Concert Review: The Henry Clay People, Voxhaul Broadcast, Oliver Future, and Gram Rabbit @ Sunset Junction, Day Two (8.24.08)

By Travis Woods

Day two of the 2008 Sunset Junction Street Fair was, in terms of sheer fun, an almost complete reversal of day one’s staggeringly ridiculous ebb tides of operational ineptitude—while the event was still inordinately pricey, the glinting sun was still oppressive, and the heat-shimmered asphalt was acne’d with a bizarre array of detritus (most interesting constellation: a condom, a Harlequin romance with a picture of Conor Oberst for a bookmark, a half-eaten chicken leg, and a crumpled headband of rabbit ears, all lying in a quickly drying oasis of Red Bull), it was at least on time and the music was, for the most part, a revelation (and went on longer than fifteen minutes per set, which in and of itself was a minor miracle). Besides, any day (and rock festival) that begins with a Henry Clay People set punctuated by rock jumps and Joey Siara running wild throughout the crowd is about as good as it gets.

After all the nerve-shredding and heat-addled complications of the previous day, I half-expected the fair’s second half to be a full-on disaster, with members of Oliver Future and the Germs tied to massive stakes jutting out of a bonfire fueled by the flame-licked guitars of the Siara brothers, while the festival organizers danced around them in a sub Val Kilmer-as-Jim Morrison shamanic, serpentine sway with sweat-clinched clutches of twenty dollar bills bunched into their white-knuckled fists and the bodies Mr. Shovel, Jeff Koga, and Elaine Layabout being used as sacrificial offerings to the bizarrely out-of-touch show emcee, Diz; instead it was a slightly hotter and less populated version of what should have happened the day before: no hassles, lots of drinks, and ten solid hours of rock music.

The Henry Clay People opened the second day of the festival with what was, without a doubt, the best set of rock ‘n roll music heard over the entire weekend at Sunset Junction, full of windmilled guitar riffage, mischievous frontmannerisms, and explosive (insert some combination of indie and Americana) rock that sounded like a booze-bled brawl between Pavement and the Faces.

The band burned through several freewheeling songs from their upcoming record, For Cheap or for Free, with “You Can Be Timeless” emerging as a ragged, foot-stomped blast that sounded like a four-minute best-of of everything the Clay People do well as it blurred the lines between tender introspection and roaring glee, classic rock and modern indie, and, in its fuming glory almost became the unofficial anthem for the day.

I say ‘almost’ because the song was soon followed by the set-closing (and high-water mark for the entire festival) “Children of Chin,” a song whose insistent jugular throb carried singer Joey Siara and a bag of percussion instruments over the security divider surrounding the stage and into the waving headbobs of the crowd, where Siara proceeded to utilize his wireless mic while dumping water on the Flying Tourbillon Orchestra’s Hunter Costeau, stealing hats, handing out cowbells, and instructing the crowd in the art of ‘rock jumps’ before running back onstage to finish the climactic song.

The Henry Clay People vitally injected a much-needed sense of anarchic fun into the festival’s arm, and while they should have been much closer to a closing act than an opening one, their presence at the second day’s inception served as a firm and necessary reassurance that it would indeed be possible to enjoy oneself after Saturday’s backwards proceedings. It was also another in a long line of reminders that the Henry Clay People are truly incapable of playing a bad set.

Voxhaul Broadcast’s set of sidewinding space-rocked blues had the difficult task of following the HCP, which they did admirably despite the fact that their atmosphere-drenched, slowburn psychedelia is far more suited for a shadow-flit rock club than a sunsplashed street fair. Had their set at least been a twilight one beneath a smog-clothed glimmer of stars, it would have been a much more appropriate venue for the band’s music, which managed draw a decent early-afternoon crowd with its sinuous forays into dark, drone-tattooed guitar majesty.

Interesting fact about Oliver Future #1: They are so excited by the sound of their own twisting, bruising art-rock that they nearly refuse to end their sets, as their songs are laced with several fake-out endings and longform jams that seemingly spiral ever-outward.

Interesting fact about Oliver Future #2: Oliver Future’s twisting, bruising art-rock is so enthralling that, by the set’s end, you wish they would refuse to end it at all, and keep barreling along until security drags them away to the tune of the guitar-and-keyboard slushed echoes still vibrating in your ears.

Oliver Future are a perfect rock festival band, as they manage to meld several disparate genres into one voice, one that is accented with the occasional Wilco alt-twang or Radiohead cool croon but still wholly distinct and original. They also deftly perform the highwire act of being both crowd pleasers and crowd challengers—their music is inherently enjoyable, yet makes so many neck-snapped twists and turns that they require total attention to be completely heard and absorbed; judging by the smiling faces of those standing around me during their mid-afternoon set, the crowd had no problem meeting that challenge, and were deeply rewarded.

The last set I caught before abandoning the day to those present only for the headliners or the Germstravaganza was that of Gram Rabbit, a truly oddball collage of indie rock with trashy, electrothrob beats of outsized, geargrinding proportions. Surrounded by a small circle of costumed oddities, the band, perhaps more than any other of the day, summed up the eclecticism Sunset Junction purports to defend… moreover, their music is freakishly good and oddly sensual, beneath the tincanned din of careening beats and jagged, postpunked guitars one can hear the alluring bedrock of pure, sensuous pop—it’s like the soundtrack to two Pitchfork senior editors making love in an American Apparel’d heap of kitschy camp and LCD Soundsystem vinyl.

In the end, judging by what Web in Front saw, day two of the Sunset Junction Street Fair was a successful one, so much so that it feels like we, the audience, essentially broke even. The first day was an unmitigated disaster, a monument to greed that disrespected not only the fans but the bands, while day two felt like a reminder of why those who consistently complain about the event consistently return to it—when the music is this good, the truly dedicated will make their way towards it, no matter what the hassle. However, the dedicated can always dwindle; next year, Web in Front suggests less jumping through hoops and more rock jumps.

August 27, 2008 | Filed Under Concert Reviews, Exclusive Features 

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