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Broken
Spindles, Passage/Restiform Bodies Given that Broken Spindles is the brainchild of Faint bassist Joel Petersen I was expecting a fairly large turn out - simply given the Faint and Saddle Creek connection. I remember going to a Rilo Kiley show in Chapel Hill last year and hearing numerous people say they never heard the band before but they are on Saddle Creek so they must be good. Yet, when I got to the door a good 45 minutes after the posted start time there was no one inside. The guy at the door said there was a show to be had, but I only moderately believed him. After some delay, hoping above hope that more individuals would show up, Passage/Restiform Bodies took the stage. The shear amount of electronics arrayed on the stage for the ordinary possessed three-piece was dizzying. Starting the show to an empty floor, Restiform took their electro-beat indie rap amalgam to the best of intentions. It is certainly difficult when there are only ten people watching, but they did an admirable job of performing like the place was packed. Only the arrival of a handful of drunk/stoned high schoolers seemed to throw the band off their game a bit - though a split second power outage barely did. The group is fronted by an average looking guy David (Passage) whose vocals vary between slightly off-key singing to quasi-raps all on top of some top-notch electronic instrumentals. Several of the songs from the roughly forty-five minute set were phenomenal - and these tended to be when Passage didn't overplay his hand on the vocals. You may know more about these guys then I, but I was surprised by the number of records they had for sale - where have these guys been?
It took Petersen and is his traveling companion a brief time to
set up their instruments and the projection screen on the front
of the stage. By this time the crowd had increased to roughly
fifteen people - though all believers. Not knowing that the Broken
Spindles rock out an audio-visual explosion experience, they proceeded
to play a half-hour set to a film mostly concentrating on some
guy going about his day. Though this makes sense since Broken
Spindles started out as a means for Petersen to provide a soundtrack
to a friend's film (is it the same one, don't know?). The best
AV, though, came when Petersen's face would appear in picture
boxes of a few pages of the New York Times. Petersen manned bass
and guitar while the other guy did most of the lead guitar work
- each standing next to and back from the screen on either side.
Broken Spindles only have two records out - their latest on Saddle
Creek Fulfilled/Complete and their first on Tiger Style Records.
Familiar with their latest but not the first, they seemed to almost
alternate back and forth between the albums. In that regard, most
if not all of Fulfilled/Complete was covered this evening. The
sound was terrific and tight, though it is certainly partially
due to a majority of the music being pre-recorded. So all the
beats, keys and various electronics were programmed and just played
out, while the boys rocked guitars along and Petersen provided
the time to time vocals. All in all, they did a hot job and Broken
Spindles is one of the few bands I'd be willing to see again.
With the right PR molesting, I'd expect their next trip to Chapel
Hill to be packed.
copyright exoduster.com 2004 |
