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Like,
Woof
By
Kirsten Ferguson
Blank
Dogs, Wetdog, Dead Friend
Valentine’s,
April 5
Brooklyn’s Blank Dogs is primarily a one-man project, an out-
let for the home recordings of multi- instrumentalist Mike
Sniper, who also plays bass in the postpunk outfit DC Snipers
and runs Captured Tracks, an indie label that has released
a number of Brooklyn-based (and farther afield) bands with
a similar lo-fi—bordering on crude—garage-pop aesthetic.
Prolific to say the least, Sniper has put out dozens of Blank
Dogs singles and EPs since 2007, along with two full-length
albums. They largely hew to a dark-for-dark-business brand
of (often quite catchy) synthpop with mechanized beats and
overcast vocals buried under layers of distortion and reverb—echoes
of both Joy Division and Suicide. Many of the recordings,
released in small pressings on various independent labels,
are highly sought after and trade for relatively large amounts
on eBay, a trend Sniper has tried to counter by offering up
much of his music for free download online.
That desirability factor has been fueled in part by a cult
of mystery surrounding Blank Dogs, since Sniper’s identity
as the force behind the recordings wasn’t publicly known at
first and he didn’t initially perform live. Visual cues—from
the anonymous figure shrouded in red on the cover for Blank
Dogs’ On Two Sides album to the gauze-covered face
of the unidentified person on the band’s Web site—added to
the mystique.
Now out in the open about his Blank Dogs identity, and touring
the East Coast with Captured Tracks labelmates Wetdog, Sniper
brought a new EP, Phrases, and a newish lineup to Valentine’s
on Monday night. Pared down from a previous Blank Dogs live
incarnation of five members, his current permutation of three
(with Sniper on guitar and vocals, a woman on Korg keyboard
and second guitar, and a guy plying various synths and effects,
including Theremin) is “wimpier, less rock sounding,” as Sniper
said in a recent interview.
Sniper had a black hoodie pulled over his head at Valentine’s,
but otherwise didn’t cultivate much mystery; if anything,
he seemed a bit uncomfortable onstage. Possibly he’s still
figuring out how to best adapt his songs to other players
in a live setting. “Is it really distorted out there? It sounds
really distorted up here. Nobody cares. Just cross your arms
and don’t say anything,” Sniper complained after the set’s
anemic start. The effects man at stage right overcompensated,
it seemed, for a certain listlessness plaguing the show—he
overplayed his sci-fi sounding Theremin zwaps until they became
too much of a gimmick. Only by mid-to-late-set did Blank Dogs
live up to their recorded promise on a Silver Apples-meets-Alan
Vega tune enlivened by cool effects and greater enthusiasm.
London’s all-chick Wetdog, a retro-postpunk trio in the vein
of the Slits or the Raincoats, launched their short-but-sweet
set with “Train-Track” and finished it with “Zah Und Zaheet,”
both disarmingly simple, two-minute tunes with repetitive
elementary-school choruses and angular art-punk guitar. Singer
and guitarist Rivka Gillieron, who sounded at times like Kim
Deal, picked out clarion-call guitar lines while bassist Billy
Easter added timely yelps against the backdrop of drummer
Sarah Datblygu’s primitive beats.
Local musician Andrew Sullivan, who put on the show, opened
with Dead Friend, his collaboration with Scientific Maps drummer
Phil Pascuzzo. The black-T-shirted duo, both sporting black-rim
glasses, kicked off the night with their self-described “distorted
two-note drone,” a pulsing beat providing foundation for the
duo’s layers of melodic distortion and Sullivan’s low, Ian
Curtis murmur. With a nostalgic feel, conjuring up lonely
off-season boardwalks and gray skies, the pair built their
wall of sound over the course of their set, closing with a
big crescendo for a dramatic finish.
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Babylon
and On
Photo:
Joe Putrock
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English
songsmith David Gray played to a packed house at the Egg’s
Kitty Carlisle Hart Theatre on Monday night. While heavy on
production—the lighting and sound system was so massive that
some sightlines reportedly were obscured—the set was a crowd-pleaser,
featuring a mix of past hits and singles from Draw the
Line (Gray’s latest release, not the 1977 Aerosmith album).
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