For my money, your best rock value, pound for pound, is at the Space Gallery Saturday night, with the FonFon Ru record release party — four bands, no waiting: FonFonRu, Ossalot, Kal Marks and That Hideous Sound.
That’s a helluva show.
Three tracks from FonFon Ru’s new record, Collapse of the Silver Bridge, are up on Bandcamp, and they’ve all been in heavy rotation around the home office this week.
But the track I keep coming back to is Don’t Let the Cat Out — a snarling, wounded howl of 21st-century existential angst, but goddam if it doesn’t rock, hard, and I can’t wait to hear it live on Saturday night.
Back in November, FonFon Ru’s Harry James (above) did a brief solo set at the Sun Tiki, and he nailed it, laying down starkly poignant versions of a handful of the band’s tunes. My sense is, their set Saturday night is gonna be something to behold, and moments like that have been few and far between lately.
So, yeah. There’s that.
The real value-added, though, is That Hideous Sound.
A few months ago, at the release party for Snake Lips’ latest 7″, Melt The Sun, That Hideous Sound was also on the bill, and they played first.
And I got there late.
So I caught only the last 10 minutes of the set.
But that 10 minutes — a glorious wash of lo-fi, psychedelic, bedroom dreampop — made me wish something awful that I’d been there to hear the rest of it … and that night, I promised myself: it would not happen again.
So. I intend to get there early.
ThatPortlandSound 