Live Review: Zombieville IX: The New York Howl, Mark Denardo, Doveman and Deer Tick @ Southpaw [2.15.08]

Zombieville is a monthly show that aims to distinguish itself by being markedly considerate to the audience’s experience while instilling harmony instead of competition between performers. Instead of having clearly defined headlining and opening bands with long waits in between, the audience pays just eight dollars for a completely cohesive yet eclectic evening of music. Bands alternate between the front and center stages; the band in the center, the “house band,” plays twice so that the other bands in the front can move in and out. There is never a lull in entertainment—even during brief musicless moments, the audience was distracted by stand up comedy. The whole concept seems catered to concertgoers who no longer have the attention span or stamina required to endure the typical routine of standing and waiting at most shows. Being one of those concertgoers, I appreciated the consideration.

Last Friday, the opening-but-not-opening band, The New York Howl, took the stage promptly at nine, and their ability to draw everyone’s attention from the start was a testament to Zombieville’s anti-“save the best for last” philosophy. The band self-describes their soul-punk sound as “Otis Redding meets Iggy Pop in a fist fight,” and while this description is perhaps a little ambitious, I think it’s accurate in the sense that they sound like a well composed mixture made of equal parts of things you’ve heard before and know you like. This isn’t a comment on their originality as much as it is on their mysteriously potent catchiness, epitomized by infectious “Can’t Get it Right Right Now.” (Can’t you tell what it would sound like just from the title?)

Front man Andrew Katz looks like he was born to lead a band like this. He towers over the other members (literally—the guy’s gotta be over six feet) in a paint-splattered blazer and green goggles, and says things like “rad” and “fuckin rad” as in, “We’re gonna play two more fuckin rad songs!” Girls swooned, people danced and even waltzed during some more circus-y songs, and all this in the first twenty minutes of the show: more proof of the Zombieville commitment to never having a dull moment from start to finish.

Mark Denardo, the “house band” for the night, played next in the center stage, which is less elevated and harder to see than the stage at the front, and visibility was important in order to fully appreciate the way Denardo makes his unique brand of electro-pop. Craning over the heads in front of me, I could see Denardo with his guitar and some kid with what looked like a Gameboy. Louis Shannon, I later discovered, is in fact a kid; I saw his friends get turned away at the door for being under eighteen--the downside of being cool beyond one's years. After interning with Denardo and becoming adept at “Little Sound DJ,” software that allows the manipulation of vintage Nintendo sound cards, Shannon began touring with him. There’s something almost absurd about watching someone play a Gameboy and interact with it as if it were a musical instrument. Regardless, the result is a cohesive, electronic sound that mixes modern technical precision with the raw, primitive effect of old-school video games.

In the time it took to go to the bathroom and get another drink, Doveman set up on the front stage and began their set of ethereal ballads that crescendo into Sufjan Stevens-ish climaxes. In fact, frontman Thomas Bartlett seems to take more than one cue from Stevens, or maybe The Microphones’ Phil Elverum, in that he combines an enveloping wash of instrumental sound with vocals that sound like he’s stroking your hair and whispering lullabies in your ear. It would be easy to dismiss them as mere fluff, but each of the members of the sextet has an extensive resume of previous projects, thus creating a sound that is technically impressive enough to keep it interesting.


After a second set by Mark Denardo and some unmemorable but distracting stand up comedy, Deer Tick took the stage. Although there are no headlining bands at Zombieville, and it contradicts their egalitarian ideals to point this out, it was inarguable that Deer Tick drew the biggest crowd of the night. While the other bands epitomized extremes of different genres, Deer Tick’s brand of gritty but lyrical alt-country perhaps has a wider appeal and a more mature sound. This is ironic, considering that frontman and founder John McCauley is only 21 and proved himself to be not only musically, but charismatically precocious. Full of amusing anecdotes and ironic covers, McCauley knows how to work a crowd. But it seems to me he walks a fine line between preciousness and pretension. As much as I enjoyed their set, I couldn’t help but wonder what his voice really sounds like underneath the gritty, nasal, disaffected baritone. And the cowboy themes of his lyrics about seeing “better days” and being “on the wrong side of the track” give the impression he is aspiring toward a certain aesthetic more than trying to sing his heart out.

But despite my cynicism, there was a certain benevolence in the air at Zombieville last Friday—an unbridled enthusiasm for live music that made even the occasional contrivance seem endearingly earnest. There was a sense of true musical community: performers were eager audience members during other bands’ sets, appetites were appeased by free cookies, and my usual impatience for long concerts was mitigated for nearly four hours of music.