The downstairs performance area at the Charm City Art Space is essentially a wood-paneled basement, which makes shows there feel more like a suburban house party than a rock show in the heart of the city. That might explain why the atmosphere was so relaxed last Thursday--even when the bands seemed to be constantly stumbling and suffering gear issues, everyone just took it in stride, bands and audience members alike, joking and telling stories to stall during every technical setback.
The first "band" on the bill, Markitect, set the standard for the night's amateurish but entertaining performances. A solo act, featuring one nerdy guy singing and playing guitar over some dinky synth-driven backing tracks, Markitect came off a little like a less rehearsed Atom and His Package, frequently botching riffs or missing lines. But the hilarious stories he often introduced songs with and the screwball whimsy of his lyrics made what could've been a grueling set into a really fun one. Markitect closed his set with a cover of Wreckless Eric's "(I'd Go the) Whole Wide World," while at the same time complaining that it sucks for your most popular song to be a cover, and self-defensively noting that he'd been playing it since before it was featured in the movie Stranger Than Fiction. He'd probably be happier dumping it from his set, and really should, since most of his originals were actually better songs.
Local trio The Up Set were better on a level of technical skill but lacked the charisma to pull off a set as entertaining as Markitect's. The tunes felt underwritten, and the drummer confessed that he'd only been playing for four months, and it showed. So the next band, Texas' Fishboy, stood out less for being the only out-of-town band on the bill than for raising the bar of musicianship way, way up. Rolling through the entirety of its current album, a rock opera titled Albatross: How We Failed to Save the Lone Star State with the Power of Rock and Roll, Fishboy were propelled by one of the most staggeringly awesome drummers we've ever seen, who imbued some pretty standard indie-pop songs with intense polyrhythms and lightening-fast fills. Unfortunately, Fishboy's set also got stalled by a broken string, which halted the momentum of its last couple songs.
Once the last band of the night got onstage it was crunch time--CCAS had to wrap up the show quick, presumably before it hit that magic point in the night where it was too late for a loud rock show and the cops came a-knockin'. Fortunately, that last band, local quartet Thee Lexington Arrows, were able to ram through at least half a dozen surf/garage tunes in the 13 minutes they were given to perform, and almost seemed to relish the pressure to get through their set in the quickest way possible. In fact, the only real problem was that frontwoman Kathleen Wilson, who exuded a Chrissie Hynde-esque badass rock chick snarl, didn't turn up her vocals higher and let them get buried in the mix for most of the set. But as a member of one of the other bands remarked to Thee Lexington Arrows after their set, they "broke the curse," as the only band of the night whose last song didn't completely fall apart.
