Alushus at Goodbye Blue Monday, photo by jason gaspardi/clarabellafaire photography

I decided to check out the show at Goodbye Blue Monday last Thursday, since I’d be heading out of town on Friday for the long weekend. I won’t waste time going describing the venue in detail as Jeremy has already written an excellent review, but I will say it’s a pretty damn cool place. We arrived in time to catch the end of the first band’s set. I did not, however, catch their name. Sorry, guys! I didn’t really see enough of this band, so this probably won’t be a very fair review, but it was a pretty self-indulgent brand of jazz. Soon after I arrived they started into some seriously free-form improvisation. Like disassembling the drums and rolling them around on the ground free. Now, this can prove to be cool, but mostly impossible to pull off without losing the audience. These guys took it a bit too seriously for it to work. Like I said though, not a fair review; I didn’t see enough of what they did beforehand to form a real impression.

The second band was a much tighter jazz band called The Push-Pull Quartet, saxophonist Bill Miller’s latest vehicle. I won’t pretend to be a learned jazz critic, but I will say that enjoyed these guys immensely. Alongside Bill is an incredible rhythm section made up of Shayna Dulberger on upright bass and John McLellan on drums and experimental guitarist Chris Welcome playing loosely structured improvisational numbers. These guys really drew me in. I’m going to make sure to catch another one of their performances throughout Brooklyn this summer.

The third band, called 300ma(3), shifted the scene from laid back jazz lounge to a noisy rock club. (I can’t find a website for them anywhere, if anyone can help out, put a link in your comment.) A three piece band, the guitarist played lefty on a right-handed guitar that was strung for a right handed player. So, basically he played a guitar upside-down, inverting the normal order of the strings. Consequently, he was able to play a lot of strummed chord melodies on the higher strings. The result was something I might describe as a garage band channeling Weezer. In a good way.

Alushus was up last. Some of the guys in the band used to live in the apartment below me and I’ve been meaning to catch one of their shows for awhile. I got a chance to catch up with them before the show and talk about the old apartment (from which I now might be getting evicted! lame!) and their soon to be released EP that they recorded at Urban Spaceman Studios in Greenpoint. I really like the way these guys’ sound has moved in a more aggressive direction since the first time I heard their material. They are in a really great melodic grunge vein right now, reminiscent of Nirvana or The Pixies. They came off as noisy, yet tight, with a really commanding stage presence that lacks any sort of affectation. If you want to check them out for yourself, their self-titled debut EP will be released July 5 with a CD release party at Bar Matchless.

Thanks to Jason Gaspardi and Clara McGuire for photographing the night!