Live Review: Kill Hannah/Shiny Toy Guns/Clear Static (NYC)

Just went to the Clear Static/Shiny Toy Guns/Kill Hannah show at The Avalon (formerly The Limelight) in NYC (Monday, April 10). $17 a ticket. $6 for a Bud Light. Coulda been an expensive night if I had had more than one beer.

Tommie Sunshine – who David and I caught at SXSW – was spinning tunes from a mid-level booth when I entered and he also spun tracks between bands. I recognized very few of the songs he was sampling but it sounded good and there were small pockets of younger ladies getting funky fresh to the songs that they obviously knew.

After standing around for over an hour (doors were at 6:30 making me think the show would start around 7 – not the case – it didn’t start until 8:15), the lights finally went down and the first band made their way to the stage.

Clear Static opened. Think Duran Duran meets The Cure with white belts and fancy haircuts (the “just got out of bed” look). I liked the music but my first impression of the band is that they are cocky kids who happened into a major label deal. The bass player has badly bleached blonde hair. The singer reminded me of Beetlejuice (as played by Michael Keaton). Their “single” is called “Make-Up Sex” and when they played it, the drummer kept looking up to the second floor of the club and yelling “Sex” as a few of his guy friends were yelling it back at him. Hmm … odd. And he also kept licking his drum stick during the song. They played a cover of The Romantic’s “Talking in Your Sleep,” the irony of which I’m sure was lost on the young crowd. I suspect that this band – like Pity Sing – is one whose CD I’ll enjoy but who I never will want to see live again. Towards the end of their set they said “Sign up for our mailing list and we’ll give you a free CD.” It was just a 3-song sampler but I got one after giving them “my” email address.

Shiny Toy Guns were up next. Interesting band. Yet another band with a synth/keyboard player (2 in this band). The chick was cute and had a good voice – always a plus. The drummer needed to shave – that same “rolled out of bed” look didn’t go well with an unshaven face. I think the drummer may have puked during the second to last song – it certainly looked like it from my vantage point. This band didn’t have as much of an ’80s feel as Clear Static did and the crowd was REALLY into them (maybe even more so than Kill Hannah). I’d probably go see them again and I’ll see if I can track down their CD.

Kill Hannah is a total guilty pleasure. Yes, the guitar player still wears cut up tube socks on his arms. They still wear makeup. They still have new wave haircuts. They played mostly songs from their last record but threw in a few new ones from their forthcoming CD. Not sure of all the names of the songs but I think one was called “Black Poison Blood” (I really liked this one – a bit heavier than other KH stuff). They also played the song that is on MySpace (“Lips Like Morphine”) and one that is probably called “I Love You to Death”. There were a TON of girls up front screaming and singing along and the singer (can’t remember his name – maybe Matt?) totally played into it, holding hands with some of them. They closed with “Kennedy” and surprisingly didn’t do an encore. Not sure what happened but I read they’ve been doing a cover of “Rebel Yell” on this tour as the encore.