Deja Vu All Over Again

I finally got to check out the new Luna Lounge in Williamsburg Saturday night. It was one of those rare nights (esp. rare in NYC/Brooklyn bookings) where I knew not just one or two but FOUR bands on a bill.

First, a word about the new Luna. It's just off the old Bedford Ave. strip in Williamsburg, about halfways between the Bedford and Lorimar L train stops, and it's a big room. Like Bowery Ballroom big. Since they're mostly booking local band like the old Luna, methinks that a lot of bands are going to be playing to half-empty rooms there or worse. And if it's bad now, wait until the old Northsix reopens in a few months as the Bowery Ballroom East and starts booking national acts in the same neighborhood, in which I expect will be about the same sized space.

There's nothing wrong with a big room, but the old Luna Lounge was all about intimacy and that Ludlow Street loweast-east-side neighborhood vibe. It was a place where a lot of people just went to hang out, and maybe you'd stick your head in the backroom, and maybe sometimes the band would turn out to be the next Interpol or Strokes. And even if the band sucked, it was free, so you'd keep hanging out there and try again next time.

And at least the Lower East Side is still a neighborhood; Williamsburg is a theme park. And since the higher rent means that the new Luna needs to charge a cover and there's no bar in the front room anymore, that old hangout vibe is just gone, gone, gone. Now it's just another place where you buy a ticket at the door to see bands, and don't we have enough cold soulless rooms in NYC as it is (Sin-E, the main room at Knitting Factory, Lit Lounge?)And it certainly doesn't help that, at least on Saturday night, the sound at the new Luna was abominable - booming, loud, echoey, with mushy muffled vocals, and a very loggy bottom end to everything.



Crescent Moon

Okay, back to the show. Crescent Moon turned out to be my old buddy Dave Dreiwitz, one of the most talented and innovative bassists in the history of NJ indie rock; his credits include Tiny Lights, his own two/man bass/drums nerdcore band Instant Death (who were HUGE in New Brunswick for many years,) and of course a long stint in Ween. Like Instant Death, Crescent Moon is a drums/bass duo, but more sincere indie-rock, not that goofy arch pseudo-metal stuff. Dave told me that his 19-year old drummer was a prodigy who also plays in the Adrian Belew Trio, but when the kid started clanging the cowbell for a particularly funky tune, Crescent Moon just sounded like great rock n' roll. Dave's bass is so dynamic and versatile that he can mimic guitar leads and power chords as well as providing a grooving funky bottom. This is definitely an act you have to check out.


Half Cleveland

Chris Butler


Talk about having a resume': Half Cleveland's roots go back to the early days of the Kent, OH new-wave scene, when Harvey Gold and Chris Butler (as part of Tin Huey) played basements and blues clubs alongside Devo and Pere Ubu. With Debbie Smith on bass and Bob Ethington on drums, Half Cleveland's continues Tin Huey's brainy mix of new-wave, classic rock, and indie pop (Butler wrote songs for another band you might have heard of, The Waitresses, before beginning a second career as a kind of pop Wizard of Oz spinning out quirky, off the wall solo discs.) Okay, so maybe it looked like a family wedding when some of the other geezers in the hall started dancing, but Half Cleveland prove that good rock 'n' roll is not only timeless, but ageless.


Greg DiGesu

Greg DiGesu is another old-timer who's been involved in some seminal projects over the years, going back to his Eighties New Brunswick-based combo Wooden Soldiers. Now performing under the somewhat unwieldly name of The Sounds Of Greg D, he's got Dreiwitz on bass on a collection of solid country-tinged rock songs to his credit.


Kapow!

Tris McCall

Kapow! is an orchestral power-pop project featuring brothers Toshi Yano and
Dustin Arduini (they don't look like brothers anymore than their last names do,) with Tris McCall on synthesizers, the Negatones' Jay Braun on bass, and the talented Chris Isom (who mixes classic rock leads with slide and chunky power chords) on guitar. (Jay's brother Justin usually handles bass but couldn't make the show, so Jay covered, which left Kapow! short one guitar.) The mushy sound was most problematic on their set, since Kapow relies on catchy harmony vocals, but the group's bubblegum melodies and bouncy rhythms still had the room (which had respectably filled up by this point) rocking. Dancing even.



Read Ben Krieger's blog about the new Luna and Kapow! here.