Part II: Pretty Boys & Noise

The Macpodz are setting up on stage, empty minutes after Groove Spoon's set. I am remembering walking through Top of the Park a few years ago during a performance of theirs—but their music escapes me. My memory of that night is taken over by My Dear Disco and a view of those multi-colored lights thrown against Rackham Hall as seen from the top of a parking structure. There’s another dim-lit memory, too, of band-member Ross Huff playing some very sweet trumpet for Charlene Kaye at The Ark. And of course, the far more recent memory of bassist Brennan Andes pulling strings next to Groove Spoon’s Joe Dart. So here’s tonight, only I’m going to tell you this story in flashes.

There’s something here—I’m searching for the underlying beat, bass line, rhythm only to realize that my feet have caught it before the rest of me. There’s my friend Adam on one side and his twenty-month old son on the other (the ultimate excuse to dance, no matter what the music, is a small child) and we are in a whirling, hand-holding circle—and somehow there has to be less noise and more rhythm closer to the ground because our feet are lifting and falling, we’re speeding along without stumbling—

—I’m watching the keyboard player, a neatly-kept boy by the name of Jesse Clayton, watching his fingers following the patterns of broken chords, over and over and over. He draws it on, two hands and so many keyboards, changing the chord but still in the same outline until I lose the sense of any chords. There’s repeated noise but I can’t hear what it means to the music, where it fits against the drums and the bass and the lonely overcome trumpet. All of these instruments are up against each other and covering up the sound—I can’t tell if these boys are forgetting what is important or if they are just too caught up in the space of the stage, in their own individual places, to find a balance—

—and then—there’s a bit of quiet. For the flute—which, by the way, would be way easier to hear through a bunch of noise than a trumpet due to its higher frequency—the flute in the hands of Nick Ayers. He’s beat-boxing and fluting at the same time, a neat little trick that brings the rest of the band down. It’s a touch of relaxation, a spot away from the tense, obsessive rocking out.

The end of the night—there is an end of the night, where I am exhausted and pulling my arms against the dark skies and bright lights of Top of the Park—comes with a tired-sounding Ross Huff and a bassist promising to jam until they get kicked off the stage. Andes is still wildly energetic, playing his bass with half a sneer (he must practice that too, I am thinking) and pulling the Macpodz into a messy, extended jam session. My boundaries are breaking apart; I leave. The pretty boys are staying on stage (despite the long hair and attempts at grunge, yes, they are a bunch of pretty pretty boys). I’m staggering away and I can hear Andes’ voice going flat as he sings the only recognizable lyrics of the performance: “Up on High Street…”

This performance took place July 9th at Top of the Park.