The power trio is back after a longish hiatus. They are working on a new album and brought along some new songs to go with a few of the good ones I recall from past shows. The first Hawkwind/Amon Duul II psyche jam makes way for a post 2nd album Wire kind of song with maybe a touch of Pavement? They soldiered on nicely and [got] a thicker sound as the night went on and rocked the house pretty effectively. I liked a new song they played which sounded like Swell Maps succeeding in trying to sound like the Damned. Still one of my favorites and hopefully they will be one of yours some day soon.

This show is the last DC show for a while as the band will be doing some recording into the summer which should prove interesting. And it was a solid send off. The early part of the set had a twisted art damaged punk sound which really worked well with the guitar and bass battling atop the solid drumming. The set finished with two great long psyche jams that were songs and not just mindless jamming. Their theme was New Mexico tonight (St. Louis previously) and they are at a far more rapid pace to go through the country than Sufjan Stevens ever will. An excellent DC band that hopefully will be delivering some of their fine songs on a CD for each and every one of you.

The second time for me, seeing this local three-piece. They were chatting with me before-hand and said they had 50 songs in their itinerary and also try to do different covers regularly. I think that is really helpful, as when I see local bands too many times in a row, I feel like I am reviewing the same show. Not here. The general sound for this band is still hard psychedelic rock. They space out quite nicely or garage it up when they feel like it. Just call it rock, as it does. They medlied a couple covers, and the second one I spotted as Nirvana’s “Floyd the Barber”. They remind me of one of my favorites, Motorpsycho, in that it is hard to pin them down, which is a good thing when it is done well. They are not quite Motorpsycho yet, but they will do nicely as we are not in Norway. Hopefully, more people will discover this band, show by show. On an unimportant note, the guitarist really looks like Glenn Cornick.

This DC band has some records out and t-shirts, so they have been around a bit. They began with a slow building psyche-fest that ended loud and faster in a Kohoutek manner. Ergo, the Velvet Lounge is the perfect venue for this sound. They varied things a bit between psyche and hard rock with arty vocal moves reminding me a bit of MX-80 Sound (yes, I’ve used this reference at least three times previously, but it explains things nicely even if they are obscure). The bass sound fuzzed out a bit too loudly at times, but it settled. His playing was quite good [and the bass] acted like an extra guitar at times. They also reminded me a bit of a really nice band I’ve seen many times, Entrance Band. Good show all the way around tonight