These guys are like Austenitic, but a guitar instead of bass. Why am I not surprised that Austenitic shows up as a fan on their Facebook page? Long live Seattle Math Rock.

austenitic tore it up. They deliver not just songs, but compositions. The shit is tight. Bass player Ross Martins' style is sick: the dude plays chords on his bass and not just 5ths.  He fluidly flips between strumming strange chords and then running odd melodic lines.  While sing/shouting. It is fierce. Drummer Kelly Mynes compliments with equal ferocity.  They are a force.    Did a couple covers: "Message In A Bottle" by The Police and "Anxious Mo-Fo" by The Minutemen. Both well chosen. Written about these guys before -- great to see em again.

Then Wax Fingers.  They were the analog to austenitic: two guitars no bass.  Lots of hypnotic, syncopated songs. Layers of loops. Some loops from computer, some from pedals.  Usually no vocals. One song with megaphone into microphone, creating this disturbing rant effect.

By Sunlight played too, but left before their set.

Caught some bands at the Showbox Green Room.

Blown away by austenitic from Seattle.  Just drums and bass, but not "drums and bass." Rather, explosive drummer outta control.  Singer fired up. Songs were amped, complicated, melodic, frenetic. Husker Du sticker on the bassist's amp, appropriate, as there was definitely an SST invocation, like Mike Watt and George Hurley on speed, 16th notes, 32nd notes, and overall non-stop. 

Best line of the night: "This one's called 'Dostoyevsky Whooped My Ass.' Don't read. It's bad for you. It makes you think." Could have been a Minutemen song title fer sure.  Love the rant on their MySpace page:

"there's a sound that's very popular at the moment. happily, we sound nothing like it. fuck you money. fuck you derivatives. fuck you radio (commercial radio! jesus, calm down already!) and all the wrong reasons. hello music for beauty. hello music for release. hello music because we simply have to."

Check out this YouTube video (although like most live videos it doesn't do justice to the force they wield.)

Them Hills, from Nevada City, California, was next. They had two guitarists, a big Marshall stack and a bunch of programmed drum tracks.  No bassist. 

Picked up a comp they are on: Dragon Slayers Vol. III by Thread Productions.   Bunch of great stuff on that comp. The Actionists with "Rats in the Baby Grand" was pretty choice, which is on their MySpace page.  Whole comp hung together well, sense of collective sincerity going on. And cool cover art by Jen Merrill:

Last up was By Sunlight.  Pretty guitars.