Lights That Flash in the Evening: Archers of Loaf @ Black Cat, Washington, DC (8-5-2011)

The late 90s were quite a time to be in the North Carolina Triangle if you were a music nerd. One of the Triangle's bigger-name bands, Archers of Loaf,went on its hiatus around the time of my arrival for graduate school in '98, so they were one I never got to see live. Which I think is why I wasn't so much into them then. On record, I didn't catch the melody and the hooks enough to dig further than Icky Mettle, and on that, I definitely preferred the more accessible tracks like "Web in Front" and "Plumbline.

Friday night at the Black Cat changed my mind on that. Oh, what a dumb little girl I have been.

Archers live is full of powerful bravado and a drum-and-bass combo that is a visceral call to arms. After they started, bass player Matt Gentling asked us in the first row, "Hey, if you see my amps start to topple over, can you let me know?" Amps tend to do that when you have someone pogoing in front of them for 90 straight minutes (thankfully, they stayed in place). The melodies and hooks that alluded me on record jackhammered my eardrums over the set's 21 songs and it was glorious. Archers of Loaf on record is one thing, but Archers of Loaf live was how rock music should be played.







Other photos from the set can be seen here.

Check out my piece in the Washington City Paper about the show here.

Yes, Virginia, the Archers of Loaf Show Last Night Really Did Happen...

From another Chapel Hill expatriate, I give you the visual evidence that it did indeed happen, the great Archers of Loaf reunited last night as the second opening band for Love Language last night at the Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill! Set list is also below. Wowza!



SET LIST, Archer of Loaf @ Cat's Cradle, Chapel Hill, NC (1/15/11)
1) Audiowhore
2) Harnessed In Slums
3) Revenge
4) Nostalgia
5) Lowest Part Is Free
6) Freezing Point
7) Greatest Of All Time
8) You and Me
9) Might
10) Web In Front
11) Wrong
12) Slow Worm

Archers of Loaf ReunitesTonight in Chapel HIll

Pavement did it. The Pixies did it. But tonight in Chapel Hill, NC, opening for Love Language a reunited, original lineup of Archers of Loaf. Yes, THAT Archers.

I gotta move back to the Triangle.

Seen Your Video: Archers of Loaf's "Harnessed in Slums"

One of the very best things about where I did my graduate work (Raleigh and Chapel Hill, NC) was its music scene. The Triangle as it's called, has been so flush with amazing musical talent over the years, it's almost surreal. I got lucky to see Slobberbone in a local Chapel Hill establishment the size of a closet (Local 506), Whiskeytown in a Raleigh bar the size of a basement (The Brewery), and Tres Chicas, Patty Hurst Shifter, Mayflies USA in a converted garage...But the one band I would have killed to see but just missed when I arrived was Archers of Loaf.

"Harnessed in Slums" is one of my all time favorite songs from them. I would even go so far as to say "Slums" is a perfect specimen of an AoL song: Eric Bachmann's energetic and sneering delivery atop loud and brash playing, with the surprise of a mad-catchy hook where and when you least expect it.

The video for this song captures all that perfectly: AoL as the house band for a bingo game. Trouble ensues when a young whippersnapper wins, and the old folks start a riot. The old guy tipping over the table is so bad-ass!

All I ever wanted was to be your spine...

After getting turned on to Travis Woods cool music blog, Web in Front, I got itchin to hear some Archers of Loaf. So I tinkered around on the Hype and found this great solo acoustic Eric Bachmann plus interview link. Amazing...I had to chuckle though, I'm 99% sure he no longer lives in the Triangle area, prolly hasn't in years, but he's still on Merge and has those specific and wonderful Triangle inflections in his voice when he says certain words.

Then there's Crooked Fingers...I was introduced to Crooked Fingers kind of late via the ReservoirSongs EP a couple years after it came out, then Dignity and Shame around the same time. Dear God, what a beautiful duo. "Reservoir Songs," consisting of 5 covers,(you've probably heard Prince's "When You Were Mine"), didn't leave my cd player for months. Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" just tears me up. It's a melancholy song to begin with, but Bachmann's voice with it, you feel in your bones how lonely a Sunday morning can be. That's an element I've always loved about him in Crooked Fingers, his voice always gets me in this odd in-between place of extremes where you feel both at the same time....heartbreak and your grandmother singing you to sleep, the sadness of losing of a friend and the tingle of meeting someone new, death and life, all at the same time.

Download:Sunday Morning Coming Down-Crooked Fingers.mp3

On the other hand, with Archers it was more like they, not Yo La Tengo, should have named an album I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass because the sort of energy in that statement is exactly what they sound like, but with really cool lyrics (Youre not the one who let me down/But thanks for offering,Its not a voice and Im not around/But thanks for picking it...)

So without for further ado...Icky Mettle
1. Web in Front
2. Last Word
3. Wrong
4. You and Me
5. Might
6. Hate Paste
7. Fat
8. Plumb Line
9. Learo, Youre A Hole
10. Sick File
11. Toast
12. Backwash
13. Slow Worm

Download:Icky Mettle-Archers of Loaf.zip