Terrorbird/Force Field Party
Red 7, Wednesday, March 16So Toro y Moi might have been the band that everyone was there to see. And their dutiful set was crowd-pleasing enough, but the buzz at the Terrorbird Media & Force Field PR day party was behind Oakland’s Tune-Yards. And how they got that buzz is anyone’s guess because they were about six shades of ukulele-playing, no-rhythm-section-having awful. Any hope that the borderline self-parody set might be rescued by a saxophone duet was laid to waste when the alto and tenor’s borderline off-key caterwauling chimed in halfway through the set. To call it bad would be generous. The shindig wasn’t without highlights though. Sets by Violens and the Generationals were pleasantly engaging, and the dead-serious turn on the Dead Milkmen by Cloud Nothings was surprisingly buoyant. But the star of the show came in the form of a maybe 5-foot-2-inch woman who looked like she needed a permission slip just to leave New Jersey. Screaming Females‘ front shredder Marissa Paternoster is a riff dynamo who can kick twice her weight in ass. It’s tempting to want to call them metal, but musically there’s way more than an overreliance on bar chords. Couple that with Paternoster’s delivery – half Chrissie Hynde cool and half Allison Robertson ass-kick – and you’ve got a fucking indie legend in the making. If you showed up late, you missed the show.
This article appears in March 18 • 2011.