LIVE JOURNAL 10/2: Sweeping Promises, Star Party, Rat Queen @ Clock-Out Lounge

Wouldn’t you know it, My Morning Jacket was playing at the Paramount the same night this daring post-punk band from Boston was gracing the Clock-Out Lounge down in Beacon Hill. Guess who’s got their priorities straight?

We all know that Jim James and company make for a fantastic live experience, but it was worth missing out to go see this lineup. If you’ve never been to the Clock-Out, I’d highly recommend it for whatever event they happen to be putting on. As far as Seattle venue atmospheres go, this one’s really nice: it’s relatively new but still has that classic divey feel, and the pizza there is pretty dope. I’m not sure what you would call it, but it’s kind of a spin on deep-dish with an emphasis on crispy, burnt cheese. Not good for the body, but good for the heart, you know?

Well maybe not that either. Probably worse actually.

But enough about the gastronomical. Here’s how the show went.

All thoughts are mine; all experiences are mine. If you don’t like it, you can go [watch The Wire on HBO Max, that pilot aired almost twenty years ago and it holds up.]

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RAT QUEEN

Hallelujah, it’s raining rats. I have kept my promise. After missing local punk act Rat Queen’s opening set at the Cheekface show last week, I fully repented by making sure I was present and ready to catch them here. I got the ticket ahead of time (quick sidebar: I know we’re used to being robbed in blind daylight by now, but a $6 service fee on $15 online tickets? For real?) and hit the venue right as doors open just to make sure, because Rob Moura does not make the same mistake twice, and if he does, he’s really really super sorry.

This, as it turns out, was a slightly different Rat Queen than the one I had experienced on record. They’re a five-piece now, and those extra members are also excellent additions. Singer Jeff Tapia and guitarist Daniel Koren are still anchors, but having someone like Naomi Adele Smith (Jesse Mercury) on keyboards and Jordan Brawner (Meanderthals, Hurry Up, SnufKin) as a second guitar really helped flesh out the live sound. They’re still punk as funk, but now they have edges that jut out at proggy, weird angles; to me, it makes them even more intriguing. The audience fucking loved them either way. Tapia kept up their energy over the whole set, clutching the mic like an apple mid-bite, and the crowd bounced right along.

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STAR PARTY

It felt like no time at all had passed before this trio took the stage. Not much to set up I guess, just a couple of amps and a mic. Although the demo they released last year touted a full band, a lone boom box represented the backing drums, over which the trio laid out a fast-paced, amusingly brief set. I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly they were trying to go for, but I was intrigued nonetheless. For one, a slight tuning problem had turned what was probably meant to be a noisy pop act into something almost no wave, which they were able to pull off because of the members’ individual dispassions. Carrie Brennan sang her lines as if she were waiting for her name to be called at the DMV, which was personally awesome.

With the brevity of the set, I can’t find much else to say about it; I could have sworn they only had six songs, seven at the maximum. It was definitely enough for me to check out that demo, which gave me a much better idea of what the trio was going for. It’s two originals, two covers – one from a Scottish punk band called Shop Assistants, the other from Cher – and a ton of sharp distortion blanketing everything. I think it kinda kicks ass. You can definitely hear their influences straight up, but it packs a raw punch that only a demo can convey. Considering this band started in quarantine, they can’t have played many shows, so I’m looking forward to catching them again and seeing how they develop this sound.

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SWEEPING PROMISES

Hey, these folks are from Boston! Well, they were from Boston, but that’s already a point on the board for me. This was my first introduction to a post-punk act that’s already seen a fair amount of attention judging from how the crowd jolted to their feet the moment they hit the stage.

Sweeping Promises is Lira Mondal on bass and vocals, Caufield Schnug on guitar (good god what a great name) and Spenser Gralla rounding it out on drums. They rock. It’s basically classic post-punk (in the early Rough Trade fashion) with a splash of dance-punk, but something about Mondal’s sudden-alarm vocals and Schnug’s live-wire guitar give them just enough of an identity to enliven that old sound. Schnug especially made for a compelling presence onstage, his knees constantly bending and leaning toward some random direction as his mouth hung agape like the chords he was playing were touching his brain directly. I didn’t get a great picture of his resting face, but here’s an approximation:

The songs are deceptively simple, their minimal parts able to convey some cool songwriting tricks like false stops, fake choruses, and surprise synths. Some, like the swaggering “Blue” or the pulse-pounding “Hunger for a Way Out,” are trendy enough where I can imagine them soundtracking TikToks. Is that wrong? I don’t care. I think sites like TikTok are perfect places for storied genres like post-punk to redefine itself contextually. Post-punk in particular, actually, has sort of always been about sidling up to the commercial as an intellectual challenge, hasn’t it? I’m thinking of Public Image Ltd. in general, but post-punk has been much more about a sound and a mood lately than an intention, so who knows? I dunno what a band like Sweeping Promises wants, I just know I want to dance to them.