The Garden / DMTINA / The Growlers

live in Philadelphia (2014)

John Gentile

The show at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia on September 19 started off weird and proceeded to get weirder throughout the night. Although the bill only listed The Garden and The Growlers, before either act took the stage, "DMTINA" took the stage wearing high heels, a dress, a bouffant wig, and a ghoulish makeup job. Equal parts John Waters and David Johansen, DMTINA started the show by drunkenly insulting, trying to rev up the audience, and stumbling over things. It was fantastic.

With the audience sufficiently confused, twin brother duo the Garden took the stage and immediately kicked into their hard hitting set. While the band's studio recordings are generally sparse and energetic, consisting of spastic minute long(or 15 seconds) abstractions, live they made their songs more frantic, and surprisingly, more rockin'.

Wyatt Shears snapped down on his guitar with hard, energetic strikes so that the actual notes seemed to tumble and reverberated off each other in a cold, menacing cascade. Fletcher Shears increased the songs' tempo and played looser live so that as the songs whipped along, they felt like they were ready to tear apart at any second— and, as per the band's unusual song structure, they often did.

Surprisingly, though, was that as the brothers congealed their low, rumbling, dark sound, they often seemed reminiscent of the sludge punk of Amphetamine Reptile bands, having shades of the cold, unquantifiable menace of bands like Unsane and Halo of Flies. But, whereas those bands would often slow down to savior the distortion, the Garden brothers increased their speed so that by the end of a song, they were flying apart from each other like those last few moments of early Black Flag songs.

The randomness of the brothers' songs manifested in their persons as well. As Fletcher drummer, he would often climb up on his stool midsong and start to arch his body into Peter Murphy style poses. Meanwhile, Wyatt seemed to be constantly jimmying across the stage until, at one point, he jumped off the stage, grabbed onto the balcony, and pulled himself up to the venue's upper level, hanging precariously over a 15 foot drop!

Halfway through the set, the band abandoned their instruments and performed some of their newest numbers like "We be gridnin'" which are sort of avant—garde electronic numbers. But, instead of relying on a 4/4 back beat like so much electronic music, their airy, slithering electronic songs have the creepiness of Bowie's Berlin period and the random, inexplicable sonic flashes of Chrome.

This was evident in their newest single, "Crystal Clear," which has the power and aggression of their early songs as well as the alien texture of the more electronic based material. The band's first proper LP, The Life and Times of a Paperclip exhibited the band having mastered their Spartan set up. If they are able to balance their raw punk power with their growing interest in their unique brand of electronic—goth, their next release will be something truly unique.

Following the Garden, DMTINA took the stage again for a mini—set which consisted of the singer yelling parts of songs, or random interjections, over pre—recorded songs by other artists. Divine's "You think you're a man" blasted in the back while DMTINA sort of kept up with the beat. After that, thins began to splinter with Pete Shelley's "Homo—sapien" which ended as DMTINA shouted obscenities at the audience. By the end of the set, which included a snippet of the New York Dolls' "Stranded in the jungle," DMTINA had picked up a guitar, only to not play it, cast it aside, and then basically scream at the audience as makeup ran down his/her face. As music, maybe it wasn't so great. As an experience of art, it was a wild, challenging scene.

The show ended with the Growlers playing an extended set of their "beach goth" stylings. A mix of California psychedelic rock, garage rock, and easy grooving, the band played an extended set of music that was at once vintage sounding and unquantifiable.

Certainly, many of the songs have sort of sad edge. But, whereas Bauhaus of Sisters of Mercy would wallow in despair, the Growlers leave their sentiments of longing and melancholy on the outskirts of their tone while borrowing their sunny riffs the golden era of rock and roll and doo wop.

While the band drifted from song to song, they slipped in some unexpected diversions. At one moment, they were more Roger Miller than Nuggets, which both saluted and sort of winked at the era when country had just went mainstream. At another point, the band used a clean, yearning sound that ever so slightly had the façade of motown.

But, that' what makes a band like the Growlers so interesting to the audience. The band flirts with most of the classic genres, but never really settles on one. Even the term "beach goth" only means that the band bases itself in a sort of bent California rock. If anything, by mixing their influences so deeply, the band avoids being pigeonholed as a sort of genre band, and is left to wander off to wherever they'd like to go.