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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Ridglea Theater
Derek Fudesco used to play bass for the Murder City Devils, a band that recorded for Sub Pop back when it was cool to record for Sub Pop (i.e., before that whole Ben Folds thing). Since the wheels came off the MCD bus in 2001, he’s worked with Pretty Girls Make Graves, an outfit that’s making waves on the indie rock scene and will visit the Ridglea Theater tonight with the vaunted Alkaline Trio.
Forgive Pretty Girls Make Graves for taking their name from a Smiths song. While those ’80s Manchurian depresso-rockers are currently enjoying a resurgence of hipness, this new crew of Seattleites is up to something quite different. To wit: punk-referential rawk ’n’ roll that doesn’t always bludgeon you over the head with buzzsaw Ramones/Pistols gee-tar. Instead, Jason Clark and Nathan Johnson spend a lot of time playing agitated, intertwining single-note lines that create more tension in the music than your typical punkoid axe assault. The rhythm team of Fudesco and drummer Nick DeWitt underpins the web of sound with a mix of throb and thrash that’s downright menacing.
The icing on the cake is Andrea Zollo, who sounds like a gal who takes no relation-shit. Her smart, downright sexy, never-shrill vocals, rising out of a Bowery Boys-style backup cacophony, pay mad props to Penelope Houston from Frisco’s late, lamented Avengers.
So far, PGMG’s recorded output consists of a bunch of cool slabs of 7-inch vinyl — a sop to record-collector scum, a genus of geekdom that falls between philatelists and Trekkies in the hierarchy — and a couple of shiny silver discs, the most recent being last year’s Good Health on Lookout. Go see ’em before the Brit press discovers ’em, and they take over the world. — Ken Shimamoto
Sat at the Ridglea Theater, 6025 Camp Bowie Blvd, FW. 817-738-9500.
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