Posted by: Scott Bragg on March 17, 2009 at 11:45 am
MP3: It Ain’t Right
The Old Miami was near capacity Saturday night for the I, Crime 7″ release show, with Detroit scenesters packed so tight that I think even the Miami’s various taxadermied animals felt uncomfortable and crowded. Openers The Bitter Tears from Chicago provided my first opportunity to see a stand-up bass nipple-plucked, the bassist looking like a young Tom Waits in deathly white face paint and denim overalls. The rest of the band was dressed even more ridiculously. Alan, on the “orals” and guitar, dressed in short blue-jean shorts and glittery red turtleneck while guitarist/trombonist Greg dressed in a shorter blue-jean skirt, all of the band face-gunked with stage paint. The Bitter Tears played a spooky freak-barnyard-folk-death rock (reference Violent Femmes’ Hollowed Ground), with story plots that could’ve been ripped off from old episodes of Tales from the Crypt or a Chuck Palahnuik novel.
I, Crime played with their usual, determined intensity, singers Anderson Walworth and Jenny Knaggs trading vocals and singing every note and lyric with the kind of passion that makes you know that they mean it. Knaggs in particular pushed the limits of comfort for me as a spectator as she sung about slitting throats with a wild-eyed fevor that made me want to look away. Each song, even with the continual mic squeaks from a poorly mixed PA, moved from hard-driving rock down to soulful, harmonized breakdown, and back up again, revealing a musical cartography that sounds far purer on the 7″ available now on Woodbridge Records than on the Old Miami loudspeakers.
Tags: I Crime, Old Miami, The Bitter Tears
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3 Responses to “Crime, Tears and 7 Inches At The Old Miami”
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I’m pretty sure I saw The Bitter Tears in Chicago (2 years ago today, as a matter of fact). And I’m pretty sure I was so overwhelmed by the costumes and tomfoolery that I instantly forgot it ever happened.
also, you need to be in a band with this knaggs fellow. bragg and knaggs. am I right ladies?
and by knaggs fellow, I mean ms. knaggs.
BTW, the Violent Femmes album that was referenced is “Hallowed Ground”, not “Hollowed Ground”. Slight difference in the imagery.