Eric R. Danton SOUNDCHECK: Music News & Views
9:01 p.m. EDT, April 30, 2011
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It’s not exactly that English band Yuck makes rock ’n’ roll look effortless, but the foursome glided through 45 minutes on stage Friday at Pearl Street in Northampton without it seeming like much of an effort.
That’s not a knock. The unfortunate name aside, there’s plenty to love about Yuck. The group, much-buzzed about at this year’s South by Southwest festival, plays catchy songs that emphasize fuzzed-over guitars and singer Daniel Blumberg’s offhand melodies.
With a loose pile of curly hair and a denim-on-denim shirt combination, the singer looked like a refugee from a Dexy’s Midnight Runners photo shoot circa 1982. He hunched awkwardly over the microphone to sing, his head often tucked into his shoulder as though he were cradling a telephone there.
When he wasn’t peeling off lead lines on guitar, Max Bloom sang backing vocals (and lead one song), and stoic bassist Mariko Doi added harmonies in a sweet voice over a wall of bristling guitars on the wistful “Georgia.”
Yuck also mixed a couple slower numbers into its set, including the dreamy and subdued “Suicide Policeman.”
Northampton band NYC UFOs was on before Yuck, playing a half-hour set of up-tempo, slightly gritty tunes laced with power-pop hooks.
Another local group, the teenage quartet Big Nils, opened the show with 30 minutes of chaotic garage-punk songs propelled by a rhythm section comprising drummer Sen Morimoto and bassist Lily Daiber, and topped with snarling guitar from Zoe Wardlaw and laconic vocals from Coco Gordon Moore. Her father, Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore, took video of a few songs, before the band adjourned to peddle Big Nils boxer briefs at the merch booth.
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