Dragons of Zynth @ Iron Horse, Northampton, MA 4/12/08

Saturday night, NYC born, Cleveland bred, and NYC returned twin brothers Aku and Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh brought the noisy future rock of their band Dragons of Zynth to the Iron Horse, where they opened for Saul Williams. If the name itself doesn't give it away, a listen to their debut album, Coronation Thieves, and a look at their Myspace makes it clear that the Dragons are carrying on a legacy that includes far out black artists like Yusef Lateef (under whom they studied musical theory), Sun Ra, George Clinton, and Afrika Bambaataa -- this is space age stuff for computer brains, with electronic beeps and mechanical fuzz on every track.

Aku Orraca-Tetteh

While the electro sounds can at times play a neutering role on the record, a protective film to keep the intensity of the music from fully reaching the listeners' ears, the live performances strip much of that away, allowing the tracks to achieve full sonic force. In what I initially thought was a mis-step, DOZ chose "Anna Mae" -- the critical favorite in Coronation Thieves reviews -- as their opener. A slow, dreamy love song awash in the aforementioned fuzz -- and by far their most subdued track -- I thought it would have been a better choice as a late-set come down. As it turned out, the song merely lulled the audience into a pleasant but unsuspecting security before the band pulled out "Get Off", Coronation Thieves' most dangerous rage-r. Beginning with a soft intro & verse not unlike "Anna Mae", "Get Off" doesn't bust out until the chorus, which brought an until-now quiet Aku out from behind his keyboard, gesticulating wildly while spitting the lyrics at a crowd suddenly brought to life. From this point on, Aku was the clear star of the show, working himself up into a similar state in similar parts of the remaining songs (including jumping into the crowd during #2 rager "Who Rize Above"). Unfortunately, therein lied the problem that became more and more clear to me with each song: DOZ essentially has two sonic formulas, that of "Anna Mae", with it's gentle fuzzy melody, and that of much of "Rize" and "Get Off"'s chorus, with Aku's fiery vocal performance. "Anna Mae" is the most critically beloved track because it's the most effectively realized use of their safe, soft, pop style, and "Get Off" is the album's best track because it's the best synthesis of that formula with the more dangerous one; the rest of the tracks just stand as not-quite-as-good attempts at the two (listen to "Anna Mae" followed by "Labor Day Lung", or "Get Off" followed by "Rize"). However, the magic of the first two songs was enough to leave me with a good impression of the show overall, and the performance on "Get Off" was probably the best performance of a single song I've seen so far this year. The audience (bigger than I expected for a Saul Williams show) responded very positively, somewhat surprising since I imagine the vast majority are unfamiliar with DOZ. Though I don't know how much of that was their east-coast liberal self-satisfaction with being present at a performance by Black People [I never really, completely believed in it until I lived here for a while, but east-coast liberal self-satisfaction exists just as much as the stereotypes would lead you to believe, and being present at a musical performance by Black People is definitely Something White People Like.]

Mp3: "Get Off"

Despite the samey-ness of their songs, Dragons of Zynth are still doing something different and far more interesting than most indie-rock blog bands, and it's odd that they don't seem to have collected as much buzz as plenty of their more boring peers. It's also encouraging to see that, despite well-publicized complaints to the contrary, there's a significant heavily black-including-and-influenced rock community out there. This morning, Pitchfork posted a new track by Power Douglas, that features TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe on vocals, and was co-written with Aku. Their new EP, Pentecostal Fangbread, is out tomorrow, and also features DOZ's Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh on guitar. You can pick it up (so to speak) at Amazon's download store.
Also check out former DOZ member Crunc Tesla:

And Apollo Heights, whose White Music for Black People was released last October, and I'm bummed I hadn't heard of it until now. Very good sounds. Why did this never even get a Pitchfork review?

2008 will be the end of you.

The Schwartz Brothers @ Hoople's, Cleveland, OH -- 1/10/2008

Glenn Schwartz, former guitarist of the James Gang, Pacific Gas & Electric, and the All Saved Freak Band, is one of those "lost" 70s guitarists whose past is likely now more myth than reality. My dad told me that Clapton, Hendrix, and Page all saw Schwartz play, and each agreed he was better than they were. Now more outsider-musician than rock legend, Glenn and his brother Gene, playing as the Schwartz Brothers, are the Thursday night house band at Hoople's, a bar on the west bank of Cleveland's Flats district. Due to Schwartz's history of religious salvation, abuse at the hands of a cult leader, and resulting mental illness, his blues sets are often erratic and unpredictable. In mid-2007, a Slate article on "The freaky origins of Christian rock" provided a short history of Schwartz's time in the All Saved Freak Band:

The All Saved Freak Band is a different kettle of fish—at once more powerful and more disturbing, and a reminder of how apocalyptic convictions, Christian or otherwise, can go sour. The band began when a drugged-out Chicago guitarist named Joe Markko moved to Ohio, where he met a fiery street pastor named Larry Hill. Convinced that the Chinese and/or Russians were coming, Hill set himself up as patriarch of an isolated survivalist Christian commune, replete with guns and goats. When he performed, Hill wore a wide Amish hat and a priest's habit, and he sang to hector and convert. But the band didn't really gel until Hill and Markko were joined by Glenn Schwartz, an incendiary blues shromper who had played guitar for the James Gang but had publicly renounced commercial rock. Living collectively, the band made a handful of intense and very strange records, including the Tolkien-inspired folk-rock rarity For Christians, Elves, and Lovers. In 1975, in response to Hill's authoritarian brutality, Schwartz's family attempted to kidnap and "deprogram" the guitarist. The attempt failed, and the band's third record was called Brainwashed.

Schwartz's lyrics are invariably apocalyptic; in last night's opener, the first words he said were "2008 will be the end of you." A minor earthquake had hit the Cleveland area a few days prior, and he pointed to this as a signal from God of the coming End. Later, he advised the audience that we'd "better get out quick, 'cause that chemical warfare, it's gonna make you sick." Early in the set he stopped the music and began to chastise/preach to the audience, referring to certain spectators as "lame brains" and "dummys", yelling at them for drinking beer "full of chemicals". He also told us that 1 out of every 2 people has cancer, and that there were 14 people with cancer in the room that night. Given his extreme fundamentalist views, his tirades are also often laced with invective against women; last night he warned us of the "females in power [who] don't even have the good sense to wear a dress ... women in pants is disgusting, it's disgusting." Later in the set he stopped again, this time relating his experiences as a medic in the Vietnam war, referring to Vietnamese soldiers as "slant-eyes" and "japs", then segueing into anecdotes about cancer-stricken relatives who had been saved through the power of prayer. At this point, the bartender had enough of the ranting, and turned the stereo on, leaving Prince to drown out Schwartz. Following a talking-to from the bartender, the 2nd set was largely uneventful, with Schwartz sticking to the music. Mental illness aside, Schwartz is an incredible guitarist in the blues-rock style, coaxing sounds without the aid of any pedals or effects. At one point early in the first set, he took out a comb and did his hair with his right hand while soloing on the guitar's neck with his left. Later, he jumped up on an automated bowling machine, surprisingly nimble for his 60+ years. As much curious spectacle as blistering blues guitar set, it was remarkable to see such talent survive in a man whose mind had left him long ago.


Gene Schwartz, Glenn Schwartz, and one of their revolving group of drummers.