Usually when I go out to see a gig I can hardly walk on my own, but lately I’ve given up on drinking for a couple of reason, and so I ventured out this past Sunday to see Indian Jewelry at the Holocene in Portland, OR in single-vision bliss. The only real downside to this is that there was only one Erika Thrasher instead of two (or three!) However, their stage show generally remedy’s the deficit with its chaotic strobe light madness, and brilliant pummeling bass lines. The last time I checked them was in Atlanta at the Eyedrum, where they were admittedly way the eff further out, but on the other hand, the crowd at that show weren’t a gaggle of art school fashionistas with actual turkey feathers up their ass. I like double entendres, and the Holocene picked a good one–I generally can’t stand the people it draws, it’s such a hollow scene (ha ha!) Basically, it was me and two other girls up front loosing our minds or something, while just about everybody else sulked or posed. People should stay home and sulk. Or at least stay in the bar area. Maybe I’m just not arty enough? I spend most of my free time staring at my tomato plants or ranting about scenes, so that could be the case.
Indian Jewelry is a noise band from Houston, TX, that’s been around for quite a while now. I personally don’t think ‘noise band’ is an apt description; post-apocalyptic pop band is better. They’re kind of like The Velvet Underground, Spaceman 3, and Iggy Pop all wrapped into one package, and they outshine their noise band contemporaries because their songs have real substance, like hooks and melodies. The core members are Erika Thrasher and Tex Kerschen, around which an endless roster of musicians orbit, sometimes changing as often as tour date to tour date as they travel from city to city. Being prone to such mutability, it’s always a surprise what you’re in for at one of their shows, and a good reason to never miss them when they come to your town. On the off-chance that you like the song in the video below, it can be found on their album Invasive Exotics, which is all killer. Going South is for my money their best track. They have many, but I owe this tune a special debt of gratitude for helping me push across that dense, humid, sludgy/swampy wasteland in the eastern part of North Carolina last summer when I rode my bike across is. I guess technically I was headed east, but that’s neither here nor there. When this song is pumping full blast into your head, you won’t know or care where you are.
This video is from a show they played a while back in an abandoned mansion somewhere. Make sure that your computer speakers are turned up all the way. Also, don’t play this if you are prone to epileptic seizures (not joking.)
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