Seattle Subsonic

Deaths Three Daughters, Just Kids, Illumination

February 28th, 2011

I went to Club Motor Friday night to catch a band with a name I like, Death’s Three Daughters. It’s an all girl band that describes themselves as playing Gutter Rock so I thought it could be interesting, and as long as I can remember I’ve had a thing for female bass players, well, except for D’Arcy from the Smashing Pumpkins. I loved the Pumpkins’ early stuff of course, Gish and Siamese Dream, and there were some good bass lines therein, but D’Arcy never did it for me, not even the time I saw them open for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Detroit way back in 1991. I’d never before been to Club Motor but was pleasantly surprised by the Woman with Purple Hair who took my money and smiled and told me to enjoy the show. I thought I might just have to see if she’d be interested in a drink before the end of the evening. The bar was separated from the main area by a waist level wall topped with chicken wire running up to the ceiling, yes, chicken wire. Seemed right out of The Blues Brothers. I walked to it.

“Chicken wire.”

I laughed at the thought of Jim Belushi and Dan Akroyd and got a seat at the bar. I settled, ordered a beer from the Purple Haired Woman who was suddenly serving drinks, and got to reading Patti Smith’s Just Kids as I waited for D3D to go on. The book is one that draws the reader in and then slams them with a phrase that stops everything, the kind of phrase that makes the reader look about the room and take a swig of beer and shout, “Hell yeah!” I came across one such phrase there in Club Motor. While writing about the kind of doubts an artist can have of their talent, about the pursuit of art seeming at times great folly, about there being so much art but so much of it ordinary, Smith wrote, “It seemed indulgent to add to the glut unless one offered illumination.” Right on.

Around 9:30, Death’s Three Daughters stepped up to the stage and checked tuning and levels. Then they crashed a few big staccato chords and jumped right into the first song. There was energy, but the mix was off. Everything was separate, guitar right, bass left, drums center. It’s hard to be the first band as often the soundman is setting things only at that time. It seemed so Friday. The bass player’s vocal mic was breaking up too, but I saw no one rushing to the stage to do anything about it. The Daughters were getting no favors from the soundman. The first song ended right as the singer, known by her nickname of Toots, shouted what sounded like, “Prick!” and I wondered if she was referring to whoever was supposed to be controlling the mix. There was applause.

D3D likes to chunk fast and heavy, but I found myself liking them better when they slowed it down and infused a little more soul and melody into the tune. The third song in their set was called “Waiting Room” and started in the same kind of manner as the Smashing pumpkins “Today.” That isn’t to say it sounded the same, but there was the melodic riff played high on the neck and in came the drums and bass simple but powerful. It was lacking a rhythm guitar though. I hope these girls will consider such. It would really beef up the sound but would of course give them problems where the name of the band is concerned. Given that D3D is more comfortable driving fast and hard, there were moments in “Waiting Room” that lacked tightness and confidence, and that unfortunately carried through the set.

I drifted easily thus between band and book, reading phrases, catching riffs. I kept pausing at the thought of Smith’s line though, “It seemed indulgent to add to the glut unless one offered illumination.” I do indeed want a little illumination when I go see a band, and D3D did have some good ideas like in the second to last song, a number called “Blood Mountain.” It started with two bass notes repeated, some feedback on the guitar, accents on the drums. Again, it was open. It breathed in a heavy plodding kind of way that I liked but devolved quickly into fast heavy chords for the sake of fast heavy chords until the end when they rode out a cool ascending riff, A – B – C – D. It was, again, simple but powerful, and I wish they’d done more of it. They are a band thus still finding their vocabulary, still settling into one voice. Illumination would have to wait.

After the show I spoke to the bass player, of course the bass player, a red haired beauty whose nickname is DudeGirl because she plays with power tools. She gave me a demo CD they recorded in someone’s garage and then burned onto CDs themselves. I haven’t listened to it yet though. I’m waiting. I’m waiting for the soundman to do them some favors and for “Blood Mountain” to make me shout, “Hell, yeah!” Until, then I’ll be at the bar with a beer and a book and an ear open for the cool riff as I swim among the words.

When I left Club Motor, the Purple Haired Woman said, “See you next time.” I just smiled and didn’t say anything.

Dave

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Death’s Three Daughters happens to be be playing at another show I’ve agreed to review and so will get a second chance to sway me. That show will be headlined by Out Like Pluto. Listen to “Are We There Yet?” (free download available) and “Papercut”, good, fun stuff. Deaths Three Daughters and a new band called Electric Villain will open. Jewelbox Theater. Monday March 7. Tickets $5.00.