TEAM TINNITUS

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June 6, 2005

Mahjongg, The Cells, Atole, Holocene, 5/27/05

Sorry, TRMW. I did wuss out on the Stereo Total review because I thought they were a bit of a snooze fest (except that one song they did at the end that doesn’t sound like words and Brezel Goring sings the same jumble phrase over and over to a kickin’ beat). Gooey personal issues cannot allow me to write on the Gossip. Ha!

So, I digress and write on the Mahjongg! You ever get some kind of supposedly super secret demo from a friend and then you become obsessed with it to the point where you jam out to it at every red light and it’s the pinnacle of your listening pleasure for months. You give it to all your friends and play it for your editor because you want him to know how super fresh you are. Then, finally you see that it’s come out officially and it’s reviewed on Pitchfork and they’re all like “hmm, seven stars. It’s all right”. Now your little secret is not a secret and Pitchfork has smuggled it into the public spectrum of mediocrity. Nooooooo! I don’t know why I let them have so much power over me. Ugh.

Anyways, so from that little prelude you can imagine how pumped I was for this show. I mean, I had reached groupie status like Friendstering them and letting them know my pumpedness. I’m texting my friends a week in advance “Don’t forget Mahjongg this Friday” and then “One day till Mahjongg”, you get the picture. From my convoluted first impression, I expected the place to be packed but actually considering Bloc Party and Pixies were playing that night, it was situationally packed. Yeah!

I was amazed how much gear they had: two drum sets, a computer setup that looked like it was lifted from CIA offices of the 80s and tons of little toy doodlies for voice modulation and percussion. I don’t remember lighting at the Holocene ever being so good but it rocked visually more than anything I had ever seen there. The stage was packed with bodies and all the band members kept switching instruments like it ain’t no thang. For example Hunter Husar did keyboards, computron, synth, guitar and drums. I must say that the vocals can be a bit doldrums, lacking affect, and there was definitely no rock’n’roll talk (my favorite aspect of live shows). They really don’t need it though considering some of their songs are of an ultimate tribal cadence and had 30 people dancing in the front getting the floor all wet with fallen drinks and sweat (including myself....note to self: don’t wear heels... geez, they did look hot though). Uh-huh!

Posted by at June 6, 2005 1:06 PM

Comments

Posted by: Bo Von H. at June 13, 2005 4:57 PM

Posted by: matt at June 13, 2005 8:38 PM