Early
I was there early enough to hear the pink-noise check bounce off the rustic brick. Early enough to see Tribal Traktion merchandise pulled from cardboard boxes and pinned to a makeshift wall in full white light. Too damn early.
But I didn't want to make the same mistake in Pontiac that I made weeks ago in Ann Arbor. If you don't get to Ann Arbor before eight on a weekend you may as well turn around and head for home because you won't be able to bribe your way into a parking space.
New Pontiac didn't disappoint me. It was the usual ritual - drive south on Saginaw until the guys in the parking garage wave you away, pull a "U"ey and head for greener pastures North of M59. Same damn thing every time.
I was even there too early to enjoy saying, "I'm on the guest list" while moving past the doorman, past the cover charge and past a line of disgruntled patrons who mumble, "Who the hell is he?" This job only pays in such perks, but the doorman hadn't even arrived yet. Too early for rock & roll, but too late to change my mind. I headed upstairs.
Drunk
Bassist Todd Levy greeted me at once, by name, and thanked me for coming. Levy is impressive; driven, confident and well spoken. And he knows the importance of good P.R. Tribal's name is getting some mileage because of his efforts. At least six local music sites now carry Tribal links not including Tribaltraktion.com. Who knows how many others.
I mentioned something about how tough the room was to mix and Levy shushed me quickly, "They're a little sensitive about that tonight." Apparently Tribal Traktion hired their own sound reinforcement, opting not to use the house P.A. - whose engineer was looking none too pleased to have his turf infiltrated. But it was a good call - Griffs is solid brick from floor to ceiling and if those reflective surfaces aren't dealt with carefully the best band can sound like a brass monkey dancing in a tin can.
Levy politely excused himself to ready the gear and I instinctively headed for the bar downstairs. Nine-thirty and the place was relatively empty. I wondered if I was in for another "private gig" where only the band's entourage and I show up to listen. But by ten thirty the place started filling up with young, fresh faces who mulled about in anticipation. I managed to get upstairs and grab one of the few tables in the room before it was standing room only.
By this time I already had a solid buzz on. Levy walked by my table and simply stated, "Jack & Coke," looked straight at me, then turned away. Was this guy shaming me? Perhaps he was worried what the alcohol might do to my perception - or if the review would get written at all. To be honest, I was a little worried myself. It doesn't pay to get to the bar too early when there's work to be done.
Free Therapy
But the opening band, Free Therapy, jarred me out of my self-consciousness drunk with a cheap shot to the crowd, "Who smoked a big, fat joint?" Cheers. (Uh, huh, huh, He said 'joint' huh, huh. ) "This song is about Dirt Weed!" More cheers. The band launched into a heavy, Pantera-type vibe and stayed there. The singer hurled angst driven growls and obscenities to an audience who was relatively indifferent their tuneless and hookless grooves. They've heard this kind of thing before. "Loft" music.
But indifference soon transformed into rapt attention when the band invited a female audience member on stage to demonstrate the fine art of "beer-bonging." Group-think took over. The crowd hooted and hollered on tip-toes to get a better view of her regurgitating beer down the front of her shirt. "Woooo!"
This is why Jerry Springer is more popular than PBS.
Old Pontiac Meets New Pontiac
At this point, a solitary black face entered the room stage left to join the crowd of antiseptic cotton balls in their celebration of safe debauchery. She headed straight for the dance floor and started cuttin' a rug, looking like the CEO of groove in a gray business suit, attitude specs, short skirt and heels. Her uninhibited nature immediately disarmed the Caucasian reticence that threatened to stifle the room. At least one beer-jockey joined her in a wild dance and the crowd came alive. But it wasn't long before our CEO stumbled over to take a seat. Not even she could turn Free Therapy into danceable sex. Too bad, really.
- Intermission -
The openers finished their set and the audience checked each other for the appropriate response, which seemed to be mostly silence.
I decided to cut back on my drinking a bit lest I miss the main event altogether. It was really too late for that; my head was already swimming. But I figured I'd better stand up and walk around a little. Besides, I'd grown a little weary of a bar patron who felt compelled to share with me his closet coke habit. He hides lines in his garage the way my mother used to hide beers in her room. Bad habits may change from generation to generation, but addiction is timeless.
I managed to make my way to the bathroom through a crowd who had taken up residence in front of the merchandise table. The place was really filling up now.
It was about 11:45. I figured Tribal would probably take the stage around midnight. What I didn't figure on was getting locked in the bathroom due to a door that was probably installed during prohibition. Lucky for me, drummer Mike Schwarzenberger needed to free his jitters before taking the stage. He heard me struggling to get out and yanked the door open. Free! I like this band already.
TRIBAL TRAKTION takes the stage
"What's Up?"
The crowd cheered as Tribal Traktion launched into their first tune. A dissonant guitar riff filled the bar and the rhythm section dug a deep groove underneath. Singer Mathew "Bob" Parnell began to rap over layers of well constructed timbres that weaved their way into the archaic brick.
"Did he say it was called Beakdown?" I screamed to two girls sitting at my table. They ignored me. I forgot to ask the band for a set list and the band forgot to give me an advance copy of the material. (My nearly indecipherable notes aren't much help.) I think it was "Breakdown."
Immediately I got the feeling that, musically, there's nothing this band can't handle. These are all well disciplined musicians who live to push the rhythmic envelope. And they're enviously young for such seasoned playing. Reflexively, I looked for weaknesses in the performance but came up with nothing. These guys were "on it." Running and ready for the big time.
Am I Too Old for This?
I scoped the crowd for reaction. People were standing, but still relatively motionless as the second tune came under way. Our CEO of groove stumbled back toward the bar for another round. I think her high heels were beginning to give her vertigo. Hope she's taking a cab home, I thought. Hell, at this rate, I'll be splitting the fare.
By the third song, "State of Nature," I began wondering if I were too old for this music. Don't get me wrong, I like a good groove more than most (and there were plenty of good grooves), but it seemed every time I started digging on one it was whisked away to another and another until I wasn't sure I was listening to the same song anymore.
Maybe I don't "get it" but every song seemed to suffer from bipolar disorder; different grooves, different keys, different feelings all jammed together in the same "song." And when I say jammed together, I mean the musical equivalent of a run-on sentence, a rhythmic non-sequitur. Schizophrenic music for short attention spans.
It wasn't the first time I noticed this type of incohesive arrangement in new music. Other local bands in the rapcore/funkcore genre are making similar decisions.
I asked photographer Marni Feldman about this later that night and she blamed it on MTV and other trappings of our highly transient society. I agreed to some extent, but I'd watched MTV since its inception grow from a hip video outlet to the fashion channel it's become and I still felt something was missing. It came to me later.
Perhaps A New Paradigm
The music is often bridgeless. There is no warning that the verse is leading to the chorus or the chorus is leading back to another verse or another part altogether. It just hits you in the face like a wood plank and you'd better just deal with it.
Tribal Traktion, like others in their generation, have for the most part abandoned the tried and tired formulas of Western pop music in search of more satisfying horizons. It's not very often you hear AABA or ABAB songwriting plots to reveal the final destination. Their songs are an extreme sports adventure into uncharted territory.
"We're trying to do something new, " Levy said when I confronted him with my perplexity later that night.
While I think Tribal Traktion is sincere in their quest, I don't think the band has completely escaped the culture that sired them. This generation, and its music gets bored easily. Mall-mentality in the face of an overabundance of choices - serial distraction. But what I see as musical vacillation could very well be a new approach to popular music.
GREAT MOMENTS IN TRIBAL WARFARE
Just when I began to think I was in for a full night of rap-laden funk and a mixed bag of polyrhythms, Tribal Traktion surprised me once again by exposing their soft, melodic underbelly in "X-Files." Like the perfect soundtrack for a David Lynch film, this song begins with a hip, moody groove that lulls you into a false sense of security. But it isn't long before your pushed out of your comfort zone and into a mosh-pit of nitrous-snorting psychopaths. From cool emotion to young spunk and back again. Though I don't remember the tune, I remember its heady effect on me.
Singer Matt Parnell bears his nipple piercings before launching into the playful rap of "Gone." By the end of the night the stage looked like a Calvin Klein billboard; young, cut bodies, sans shirts sweating in soft light. Marketable attitude and image. MTV would love these guys on spring break.
Todd Levy's incendiary bass solo was the highpoint of my night, not having been properly introduced to Tribal's music beforehand. It reminds of the Royal Transmission commercial (if I may date myself again) where Freeman James got sixty seconds to spank his plank before local television audiences. What a bass solo had to do with transmissions I have no idea, but it was a fantastic spectacle that I remember to this day. Now the memory will be indelibly linked to Levy's accomplished playing.
Synapses begin to spark and pop in my head when the band rips through "Feel This," the only Tribal tune I'd heard prior to the Griff's gig. My neck is bobbing and weaving and I began to dance in place with everyone else in the room. I remember wishing I was more familiar with the rest of material before coming to review them live. Guitarist Jason Milan was more animated than anyone in the room, jumping vertically into space several times
Wrap it up, already. Would Ya?
Throughout the night, Tribal Traktion proved to me that they can easily capture the best funk of the Chili Peppers, the angst of Rage Against the Machine, the melodic emotion of Stone Temple Pilots and the melancholic isolation of Tool. But they don't stay there very long so you have to pay attention. The music is fraught with sophisticated polyrhythms and rich textures that, while fascinating, sometimes distract you from the groove in a live setting. But the progressive nature of their music makes for a great listening experience, which I was able to enjoy later in more private surroundings with my stolen copy of their six-song, self-titled debut (sorry guys, I just had to know if it held-up on its own. It does - great work.).
Tribal Traktion at Griff's Grill was an official sell-out according to Todd Levy and I'd have to agree - you couldn't pack any more bodies into that space without pissing off the fire marshall. And they did pretty good with the merchandise as well, selling 18 of their tribal-design T-shirts, nine copies of their debut CD and one copy that mysteriously found a permanent place in this reviewer's collection.
To top it off, I learned that this was Tribal's first live gig - which might explain the presence of Mike's parents and Jason's ex-girlfriend who dutifully stood near the back of the crowd cheering them on. They had good reason to be proud - it was a well executed gig.
End
-- Mitch