Those Peabodys Credit: Photo by Sandy Carson

Those Peabodys, the Crack Pipes, Shapes Have Fangs

Emo’s, Jan. 10

After warming up the huddled crowd at Club de Ville on Saturday night, Shapes Have Fangs rematerialized inside at Emo’s for a hearty second serving, simmering with richly distorted 1960s soul and keeping hard-driving metric attention and deep bass hooks that conjure the Kinks at their ripest. A new split 7-inch with Cavedweller drops later this month, so start pretraining now. The capacity crowd slurped the set up, despite riding the tail end of this year’s Free Week musical smorgasbord, then demanded a complementary helping of Southern revival from Austin’s own tenacious rock prophets the Crack Pipes. A cohesive collision of clangy cymbals and the gut-summoned howling of the Rev. Ray Pride found absorption in the shimmy-shaking, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. Lest attendees find themselves longing for another hit, the upcoming Crack Pipes tribute album, 13 Crack Tracks, features locals sharing the love. The evening’s prehangover nightcap was dosed out by threepiece Those Peabodys. Drummer at large Erik Conn tenderized the set with the sort of nimble, feverish precision typically reserved for a Benihana’s chef, while guitarist Adam Hatley and bassist Clarke Wilson took shifts on lead vocals, a position better filled by Wilson or, better still, by an independent contractor.

This article appears in January 16 • 2009.

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