Every summer legions of bands with practically no following to speak of outside of their regions pack it in the van and roll around the country with no AC, windows down, pocketing less at the door than goes in their tank, eating the cheapest fast foods, drinking PBR, and losing jobs and lovers back home in the process. But, like some folks’ lord Jesus Christ, their suffering is not in vein. These are the folks keeping our world turning, keeping life real, and keeping music exciting. God bless ‘em every one. These are also the shows we always miss and hear rave reviews of the next day from the guy working behind the bar or a member of a local band on the bill. This evening I’d like to propose that each and every one of you select one of these quixotic minstrels and make a serious attempt at witnessing their entire set. After all, tonight our li’l town hosts no less than three such acts at three different clubs, all of whom are excellent adventure bets that’ve traveled 3,000 miles east from three different cities for the unlikely prospect that they may access your discerning ear for roughly 45 minutes, your girlfriend for approximately an hour, and your couch for seven or eight hours.

Abe Vigoda at Glasslands. Anyone named after Fish is OK in my book (a punk rock reference going back at least as far as the Dawn of the Dickies: “stuck in a pagoda/with Trisha Toyota/watching Abe Vigoda” that’s when lyricists could really rhyme). This wholesome looking Chino band’s goofy and informal style obscures a relatively ambitious attempt to combine Caribbean sounds with contemporary noise punk – in which they seem to succeed quite well. Playful, interesting and screwed up. Plus, it won’t be a whole lotta sacrifice on your part because they’re playing with one of NYC’s finer indie party bands Cause Co-Motion.

Child Pornography at Don Pedro’s. Like Abe Vigoda, they aren’t a very hard sell as they’re playing immediately before one of Brooklyn’s finest bands at the moment, the mighty mighty mighty Pterodactyl. Also like Vigoda, they’re cute kids hailing from the unlikely California town, the Los Angeles suburb of Riverside, but they can also hurt you. The sound of this guitar/synth is a head-on collision of Les Georges Leningrad and Suicide from a lower-fi spazz-core perspective. A heroic balance of dorky and shrill while oddly catchy and exciting.

Night Wounds at Silent Barn. This is totally up my alley – the images of Contortions and Crass albums on their Myspace page say it all. Hailing from Portland, and a bit less innocent in physical appearance than the former and ladder, the quartet falls somewhere between a couple of the finer saxophone-enhanced West Coast bands – more specifically the angularity of recent Old Time Relijun and the skuzzy bombast of Silver Daggers. As I write this, I’m having a difficulty removing their screwed up pop song “Clear the Room” out of my head. While they’re not playing with a local sure thing like the others, the effort to see them, which is worth the subway ride to Ridgewood just to find out for yourself, makes you sonic adventurer.

Abe Vigoda with Cause Co-Motion and more at The Glasslands (details)
Child Pornography with Pterodactyl and more at Don Pedro’s (details)
Night Wounds at Silent Barn (details)

http://www.myspace.com/abevigoda
http://myspace.com/yhpargonropdlihc
http://www.myspace.com/nightwounds