Puttin' on the Ritz is sort of the opposite: Shea and Rubin's unkempt variations on the standards almost always make for fantastic captured images, but are harder to describe in a way that does them justice. For instance, the part of the set that I failed to photograph came at the very end, when drummer Kevin Shea grabbed one of the metal bowls he'd been playing with all along, shoved it down his pants, and executed a final drum solo on his crotch. See, visual illustration would be much better. And so I will let pictures do the rest of the talking here.
Filling out the set, we got bits by Acht(en) -- an experimental instrumental duo of whom I know little besides that they're an offshoot of the Good Good in some way, and that their finesse and timbrel adventurousness made them a solid introduction to the night -- and New Brunswick, NJ punk band Screaming Females. From the songs I'd heard before, the primary elements of the SFs seemed to be 1. the eponymously forceful lead vocals and 2. guitar licks, moving from classic riffs to heavy feedback fills, much more varied and interesting than those usually needed to back such vocals. I had assumed these elements were coming from different members, and that singer Marissa would be the sort who keeps her hands free to grip a mic and rage through the audience. As such, I was startled to find that our leading lady was not only belting out her words with a force incongruous to her small stature, but also handling all those afore-noted fantastic lead guitar parts. And so the performance, with everyone pretty focused on their instruments, came off as somewhat restrained, but all the sonically stronger for it.
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