Polysics @ the Black Cat
Usually, when we turn up for a show at the Black Cat's backstage, we expect a relatively subdued affair. The smaller of the club's two stages, the backstage usually hosts smaller, lesser known acts--bands who haven't yet built a large or fervent enough fan base to fuel a raucous mainstage set. Thursday night, however, proved to be an exception to this rule. While both of the night's performers are relative unknowns in these parts, that didn't stop them from turning the backstage's tight quarters into a massive pogo pit.
First up was Jaguar Love, an art-punk four piece from Portland whose roster reads like a who's who of Pacific Northwest post-hardcore: Johnny Whitney and Cody Votolato, formerly of the Blood Brothers and Jay Clark, formerly of Pretty Girls Make Graves. If you've followed Whitney's songwriting in the past (both with the Blood Brothers and with side projects Neon Blonde, Soiled Doves and the Vogue), Jaguar Love's sound will feel awfully familiar. Continuing where he left off with previous collaborators, Whitney writes fractured glam-punk anthems that are light on the machismo and heavy on the theatrics. Live, the band was tight, though its greatest asset--Whitney's helium-sucking vocals--were buried deep in a muddy mix. Despite this fact, the band set a number of heads bobbing as Whitney sashayed across the stage in his typically flamboyant manner (believe it or not, he's both straight and married). Unfortunately, while the members of Jaguar Love are clearly seasoned and talented performers, the band's songs rarely rise to the same level as the Blood Brothers' blisteringly heavy jams or Pretty Girls Make Graves' mathy compositions. Regardless, judging by the crowd's reaction on Thursday night, the bands' members still know a thing or two about winning over fans on a show-by-show basis.
Tokyo's Polysics, on the other hand, are well past that stage--at least in their native land. The band has spent the last decade peddling spazzy, new-wave inspired synth-punk in Japan, the US and Europe but despite worldwide critical acclaim, fame has largely eluded the Polysics outside of Japan. Still, you wouldn't have known it on Thursday night, when the band incited a small yet enthusiastic crowd to mirror its energy.
Onstage, the Polysics are a sight to behold: clad in matching neon orange jumpsuits and straight-bar sunglasses, the band looks like the epitome of '80s retro-futurism. Bouncing around the stage like a maniac, contorting his face into cartoonish, exaggerated expressions and hamming it up at every opportunity with hair-metal-worthy soloing, frontman Hiroyuki Hayashi is the band's clear ambassador; an anime character come to life. His bandmates, meanwhile, all play various characters onstage as well (Kayo, the band's one-named keyboardist, seems to inhabit the role of a robot, singing through a vocoder while staring icily into the distance).
Still, if the band's antics seem cheesy to the point of annoyance, rest assured that their post-modern posturing is fully intentional. Case in point: Hayashi spent most of the time in between songs playing up the exaggerated stereotype of a Japanese rock star sent back from the future ("Hello D.C.! Nicetomeetyou!" he yelled in heavily-accented English at one point during the set, before flashing a peace sign and a third-grade smile). Luckily, the mostly teenaged crowd at the Black Cat seemed to be in on the joke, bouncing up and down to the band's breakneck beats like kids on a sugar high. Right before the band launched into its cover of the Knack's "My Sharona," a young fan crammed her entire fist into Hayashi's mouth--an act that was seemingly enjoyed as much by the fan as it was by the performer. Who needs fame when you've got fans like that?