Just The FACS, Ma’am
The midwestern troubadours sample the sandwiches at Deep Cuts on Thursday, 10 April 2025.
Landowner and Major Stars rent-to-own in the opening slots.
Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix
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Hump Nights
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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️ Hump Nights 〰️
Hump Nights
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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix
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Hump Nights 〰️ Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️
Major Stars
Major Stars
Major Stars have been major starring for years. Real rock n roll locals, gracing stages on both sides of the river. Deep Cuts is another notch in their belt, and maybe it’s close to home because – and I’m not trying to be a stalker here – but I think I spotted a pair of them enjoying beers at Medford Brewing Company, a stone’s throw from the club.
The band’s sound must have come up in the alt 90s because it loves the distortion, feedback, guitar-based screech and scrawl proper to the decade. On Thursday night they performed as a five-piece, which provided plenty of amplified string action from three guitars and one bass.
The lead guitarist doesn’t solo so much as throw endless strands of spaghetti against the wall in a noisy, bluesy zonkoid effluvium. It’s wallpaper soloing, heavy on energy and light on articulation, a massive high velocity mush that comes at you like a large helping of mashed potatoes fired at you with a weapon-grade slingshot.
All the songs were instrumentals. Something about their regular vocalist being out of commission, absent, otherwise unavailable. In consequence the band sat down and relearned a bunch of old instrumental tunes prior to the show. The kind of stuff they hadn’t played live in years, scraping the bottom of the fish barrel to come up with a complete instrumental set. Sounded just fine.
Vocals can be overrated, especially with a noisy band at a small club where your chances of decoding even a single solitary lyric are slim. It’s often no more than rhythmic woofery along with the melody.
Landowner
Landowner
Does Landowner own any land? I guess they’re from western Mass, where land feels more spacious, undeveloped, more plentiful, and presumably cheaper?
Cheaper – if this were 1962, and we were part of a cresting generation that shoveled the prosperity of post-war America into their mouths with heaping forkfulls of cheap gas, cheap meat, cheap down payments, cheap tuition, cheap school loans that you could pay off with one good summer job. Or a year’s worth of work after graduation if you were a real zero. A heroic generation that loves Applebee’s and hates you.
What’s cheap these days? Everything is expensive everywhere in every way and always.
I think I heard a few new songs from the group. Some new jams? Including one that sounded doomy; much slower and grindier than when they’re rocking in their Sahel post-punk mode. You might miss the uptempo energy of the guitars on the slower numbers, but the downtempo pacing does give the vocalist a different kind of sandbox to play in.
FACS
FACS
FACS. FACS! Midwest post punk legends, buds on the branches of an interesting genealogy of rock blooming in and around the Chicago area over many years. Touring on the heels of the release of their latest LP Wish Defense.
The three-piece is known for artrock minimalism. Never play a riff once when you could play it sixteen, seventeen, eighteen times. The effect can be hypnotic, and the flavor of the hypnosis varies according to whether the rendition is live or in the studio.
Not that the band ever sounds ‘clean,’ but, relative to standard muckery of punk textures, the repetitive riffs of the studio version of FACS sound positively Glassian. And the speak/sing accompaniment rings out clearly in the mix.
Live on stage at Deep Cuts, though, the attack was more rough and ready, emphasizing the rhythmic elements of their songwriting. Real sluggo rock n roll, spilled out of the back of a rental van, likely from the Land of Lincoln.
Photo Gallery
Midwestern troubadours sample the sandwiches at Deep Cuts.