The Crosstown Traffic

Saturday night was possibly the best St. Patrick’s Day ever, as three wildly different local bands (Genrevolta, Bill Carson, and The Specs) all put on fantastic shows at Cumberland’s. I was most excited about Genrevolta, who were playing their first show since last August (!!!).

Of course, with Cumberland’s being across the street from what you could democratically call a “frat bar” — and since it was amateur night — on the way into the club, I witnessed some serious douchebaggery from some bead-bedecked dude who had wandered over to Cumberland’s and felt the need to explain, in a heavily-slurred redneck drawl, to anyone within listening distance why they weren’t heading in: “Five dollars for GENRE-volta? Man, fuck GENRE-volta! I ain’t listenin’ to no GENRE-volta!” (The guy kept pronouncing “genre” really loudly, like he was trying to impress his bros with his grasp of the English language.) The nice fellow at the door and I laughed; “Yeah, I really wanted you guys to come in,” he said as they walked away still bitching.

Anyway, those assholes really missed out. Lead singer/guitarist Phil Estes, bassist Richard Weld, and drummer Pete Rivas always whip up a maelstrom of gut-punching melodic math(ish) rock, but on Saturday they were in rare form, tight as fuck and very obviously enjoying the chance to perform live together again. Despite the fact that the new Cumberland’s has unclimbable rafters, Philip still managed to slip some of his trademark offstage antics in, climbing down to the floor and spinning a bunch of cymbals around.

When he climbed back on stage and strapped his guitar back on, audience members took over spinning duty. It was touching, really. And also fun. After the show (and some puppylike eye-begging from me), Philip handed me a copy of the Genrevolta/In the Red split EP (Tick Tock Records), which will be unleashed on the public with a CD release show at Cumberland’s on Sat. April 21 (tip: you can listen to the songs right now, though, on Genrevolta’s MySpace page). He also pointed out that there was a mix-up in the end stages of pressing the CDs that resulted in the final song on the EP being wrongly listed as “Cubes” (a.k.a. the one with the “Don’t ever let ‘em try to mold ya/Give them that Genrevolta” rallying cry at the end) — it’s actually “Assassin” (a.k.a. the one with the funky bass-led breakdown in the middle and the word “killer” in the chorus … “rock killer”? “rock pusher”?).

And that was just the beginning of the night! Bill Carson played with Jonathan Gray (Jump, Metal Monday) on bass, Nathan Koci (New Music Collective) on keys, and Jack Burg (The Bedrooms, SKWZBXX) on drums and various other percussive instruments, and Cary Ann Hearst jumped onstage to sing a ditty with The Specs later that night; Lindsay Holler was there, too. Basically, if a meteor had smashed into 301 King St. on St. Patty’s Day, we would’ve lost a huge (and highly skilled) chunk of Charleston’s music scene.

–sm