The crowd for the Jay Reatard/Kim Phuc show this past Monday night at the Brillobox was a little more, how should I say this, meaner than the usual mix of indie kids the Penn Avenue mainstay is used to. A large, enthusiastic crowd, sure, but they had a bit of an edge. It’s a welcome change of pace from some of the more precious crowds I have seen at shows lately.  I will say this  was probably the direct result of a local concert promoter (and by that I mean OPUS ONE) facilitating the perfect union between a local band and a national tour.

I don’t think any Pittsburgh band could even begin to approach the pure viciousness of a Kim Phuc live show and for all those who have seen Jay Reatard in concert already know how similar their musical philosophies are. Between Jay Reatard’s pocket rock opuses disguised as shotgun blasts of hardcore rage and Kim Phuc’s zombie Stooges swagger,  the show, simply put, did not fuck around.  It was a heaving sweaty mess of the loudest music ever to come out of the Brillobox’s monitors, deliriously beaming with something too many Pittsburgh bands seem to lack: attitude.

It was the second time I saw Kim Phuc at the Brillobox, the first being their opening gig this summer for The Obits and…(sigh)… can I admit something? Kim Phuc scare the living shit out of me. Their bassist is like eight feet tall and basically pummels anything in his path using one of the heaviest, most distorted bass lines I have ever heard.

Lead singer Rob Headfield usually divides his concert presence between stalking through the crowd like a pissed off bulldog, slowly climbing the 10 foot speaker stack, and wrapping his shining paw around that kitchy little chandelier right above the stage (that detail was from the first Kim Phuc show this summer, this time around the chandelier was conspicuously absent).

The maliciously loud three minute riot that is “Wormwood Star” closed the show and rattled my insides without discretion. As the song ended, I was grinning like an idiot, trying trying to remember the last time I felt my ribcage vibrate that violently.

Jay Reatard is a freak of nature.  He music embodies an arena-rock level virtuosity crammed into a 1:30 jerk-off punk blasts.  Watching the full frenzy of his live show, I finally realized how tight his compositions were : stop and starts on a dime, insanely precise guitar solos, three-part harmonies, the guy does it all.  Even after his entire backing band quit on him a month ago, his new group hasn’t seemed to miss a beat.

The jarring, faster than light combo of “Blood Visions” and “It’s So Easy” opened the show as Jay kept his trademark of launching into the next song milliseconds after the previous had concluded.  A transition that was handled with no more than a ‘”It’s So Easy” Let’s go!” shout ushering in the next track.  Watch Me Fall standouts “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” and “I’m Watching You” came to life with striking passion, the latter of which actually resembles a thrashing Irish Pub anthem that wouldn’t be out of place at a drunken Dublin wake.

Jay’s confrontational streak, something that has made headlines on numerous occasions, made an appearance as he hurled a couple insults at a slightly over zealous member of the front row, even dedicating the next song as a “fuck you” to the guilty party.

I began to think about the entire show in general, and how the communal aspect of a concert might be an overrated experience.  Is it more exciting to be in an adversarial position to the performer? I can’t say.  I will say that this show had balls. It was threatening, edgy and confrontational, but also exhilarating and impassioned. Jay Reatard and Kim Phuc weren’t afraid to piss people off and blow them away simultaneously.  Isn’t that what rock and roll is all about?

Jay Reatard – It Ain’t Gonna Save Me

Jay Reatard – I’m Watching You

Kim Phuc – Wormwood Star

Hopefully, the track selections will possess enough variety to provide a brief snapshot of the broad and expanding  Pittsburgh independent music community.  Most, if not all, of the groups featured here will be playing shows in Pittsburgh over the summer months, check back soon for Speed of the Pittsburgh Sound’s updated June/July concert calendar. Enough shameless plugging, on to the tunes.

Kim Phuc – Wormwood Star

Kim Phuc’s “Wormwood Star” has the feeling of an early Stooges outtake, a track that would have been deemed too loud, too vicious, and simply too scary for audiences circa 1969 to process let alone enjoy. With its dangerous, buzz saw guitars, face pounding drum sections and apocalyptically cryptic vocals, “Wormwood Star” possesses the kind of doomed menace serious metal bands unwittingly force into parody. This is the soundtrack to a riot, a buckshot blast through a store front, white hot and unstable.

Fresh off a string of South By Southwest shows that saw the band rubbing elbows and playing on the same bill as LA scene builders No Age and Mika Miko, Kim Phuc brings their snarling, no frills proto-punk to Mr. Roboto Project on May 25. Enter at your own risk.

Meeting of Important People – I Know Every Street

I don’t mean to speculate about Josh Verbanets’s, Meeting of Important People’s lead singer-songwriter/guitarist, motives behind writing a song like “I Know Every Street,” a track he contributed to his former band’s LP (Lohio’s History, The Destroyer) and is now featured as the centerpiece of Meeting of Important People’s debut, self-titled album.  I’d like to think he’s talking about Pittsburgh and the ways in which this town’s intricacies feel small enough to learn but damn near impossible to master.  The track is a quieter, down tempo jam (and staple of MOIP’s live show) that slowly builds to a rocking crescendo, with Verbanets declaring he “leads every beat in this town.” Could this song be a call to arms for the rest of Pittsburgh’s indie pop elite to conquer the city? For bands like Donora, Good Night, States, Lohio  and now Meeting of Important People, I think they already have.

David Bernabo + Assembly – Out There (Birdshit Remix)

David Bernabo, Pittsburgh’s mad scientist of folk-blues-hip-hop-rock fusion, and his group Assembly crafted the beautiful mess “Out There,” remixed by Birdshit of local prog metal group Drugdealer, for their Mahler Box EP released last fall. Disjointed, melodic and danceable  in the same breath, “Out There” showcases Bernabo’s knack for creating innovative vocal harmonies and challenging compositions, highlighted by the spastically active, yet deceptively simple production by Birdshit.  It’s a major concoction from Pittsburgh’s most astute connoisseurs of avant-pop, a track that’s lovely and adoringly garish in equal amounts.  Listening to the Mahler Box EP on repeat has brought my excitement to a fever pitch for the group’s first full length album, Happener Magicker, to be released early this summer.

Mariage Blanc – Contrary to Popular Belief

Mariage Blanc’s “Contrary to Popular Belief”, off the group’s first EP Broken Record released last fall, has the immediate mood of a sweeping epic, even while the track clocks in at a little less than four minutes. A novel’s worth of emotion radiates from the quiet strings, elegiac vocals and little production touches that make the song shimmer with nuance and depth.  As the jaunty, Scott Joplin-pianos get paired with sparking electric guitars for the heartbreaking coda, the denouement feels completely fitting and realized. Not many groups can intuit this much feeling over the course of an entire album let alone one song, but Mariage Blanc seem more than comfortable discarding melodrama and sappy sentiment to create songs that are genuinely moving. Mariage Blanc plays with Boca Chica and Prussia at Howler’s Coyote Cafe on May 27th.