Monday night's bill at the Sidebar looked as if it was booked in the same way CMJ magazine used to put together silly little charticles in which imaginary festivals featured a clutch of similarly named bands. It sure felt like an odd coincidence that three bands featured the same prefix: New Age Hillbilly, New Thrill Parade, and the New Flesh. But however it was assembled, the bill fit together surprisingly well. New Age Hillbilly is Alex Strama's one-man noise band, and he prides himself on his ability to make audience members annoyed and uncomfortable, if all the proudly displayed negative live reviews on his MySpace page are any indication. Not unlike other Baltimore knob twiddlers like Dan Deacon, New Age Hillbilly spazzes out in the midst of the crowd, breaking the performer/audience fourth wall. But the vibe is as drunken and belligerent as Wham City is giddy and childlike, and it's a little harder to laugh with him when he's spilling his beer bong on everyone and cranking his blistering tracks to almost physically painful volumes. All in all, it's not a bad shtick, but it worked better at the Ottobar back in March, when the stage was high enough for his shirtless gut to gross out more than just the front row. That's probably not enough of a pan to make it into his press clippings, though. The New Flesh is more our kind of noise, although the band's music is no less punishing in its volume and intensity. In fact, the local power trio works best when shuffled between bands that don't approach its level of volume or aggression, a sucker-punch in the middle of some kinder, gentler indie rock. Unfortunately, the TNF's sickeningly powerful bass rumble didn't make its usual impact following New Age Hillbilly's sensory overload. Still, the New Flesh remains a jewel of searing, relentless, hateful skree in the Baltimore rock scene. And when the band finished its set, the bar immediately threw on a Black Sabbath record, underscoring just how tame some ancestral heavy music sounds compared to Flesh's pained howl. New Thrill Parade from Santa Cruz, one of two Californian bands on the bill, didn't keep the confrontational noise going. But what NTP lacked in aggression, the band made up for with pure theatrical spectacle, the six members (all male) dressed in bizarre outfits comprosed of some combination of masks, makeup, and miniskirts. A saxophonist in a cat mask and a leopard-print dress squawked over the band's jumpy Gypsy-goth jams, while a second percussionist sat in front of the drummer, bashing an array of cymbals on the floor. New Age Hillbilly hollered loudly between quiet parts of songs, wrestling and shoving a friend into other audience members. Such was the chaotic atmosphere of the aptly named New Thrill Parade's performance, however, that Strama's behavior didn't feel at all out of place. The next group of Californians was Wildildlife, formerly known as Wildlife. ("Our name changed as our needs changed. Also this other shitty band tryed to sue us!!!!" the band's web site helpfully notes.) And although the trio of longhairs looked to be playing an intriguingly gonzo variant of speed metal, with some really sick rapid-fire 16th-note bass lines, Wildildlife played it straighter than the other bands of the evening, leaving its set a bit anti-climactic. Maybe throwing "New" at the beginning of the new name would have helped.
