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Live DC: Le Loup & The Nuclear So and So’s

December 12, 2007 by Jasper

all photos: Ryan Wakeman

Chamber rock? Is that what I’m going with instead of comparisons to Canadian super-groups? For now yes, though a part of me wants more super-groups in the world, legions of them, wailing on fiddles, and with three cowbell players, and a maybe a gong, and 11 side projects.

Really though- sometimes, I think, bands realize its actually just a numbers game. Fill the stage with as many instruments as your van can carry and as many layers as a song can hold and you will fill those speakers with a sound that will lift your audience right up. Both groups hit that mark, in their own way, and I was honored to see our neighbors Le Loup in stride. It seems like both these 8 piece groups realize what they found in each other, the rarity of their discovery, and their need to bring it forward.

After getting more than my fill from the best Monday night dinner special in town (to be announced-maybe-in a future write-up, but for now too good to share) I was lucky enough to take in two big bands that could also fill me up. Before I get to some thoughts on the teeming sound, I’ll say it struck me that a prompt 9 p.m. start and a slowly crescendoing Monday night crowd really pissed off the front man Richard Edwards of Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s. For whatever reason, after plowing through some urgent and impressive tunes with screaming piano and deep tribal drums that should have left any band leader grinning and stoked for more, all Edwards could muster was a terse “…feel like I’m playing a dinner theater”, and even “what is this a church?”, after one of their quieter numbers. And as expected, the blame for the quiet crowd is going to have to land on him. Some unnecessary animosity aside, Margot and the So and So’s took the opening slot for Le Loup’s home town stop and laid out a strong, however emotionally void set. I would love to see them in a packed house, I guess just to see if what I perceived as them expertly cranking through their songs is their peak performance or a glimpse of something much more powerful.

The So and So’s used a heavy percussion base that worked, as a result of a full-time auxiliary man on the job and the fact they never stray to far from true rock. They do move around in mood though– and Edwards, despite being sour, had the kind of consistent vocals that can hold together folksy ballads reminiscent of Wilco country. These ballads were one mark on the list of variety I heard from one song to the next. From those crashing thunder songs you require from an 8 member band to simple backings and lonesome stories that left me feeling dropped. They always came back through in force, and you could ply your ear through whatever you wanted. Using brass and piano to give out that dramatic wall Edwards’ often melancholy song writing called for, and a lap steel and trumpet on the downslopes, this was a musicians band to the core. With clear expertise, unnecessarily sapped by a mood of animosity for their less than glamorous time and place on stage, the crowd was still pleased–and two immensely excitable girls danced in the ample room in back like it was the last song they’d ever hear, which I think is the right way to approach things.

First time seeing Le Loup- it was so rad to hear or overhear three separate people say- “this is my friends band”. Friends supporting recently highly successful friends is awesome. Just because they have been signed, and are touring, and are clearly possessing some kind of magic, doesn’t mean you can’t come out and see your old roommate or exes friend or what have you. You are still needed. So what I am saying: is DC support this band always. Let us all get together on this. Buy their CD, which is I guess somehow misty and fashionably but singularly vulpine (and produced by either a soothsayer or a producer of Canadian super groups) and addictively immaculate.

The black cat began to feel like it was settled in a small town. I think it shrunk in size with all the congeniality. It was a rare light crowd that still simmered. No one was frowning, there and there was very little pretension in the air about why we were here. People were just eager and uncaring and thank god all of this was reflected in the band’s performance. These kids do what they want, and that is not what you would expect from a group getting as much recent national attention as Le Loup . For example, rather than stalk on stage, sophomoric and proud and feeling like they are owed, the band gathered on the side stage and had a full-on pump-up session- jumping up and down, clapping, hugging, and then storming the stage together. The group of eight began to swell immediately coming in one at a time with front man Sam Simkoff conducting, gesticulating wildly like a young Michael Stipe as the sound and crowd lifted. Immediately the movement began and stopped only for a couple awkward comments and honest side notes throughout the night. Whimsical and totally present, I thought I was watching a serendipitous collaboration with force that steamrolled obstacles.

So young and, yes, certainly loose on their instruments, it all came out to work on me. I didn’t want them to fuss, I wanted them to throw these songs at us as hard and strong as they could. The night was simple and the least stuffy show I’d been to in ages. They had these songs and they played them and everyone could tell this was right. Maybe not always technically right, but right at the core. Simple drums and a trio of guitars built a fundamental base for otherwise complex layering between a long list of additional instruments. The clear personal investment made the songs important, and the alternating warm and foreboding elements of the sound and the bands collective smile worked toward getting me invested. I hit full on goofy beaming grin during the clapfest breakdown and a half dozen other times. May Tabol’s wavering voice set off Sam well, and when the rest of the band (sans drummer) came in chorus, the things people have been saying about their potential future became clear. Their show, and this band, is pure, and they will gain polish and that’s fine, but right now, it’s right just the same. Listen to this band, see them live, and witness this little, growing, seemingly blessed convergence.

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