Brightest Young Things

all words: Jacquelyn Pyun
all STUNNING photos: Priscilla de Lima-Ledesma (make sure to click on them to enlarge)

“Are you interviewing me?”

Nope, just observing the wonders of a Thursday night.

Backset off Florida Avenue where west meets east, and hugged by a garden of basil and tomatoes, Big Bear Cafe intimately entertained 40 or so DC music lovers on a steamy Thursday night. The etsy-accessorized young crowd was all bright smiles and hugs as they gathered in the space to hear Ghost to Falco, Buildings, and Matt and Tosin. Looking out from the coffee shop turned funky venue, we enjoy the view of sepia-toned row houses sweetly framed by the cafe’s giant ivy-draped windows, veiled in the soft light of street lamps.

Collin’s mirrored, wide-open eyes never seem to rise to meet anyone else’s directly as he greets them. He speaks rapidly and kindly, trailing his sentences off under his breath. Scanning passively through the crowd, he collects donations at the door and sets up the scene—every so often reaching to gently tuck his piece-y hair behind his ears.

We ask him about Buildings, the band we have come specifically to check out, and learn that he’s a band member. “Oh wow, really?”

“Yep. I’m about to prove it to you,” he says as he leaves the room. He returns two minutes later wearing an olive, wonderfully-wrinkled tunic. I didn’t understand at all how this proves anything until much later.

First band up, Ghost to Falco. The first beat down on the drums practically knocks my heart straight up into my throat, and I am hooked. From that initial collision, there is a consistent tension and crescendo to their set, with each slam of the drums seeming to break something somewhere. I inhale and realize that I’m actually holding my breath—almost in slight panic—as each crash down on the drum shatters my thoughts. It’s addictive.

Three television screens flicker in the back of the room, with one word illuminating each screen: “Ghost,” “to,” and “Falco”. Static-y, black on white, and white on black, they hold the mood steady, and I’m still unable to let go of my breath. The TV screens cast a fluorescent, sterile glow on the floor, as the vocals creep throughout the energy-pumping clashes and rifts.

And then it ends, as abruptly as it began. And I exhale.

Next, Buildings. Celebrating the release of their first CD “Endless” (Sockets Records), Buildings takes the stage sans its fourth member (who is currently tending to Brooklyn). Collin is now joined by two other like-styled band members in tunics (it all makes sense to me now).

The projector mixes neon reds, greens, and blues across Collin’s face and shoulders as the band begins to play. Eyes blink and hands clap-clap-clap across the large screen behind the band. Collin’s head bangs up and down, and in and out, of the visuals. The audience begins to bob and move.

One tuft of Collin’s hair flaps up and down with each chord, and the all-instrumental tracks fill the tiny room to volume saturation. Full color projections with equally colorful melodies and bass lines mix with tap-y, tin-y, unabridged percussion—swelling into refreshingly experimental happiness and warmth.

The music stops.

“Can we borrow a bass pedal real quick?”

Only during that sudden break do I wholly recognize the depth of my current infatuation with Buildings.
The bass pedal is replaced, and the rest of the set is a hot, brilliant, mess. A speaker is pushed up against the drum to keep it from skipping forward away from the slam of the foot on the pedal, sticks are catapulting and clattering across the floor, projections are tremor-ing in the background, and everyone in the room is shaking. I adore it.

“That’s it, we’re buildings!”

To settle down the night is a one-week-new collaborative effort by Tosin and Matt. Matt on bass, violin and vocals; Tosin on guitars. Tosin’s guitar melodies are intricate and stimulating, and Matt’s string-ed layer overtop is haunting and clever.

“I said I play music. He said he plays music.”
“And then we believed each other.”

The push and pull of a violin bow across the strings hypnotizes the audience. They sway side to side while the staccato plucking punctuates their melodic movement. The raw duet-ing between the two musicians—the occasional out-of-tune-note on the violin included—fits seamlessly into the coffee shop scene.

Ghost to Falco was riotous and magnificent; Buildings were entrancing and filling (I can’t wait to see them in full attendance sometime soon); and Tosin and Matt were charming and intimate. Thursday night wonders: beautiful city, beautiful people, and beautiful music.

Previously in Live DC:

• 5/24: LiveDC: The Adicts @ RNR Hotel
• 5/24: LiveDC: The Donkeys @ Black Cat
• 5/23: LiveDC: The Barr Brothers w/ Kishi Bashi @ The Hamilton
• 5/23: LiveDC: Damien Jurado @ Black Cat
• 5/23: Report: Soundbites 2012
• 5/22: LiveDC: Spirit Animal @ Red Palace
• 5/22: LiveDC: Astra Via @ Black Cat
• 5/22: LiveDC: Father John Misty @ Rock & Roll Hotel
• 5/22: LiveDC: Drive-By Truckers and Lucinda Williams @ Merriweather
• 5/22: Photos: Summer Camp takes the "Ladies of Town" Drag Show