Show Review: Syme, The Binges, White Denim

WE WENT TO GAWK at nothing.

Sure, there were three bands performing at DC9 on Monday, including Syme, the electro-pop space-rockers we profiled in Express. But as interested as we were in the Norwegian quintet, we were also curious to see if anybody would show up to a Monday night concert featuring three bands whose collective name recognition is zilch.

We arrived at 9:45 p.m., figuring, and hoping, that we had missed the two opening bands. To our initial chagrin, that was not the case.

At 10 p.m., the first act, The Binges, climbed on DC9's tiny stage in front of, well, pretty much nobody. The Los Angeles band features two scruffy white dudes who look like they fell off the back of a train and two cute, groomed Asian women on guitar and bass.

It didn't look promising.

Singer Dylan Squatcho, above, jokingly thanked "everybody" for coming out, and then guitarist Mayuko Okai, above left, started with a dirty garage-rock lick. By the time drummer Travis "Skanky" Smith — that's his real nickname, not a pejorative — and bassist Tsuzumi Okai joined in, a slow stream of people of surprisingly varied ages began to emerge from the stairs connected to DC9's downstairs bar.

And by the time The Binges finished their first song, not only was there a decent crowd in the tiny club, the band had fully charged the night's previously dead atmosphere.

Quelle surprise!

The Binges proceeded to rip through a spirited set of raw rock 'n' roll that recalled pure 1960s garage-rock stompers mixed with 1970s boogie-metal riffs and glam-punk. It's a tried-and-true formula, sure, but Squatcho has an awesome rock-singer howl, Skanky smashed his kit like it owed him money and the sisters Okai are heavy-metal superstars in miniature.

The older folks in the audience turned out to be related to Squatcho and the band's manager, Kii Arens, and they surprised their younger rock 'n' roll relatives by showing up at the gig as a surprise, some traveling from as far away as New York.

The Binges' debut album will come out on the newly restructured Sympathy for the Record Industry in January 2008, and like the other bands on the Monday bill, the group was slogging through some East Coast dates on its way to the CMJ Music Marathon this week in New York City.

Because the night's bands were thrown together by circumstance and not because of complementary sounds, it was toss-up as to whether the next group could continue the party.

And when White Denim took the stage, the aura of rock 'n' roll destitution that The Binges gave off was wiped away by a trio of fellows who looked like refugees from a suburban high school jazz band.

Which they pretty much are.

But White Denim's music turned out to be a hectic mixture of the Minutemen's herky-jerky punk and Cream's flexible soul-rock. And despite the Austin, Texas, band's geeky appearance, they were still able to rock the crowd in a manner to which they were accustomed. That is to say, quite hard — albeit in a fabulously nerdy sorta way.

This group of mid-twentysomethings consists of rubber-faced guitarist and singer James Petralli; bassist Steve Terebecki, who looks all of 12 (see his rosy red cheeks, above left); and drummer Joshua Block, who confirmed to us that he did spend some time in the famed jazz program at the University of North Texas.

To borrow a scholarly phrase that musicologists might apply to White Denim: "They can play the crap out of their instruments."

White Denim has a self-released CD-R and a 7-inch to its name, but if this was the mid-1980s instead of the mid, um, oughts, the group would have already found a home at Homestead Records or the SST label by now.

By the time Syme took the stage, the audience was well-primed, particularly the spirited reps from D.C. band Middle Distance Runner, who were putting their Scandinavian pals up for the night and who cheered loudly throughout the concert.

Guitarist Fredrik Vogsborg and keyboardist Ketil Endresen traded or shared vocals throughout, with their whispery tenors sometimes clashing in the flatlands. But they also hit those skirmishing notes often enough that it seemed by choice rather than accident, and when we listened to Syme's CDs again, the same sort of strange harmonies were found throughout.

The band's loud-soft songs rocked much harder live than on the discs, however, and the musicians' mixture of goofy stage moves — Endresen's go-to dance step often looked like he was half-heartedly waving at someone while kicking his feet in a white-boy shuffle — and tried-and-true hair swinging was a reliable visual component to Syme's cinematic sound.

Feeling good about the crowd response, about midway through Endresen said D.C. was one of the top three shows on Syme's tour so far. He then teased that it wasn't the best one, just top three.

Then again, how many other people who saw Syme had a chance to dance with the band?

Almost immediately after the group hit its last note, DC9 turned on music to start clearing out the club. And one by one, led by bassist Ben Nerdal, Syme members came offstage dancing and singing to Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime," which was blaring through the sound system.

Everybody on the floor was shaking it, and the hyped audience joined the lads in a hearty chanting of the song's refrain, "Same as it ever was" — betraying the joyful reality that this was anything but just another dead Monday night in Washington.


Photos by Christopher Porter/Express