Who would have thought the Midwest could offer so much. Though as privileged as I am to be living in Los Angeles, where I am fortunate enough to be able to taste and lurch around a newly growing and diverse music scene, it seems as though LA is not the only place to witness and thoroughly experience the wonders of independent musicians and artists today. I am sure most of you are thinking, "I could have told you that," and yes maybe what I am saying does not come as much surprise, but for me at least, knowing that there is more to see out there is not the same as actually traveling to unknown territories and indulging in what can be found.
What am I rambling on about? Give me a chance! I was visiting my parents in Ohio for a week. Obviously ones first reaction after hearing the word "O-H-I-O" isn't exactly a "FUCK YEAH!" You would be right to think poorly of most of the state, especially Bowling Green where my mom and dad currently reside. To be quite honest it is just a sad, little college farm town with some of the bitterest people I have ever met. A town swollen with pasty white kids who think that it is a fantastic idea to wear sweat pants all year round, and whose idea of ethnic food is either Taco Bell or Chipotle (though both of those fast food joints have a special place in my heart). As you might imagine just after the first couple of days of being back home I needed to find some way of getting the hell out. Even if it meant faking a severe heart attack and getting transported by helicopter to New York for some extreme medical procedure. Of course luckily for me it never came to that, instead I found out that the Sydney / Baltimore band, TheDeathSet, was to be playing in Detroit. Quickly I notified all of my one friend who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan about the show as soon as I possibly could. It was a plan. I gave him a listen to a couple of tracks by TheDeathSet from my magical MP3 digital music device and he was sold, like Rachael Rays' soul. By this time I suppose you could say that we had ants in our pants and we wanted to do the boogie dance. We couldn't wait for the chance to relieve our aching feet to the throbbing, thrashing, strobe light hitting groove of TheDeathSets' live performance.
After a two hour journey driving into Detroit, Jim and I were painfully sober and thought it would be a grand idea to find a liquor store as soon as we bumped into one, somewhere in the heart of the city. Once we came across one and picked up a bottle or two, I noticed a car just pulling into the parking lot as we were reversing out. It was as if god came down himself and assured me in a deep, warming, voice with heavy reverb that I had made a great decision to travel all the way to Detroit in heavy rain, and on pot-hole infested roads to see this show. The couple of kids who got out of this car, who I later found out to be the two actual members of TheDeathSet, caught my eye immediately as a sign of home. The first one, with long, scruffy black hair, sporting an incredibly fancy NO AGE t-shirt spelled out in large, bold, multi-colored font, almost made me pee my pants. The other guy was burly as fuck dressed in black, with a thick beard that would scare children away. Amazing. They were both walking in fearlessly into this liquor store that was practically promoting prostitution and high school dropouts, that my friend Jim and I were so desperate to escape from. As a side note for future reference to anyone out there who is reading, Detroit has some fascinating architecture and history, but if you are ever thinking that it might be a nice place to go on summer holiday ask the person closest to you to slap you in the face severely until you realize otherwise. Detroit would even scare Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Godzilla combined (I was going to say Jean-Claude Van Damn but if you have ever watched the Street Fighter movie you would know how incredibly bad to the bone and instructable he is.). Even if I wore metal armor, head to toe, equipped with high tech lasers from the future and guns strapped to every one of my limbs, I still wouldn't dare hang around Detroits' city streets for over half an hour.
Back to where I left off. Arriving at the venue, it was decided, tonight was going to be a night neither my friend Jim or I would be ever able to forget, no matter how many brain cells we might have mysteriously lost by the following morning. The venue was exactly the way a venue is supposed to be. Hailed as the one and only Scrummage University, teaching the art of teenage angst driven by visions of caffeine enhanced dreams and fluorescent filth, it is of no surprise that TheDeathSet declares Scrummage University as being one of the most invigorating places to perform in the US. Then again, my description of Scrummage University practically coincides itself perfectly with the general feel and preached word of what TheDeathSets' music reveals. Not only that, but any venue that offers a donation inspired admittance fee, as well as cheap deals with drinks is genius and is also practically unheard of these days. Get this, two shots of decent whiskey along with a free pair of sunglasses for only $4. Whether or not the frames of the sunglasses are a bit shit, and the lenses give you a slight headache, Scrummage University is still nominated and awarded the "Venue of Champions" trophy, every year for 10 years, even if such an award doesn't actually exist. The point is that you can not find a venue with much more integrity than Scrummage University. Cheap drinks, free admittance and a pair of free sunglasses is a win-win situation any way that you look at it.
Who is TheDeathSet? I would be sinning if I ignored admitting to you that after their live dance massacre of a set, satisfying every fiber of my being, that the show was even better than I had already been expecting. To put it simply, TheDeathSet is well aware of how to play a great show. Visions of 1984, an 80'0 - 90's spree of musical chaos, nurtured by the hands of lo-fi, thrashing punk, with a gap in between for happy-go-lucky artistic flare. If I haven't already made the point clear, TheDeathSet is a band that is an absolute joy to see. They dived into this new genre of noise-anthem-dance music and have made it their own, making them a hard act to beat. You ought to be punished by being forced to eat Michael McDonald's used underwear as food for a week if you dare to miss them play the next time they stop by your local music venue. In fact I highly recommend you to purchase their albums right here, and see for yourself why I would bother writing such a long post about them. If you don't I will find out who your loved ones are and make a basil pesto with pine nut ravioli out of their genitals.
Go on, have a listen:
TheDeathSet: "Intermission"
TheDeathSet: "Paranoia"
TheDeathSet: "Distressed"
