I really want to be the cynical rock writer, who hates everything mainstream or trendy. I want to sprint with deranged detestation as far from fad as possible. But, as I put my Kate Perry album back in its case and pay for valet in downtown Austin, it’s obvious that I’ll never be that guy. I listen to top-40 radio, read People Magazine, eat at McDonald’s and own an SUV. I’ve never discovered a band before the rest of the world and it’s likely I never will. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy good music. I pride myself in picking friends who make it their life’s work to learn about every seventeen year-old who’s ever picked up a guitar. Thus, I know good music by association. The reason I enjoy the 101X Workforce Christmas party is that it allows music noobs (like me) and hipsters (you know who you are) to co-exist in a sort of harmonious anthem, fueled by booze and free radio give-a-ways.
There’s a line outside the sixth street entrance of Emo’s and I try to blend in while I wait on friends, Stacey and Lorri, my two accomplices for the night. I lean against a wall wearing chucks, G-star narrows, a white button-up, blue tie and gray hoodie from American Apparel. I do my best Emo-y, James Dean-y, scenster pose and “Thank, God!” am interrupted as the girls approach.
The Black and White Years
We catch wind that the line forming isn’t official and I lead the way to the front where we just, kind of, make our way inside. It’s only 8pm, but we’ve, apparently, already missed the first three bands, who, a kid that looks to be eleven or twelve tells me, were the only good thing this show had going for it. As he and his friends glare us across the venue for missing Austin acts’, Shapes Have Fangs, Low Line Caller and Ringo Deathstarr; The Black and White Years are midway through their set. We find a spot with a view and room for spastic gyration next to the sound booth at the back of the covered patio. As a synthy rock groove plagues the entire venue, feet melodramatically tap the floor, hips sway, ever-so-slightly and hair waves from side to side with rhythmic precision letting the rest of us know the hipster army lives. As a mediator of mainstream/hipster relations, I’m disappointed we didn’t catch The Black and White Years’ entire set and voice my disdain to a suspender laden patron. His scowl says it all; The Black and White Years really are as good as I think.
The Airborne Toxic Event
Trays of complimentary Jameson shots make their way through the back side of the crowd as the venue begins to fill and when The Airborne Toxic Event takes the stage, the line between music inept and adroit is blurred. The Airborne Toxic Event fits the bill perfectly for reaching that coveted common ground between scene and mass consumption, which the 101Xmas Party prides itself in providing. For some reason, though, the band appears a bit disheveled and as frontman, Mikel Jollett, reaches the mic, I question whether he’s drunk, having issues with his microphone, or if that’s just how he talks? The congregation of fans dispersed in front of the stage is still timid three songs into the set, but things start to move in the band’s favor once violinist and keyboard player, Anna Bulbrook, dives off stage wielding a rock tambourine. It turns out Mikal was having issues with his microphone and when he starts into, Sometime Around Midnight, all is forgiven as the nearing-capacity crowd swoons. “…that’s when you lose yourself for a minute or two. As you stand, under the barlight and the band plays some song about forgetting yourself for a while.” Tragedy never tasted so good.
Eagles of Death Metal
It is at this point that droves of undergraduate girls begin to craddle each other, hugging and crying, “I love you. No, I love you!” I can physically see the discomfort written across the faces of several guys who are worried they might have paid twenty-five dollars to attend a christian youth revival. But, the love-in is quickly shut down and those macho types, put at ease when Jesse “Boots Electric” Hughes bursts onto stage with an energy so contagious it could only be derived from the power his wicked new rocker ’stache exudes. For the first time of the night, the crowd really starts to move and when bassist, Brian “B.O.C.” O’Connor, comes in with his vocals on I Want You So Hard, it’s obvious that the Eagles of Death Metal are rockstars in the purist sense. The same girls who, moments ago, were repenting their sins are now convulsing in ecstasy.
If a guitar could remove a woman’s clothing, it would, most certainly, have to be playing something off of Death by Sexy, EODM’s newly released album. Eagles of Death Metal’s personality on stage gives you the urge to sleep with your boss’ wife; their music gives you the confidence to do it on his desk. If Jesse Hughes hadn’t been born four years after its filming, I might swear he was a love child conceived backstage at The Rolling Stones Rock ‘N’ Roll Circus. Consider my face rocked off. When the set came to a close, the four members of the band, including drummer, Josh Homme (Lead Singer, Queens of the Stone Age) locked arms and took a bow to screaming fans. Eagles of Death Metal owned and “Boots Electric” knew it as he tossed his sweat-drenched, low-neck jersey tee into a sea of outstretched hands all wanting more.
Black Kids
After such a testosterone driven set, expectations were high and Black Kids learned the hard way that the Eagles of Death Metal are not a band you want to follow. Fortunately, EODM opened the crowd up and even the most unlikely of candidates were primed for the dance party that Black Kids bring wherever they go. The key to dancing to gospel-chant, indie pop-rock such as Black Kids is to just throw all inhibition out the door and flail your body this way and that. You want to listen to the music and then just move. And if the hundreds of gyrating forms between the stage and I are any example, the more agitated your body appears, the better dancer you have become. I continue on in this fashion for quite sometime, throwing in a few dance moves I picked up watching I Love the 70s on VH1. Everyone seems to be having a good time and that is what Black Kids’ music lends itself to, but we’ll all leave here remembering how ridiculously entertaining it was to dance unabashed with one another, not necessarily how great the Black Kids were as a live show, even if they were.
The Ting Ting’s
It’s now that magical time of night when everyone has a belly full of booze and a body pumping out endorphins by the liter. Giddy excitement in mass numbers is an interesting thing to watch and as The Ting Tings take the stage, the roaring screams of unbridled fervor cannot and will not be silenced. Even if this particular writer was not madly, head-over-heels in love with Katie White, one of the two-piece that makes up The Ting Tings, I would have to admit to finding their live performance as much an experience the second and third time around, as I did the first time they charmed my rhythmic soul. The reason, in part, is owed to the fact that Jules’, the second half of The Ting Tings, unique synthesis of percussion and electronic creates a space for the band to improvise in the present tense, setting up an intuitive chemistry between the pair. When Jules’ puts on his sunglasses and Katie starts beating that bass drum, the two of them create such a stimulating fortitude that energy seeps from their pores, into their instruments and is served fresh, every show, to vaulting fans, getting high off of The Ting Ting’s playful, yet cogent passion. As the night comes to a close, we’re all, collectively as a music loving body, obliged to have been a part of 101Xmas history. It is this very reason that, when some vulgarian calls me a “poser” as I dance in the street with my friends, I can’t help but walk right up to him, get in his face and while jumping up and down shout, “That’s not my name! That’s not my name!”
