and Reverse Dotty and the Candy Cane Shivs

I think we just had decadence hour.

First, it was Strength downstairs. Just back from touring behind their brand new long-overedue record, this straight up un-ironic disco band has picked up a lot of confidence since their pdxpop show last year. Bailey, their mullet-haired singer, dove out into the crowd to lay a big fat hug on some dude adding a good dose of mosh pit to their already bumpin dancefloor.

In a totally different direction upstairs was the unpronounceable Guau Guau. Lke Chuck Berry just having crawled out of a swamp, they brought a dented low down dirty Jon Spencer-y approach to good old 50s-style rock songs. Their shambolic, child-like stage banter totally won over the rapidly growing crowd upstairs.

Finally, I just came down from Reverse Dotty and the Candy Cane Shivs. As weird as their name, this sextet, played psychotic sexed-up 80s-club-hit style. Reminiscent of nearly no one currently operating (except maybe The Knife, the Swedish group that recently came to fame with Jose Gonzalez's cover of their great song, Heartbeats). The Shivs perectly evoked the dark drug and sex-soaked milieu of dance clubs like Studio 54 with choruses like "Aderol, casual, sexual" and "I wanna fuck you in the face". Combined with the mosh pit of sweaty teenagers up front, this was an intense set.

It sounds like Dykeritz is getting started up there and I could definitely use some of their sunny pop right about now. And then, after that we'll be into the homestretch. . ."