By: Andrea Myers
When going out for a night on the town to check out a favorite band, it’s always nice when the opening band can become more than just a way to pass time until the “real act” begins. Such was the case at Big V’s with openers The Stock Market Crash who - even while sharing the bill with local buzz-boys (and main act of the evening) The Alarmists - appeared polished and commanded attention from the tiny stage.
From the beginning of the night, it was hard not to take The Stock Market Crash seriously. As warm-up act Search and Destroy played their set, members of TSMC unloaded a growing stack of equipment that included their huge drum kit boxes emblazoned with “TSMC” and their own lighting equipment, which was enough stage luggage to fill up half of the dance floor in front of the stage. Lead singer Matthew Bacon sauntered through the room in a shrunken white blazer, tight high-water pants and shiny white dress shoes, his eyes blackened with Bowie eyeliner and his face smug with determination.
TSMC hails from Oklahoma, though you’d never suspect it when listening to their music. Bacon’s voice is a crooning mixture of David Bowie and Jeff Buckley, and their sound is an assimilation of 80’s glam rock and new wave, bass-driven pop. If a band can sound like one particular moment, TSMC conjured up images of the last few frames of Lost in Translation when Scarlett Johansson walks down a busy sidewalk and the Jesus and Mary Chain song “Just Like Honey” begins to play. Their music is strangely optimistic and catchy, with harmonized choruses about love and loss. “In the Mouth of the Whale,” for example, features lead guitar player Derek Knowlton’s hooky, upward progression of guitar chords and riffs, which builds to Bacon moaning “It’s a full-time job to keep a part-time luh-ver.”
The band played songs primarily off of their debut album, Geology, which was just released on January 6. Highlights off the album include the song “Bringing Knives to a Gun Fight,” with lyrics that read like poetry and contribute a sardonic philosophy of love:
Tell me how to sort this out
Love is an institution of self-doubt
And I’d hate to take your man outside
I couldn’t do it
Cause you can’t bring knives in a drop-dead gun fight
The songs on the album are cleanly produced and powerful, and the tracks translate well to the stage. TSMC puts out a unified wall of sound, with bass player Jonathan Martin and drummer John Curtis binding everything together in a crashing, persistent rhythm. The band used their aforementioned lighting system to transform the bare-bones stage, alternating splashes of red and blue with washed out white lights. It was refreshing to see an up-and-coming band take themselves so seriously, and they offered compelling evidence that they are ready to move onto bigger and better stages.
Photo by David de Young.
Location Info:
Big Vs
Artist Info: The Stock Market Crash
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