Dead Stars at Main Drag (photo by Ray Rusinak)
The old adage that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” couldn’t be more true than in the case of Brooklyn’s very own fuzz punk power popsters, Dead Stars. It’s been well over two and a half years since Jeff Moore, John Watterberg, and Jaye Moore have blessed us with their presence on stage and well, let me just say that their return was triumphant to say the very least. When they announced last month that they would be doing a show at Main Drag Music, I for one was to the moon excited. I mean, we’d last heard from the band on February 19, 2020 when they played a record release show at Union Pool (ironically this show also had Desert Sharks on the bill) to celebrate the release of their new album Never Not Here which would drop two days later on February 21st.
Well, needless to say that within two weeks after this show, the world would effectively shut down and things would proceed to become very different, not only for the band but for everyone. Jeff would move to the Hudson Valley and John and his wife would finally open the restaurant (Santa Fe BK) that had been their dream for years. And like so many of us, because of lockdown and whatnot, it became easy to stop doing things. Unfortunately, being a band and playing music together was one of those things which slipped through the cracks for the guys. No breakup, no hard feelings, no artistic differences; just a case of life getting in the way. That is until a month or so ago when Jeff got on the horn with the great idea to “let’s play some music.” Which brings us to this past Friday night.
Before I get into the show itself, let me first say a few words about Main Drag Music. If you’re at all familiar with Main Drag, that familiarity is as a music store specializing in vintage musical instruments for sale as well as repair. And they’ve recently commenced hosting events in their basement space. Walking down the metal staircase into the brick walled basement room with its monstrously high ceilings immediately brought to mind, not because of any physical similarity, but more of a spiritual vibe, the bygone days of Williamsburg waterfront spaces like Glasslands, 285 Kent and Death By Audio. It goes without saying that for those who remember those wonderful rooms, any similarity to them is certainly a really good thing. I certainly hope that this venture works out for Main Drag, so if you happen to see or hear about something else going on there, by all means check it out.
Dead Stars
I first came to be familiar with Dead Stars with their 2014 release, Slumber. Its distortion fused guitar fuzz brought to mind for me the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and The Lemonheads and I was immediately hooked. Fortunately the band was playing gigs around and about town on a regular basis so I was lucky enough to see them live often and each and every time it was a complete sonic blast, both literally and figuratively.
Not that I thought anything differently, but Friday’s show was more of the same, only better. Taking the stage at just before 11pm to a thundering reception from the filled room of what appeared to be mostly long time friends and fans of the band, they started things off with “Fractured” off of 2013’s High Gain EP followed by another older song, “Kill Me In The Summertime” from 2012’s I Get By EP. It would be easy to say that the band was purposely coming out ready to rock hard, but you’d be hard pressed to find too many slow ballads in their repertoire, so rocking hard is pretty much what the faithful have always come to expect from the band. That being said, rock hard is exactly what they did. The volume was way up and the energy both onstage as well as in the crowd was at peak levels. Lead singer Jeff Moore thanked everyone for coming out to the show and offering such great support for the band. Jokingly he said that when they booked the gig, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be the only one to show up, “I wasn’t even sure if these guys (pointing to Jaye and John) would be here.”
I’m not sure how much the guys were able to actually practice prior to this show considering the aforementioned post pandemic logistics, but damn they sounded great together. By the time they kicked into “Someone Else,” the lead track from Slumber with its distortion-fueled guitar and tumultuous drum lines, it was as if Dead Stars had never even left. The tightness and fluidity that was spilling off the stage was so refreshing. Getting to see Jeff, John and Jaye feed off one another, knowing exactly what each was going to do long before they themselves knew what was coming, was what you come to expect from a band that really enjoys playing with one another. One which has spent countless hours playing together, diving into one another’s brains and psyches.
Interestingly, it wasn’t until almost the end of the set when the band played anything off of their last album, Never Not Here. But we did ultimately get to hear “Hold My Breath” and “Dreams Don’t Come True” before the evening closed out with “Crawl,” another ripper from the Slumber album. And that was it. Despite the crowd yelling, screaming and chanting for an encore, Jeff sheepishly apologized, saying, “that’s all we rehearsed, we don’t have anything else ready.” But I certainly can’t complain. We got a set of roughly 13 or so songs filled with the proverbial fuzz and distortion. A set filled with songs which many of us weren’t sure we’d ever get to hear again in a live setting and to this it was a great night. Lets just hope that with the pandemic malaise hopefully behind us, Dead Stars will resurrect on a permanent basis going forward.
As for the opening bands which started the evening off, first up was Desert Sharks who are certainly no strangers to fans of Dead Stars, having shared the stage with them on numerous occasions in the past. With their own brand of psychedelic garage punk, bassist and lead vocalist, Stephanie Gunther led the band through a scorching set heavy on tunes from the most recent Baby’s Gold Death Stadium album. I’ve always known the Sharks to put on an energetic, vibrant and fun filled show and for sure Friday’s set was spot on to that formula. Even when drummer Rebecca Fruchter’s kick drum pedal broke, the band didn’t miss a beat. The hIghlight of their set for me was their relatively new cover of Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry” (which was reviewed here at FTA back in August 2021) with its thundering bass and chugging guitar creating a perfectly explosive combo.
Next up were Clone. Led by LG Galleon, also of Dead Leaf Echo, Clone reminded me of early Joy Division with its guitar heavy post punk. Between Galleon’s thrashing reverb induced guitar, Gregg Giuffe’s bombastic drumming and Paulie Lizárraga’s thundering Hookian bass, not to mention the dark brick lined basement room, it almost felt like we‘d been time machined to Manchester circa 1978. Galleon, despite having to play through numerous broken strings, the first of which was jokingly passed off with the off hand remark “Oh we’ve got plenty more strings.” The second one to snap led him to quip, “ugh oh, we’re running out of these things, anyone know where we can get more?” Obviously an off handed joke considering we were in the basement of an actual music store (albeit one which was currently closed for the night). None of this slowed him or the band down as they played through a paradoxical set exemplifying moments of both aggressive anger along with introspective melancholy. Clone’s set certainly left me with an itch which I will need to scratch in the future.
Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Ray Rusinak)
DESERT SHARKS
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CLONE
DEAD STARS
