i was quite excited to find that my most recent trip to seattle coincided with this bad mother. for those not familiar, gold standard labs is home to the locust, get hustle, moving units, etc. this show (at seattle's badass, nonprofit, all-ages vera project) was headlined by the chromatics, from which i anticipated a great show... more on that later. i had heard none of the other bands, but expected some good stuff from the friendly folks at gsl.
first up were the starvations. they played some solid rockabilly-tinged punk with the appetizing addition of prominent keyboards/accordian on the newer songs. this wasn't amazing, but i was impressed enough to pick up the seven-inch. i liked the bass and 2nd guitar who faced away from the crowd the entire time.
next was a band that seems to be getting a significant buzz in their local bay area (san francisco) scene. i expected some crappy goth-punk-synth-rock from the vanishing, and that was pretty much what i got. fortunately, the super-tight drumming and, more significantly, super-energetic frontwoman (with her random dashes into the crowd, kicking of eqiupment, and out-of-place saxophone with muchos effects pedals) saved the show.
kill me tomorrow took a while to set up. each instrument (including, somehow, the drum set) was filtered through lots of effects pedals, and the band looked a little tired. still, i expected something cool from a band selling posters for a bill they shared with pere ubu. i was not disappointed. i don't know what exactly it was that i was hearing during their set, but i liked it a lot. it had a prominent beat in all the songs, and all of it had me dancing, but it was also more experimental than anything else i heard that night. i don't know what else to say - the new 7" is available from gsl for the curious (it is interesting, but unfortunately doesn't compare to the live show in the least).
finally, the chromatics set up. i was surprised to see only two guys and a drum machine. i have since found out that the chromatics 4-piece is now the krmtx 2-piece. well, they played some songs, and they played them well. the only problem was that the 2-piece seems uncapable of delivering anything nearly as energizing as the 4-piece. the songs were boring and slow, and more appropriate for background music at a bar than funky jams at an all-ages show. how the wolf eyes fans put up with this at the double bill three nights before, i do not know.