Two minutes into the Eeks, the camera’s batteries die due to my lack of foresight and the ensuing ever-damning impracticality thereof. I rush to the local CVS (12 blocks away) and en route exchanged some jovialites with some local hoods. Although, if you look like me (a short, black dude decked like a Super Fly extra), you expect this stuff.
Made it back in time for Lettercamp. The sultry, Siouxsie and the Banshee-winking (pop-era) electro-pop four-piece had the huge crowd swaying while singer Liz Wittman slithered gracefully (in hot pants no less) across the stage belting out echoed melodies and chirps (not quite as pejorative as that sounds).
The duo Moon Pool & Dead Band, featuring local godhead drummer Dave "man-for-all-seasons" Shettler, had an array of synthesizer racks and plugs put together at an almost head-scratching complexity. Seriously, it looked like the cockpit of a fucking space shuttle, which was was fitting because duo take spacey Krautrock and Klaus Schulze-like soundscapes as a base and morphe them with dance floor-ready drum beats. The duo’s blooping cuts crushed.
By now it’s 1:30 and last up was Secret Twins, a rising folk-punk duo out of Ypsilanti Armed with only her immaculate white Flying V, loop station and her ethereal voice, Dina Bankole managed to construct some massive sounds and layered tones while drummer Tim Thomas filled the open space with some expertly placed drum figures and fills. Some songs came off like punk-rock takes on Joanna Newsom while others sounded like bedroom “just-a-girl-and-a-guitar” folk cuts. But good."
