Cut Copy with the Presets
September 15, 2008
The Record Bar
Next Best Thing To: The Faint opening for New Order
By JASON HARPER
Photos by MICHAEL FORESTER
The Record Bar throbbed like an artery last night as Australian electro-pop groups the Presets and Cut Copy turned the small bistro-slash-concert-hall into a sweaty slip ‘n slide of rave-house dance beats and live-PA fury. Even the Rock-Afire Explosion might have lost some animatronic bear fur trying to keep up.
I arrived around 9, just in time to catch the Presets’ kickoff. I couldn’t believe they were starting so early, so I asked KKFI DJ Sunshine (host of the Retro Red-Eye Express), bopping nearby, who they were. She removed a glow-in-the-dark necklace from her mouth and told me they were indeed the Presets. Two guys stood on stage, one at a drumset, one on a vocal mic behind an array of cabinets loaded with synths, both of them lit from behind by rows of flashing neon bulbs as tall as a person, 20 of them total. Based on scant YouTube reseach, I expected the group to be gothy and overdramatic. And even though they had that hard-edged, squelchy-techno sound reminiscent of the Faint, they presented their music more like a saltine bromide to be licked up by hungry dancefloor sheep than a greeting card to the eyeliner set.
More after the jump.
Not fucking around with jingle-jangle, the Presets pour aggressive synth-bass melodies and unrelenting drumbeats into a centrifuge and dial it to the Nothing-But-the-Bangers setting, spinning everything down to a highly intoxicating electro ruckus. The group is made up of drummer Kim Moyes, who looked like the lost Gallagher brother, and singer-programmer Julian Hamilton, who – because I like doing this -- looked like the adolescent David Helfgott from the movie Shine, only better looking. Early on in the set, Julian announced that it was Kim’s birthday. We applauded. Nice blokes, those Presets.
Throughout the hour-plus performance, the glowsticks came out, the crowd bounced, and one guy over by a booth, more committed than the rest of us, danced like he was digging fencepost holes in the floor.
Folks had plenty of time to rest, as Cut Copy didn’t come on for another 45 minutes or so. Roadies set up gear and signaled to each other with flashlights. People on the dancefloor elbowed each other for places close to the stage. With a great cheering fanfare from the sold-out audience, the four piece band of skinny whiteboys in Cut Copy (drummer, bassist, guitars and everything-plus-vocals man Dan Whitford) came on stage and in a quiet voice said, “That’s not a synthesizer. THIS is a synthesizer.”
Sweating and flailing Beatles-mop hair, Cut Copy led the eager, booty-hemorrhaging crowd through an electrifying set of songs from their two albums, this year’s In Ghost Colours and its 2004 debut Bright Like Neon Love.
The rough setlist:
Nobody Lost, Nobody Found
Far Away
So Haunted
Unforgettable Season
Time Stands Still
[don’t know]
A Dream
Saturdays
Feel the Love
Out There On the Ice
Lights and Music
Future
[not sure – sounded like it was about “Lisa”]
Hearts on Fire
What I love about Cut Copy (seen ‘em twice now) is that the group presents music that’s – sure, sure – derivative of the New Wavin’ ‘80s but is fresh, smart, creative, seductively catchy and, perhaps most of all, innocent-sounding enough to raise it above guilty pleasure level while keeping it firmly in the fuck-it-let’s-dance realm. Like the best pop groups throughout music history, Cut Copy makes people dance to songs.
And they have a blast doing it – on stage, the Aussies were boyishly gleeful, and I haven’t seen a crowd at the Record Bar get so wild about such a distinctly non-local band since Camera Obscura, which was also sold out but way less fun. The dance floor down front got so muggy that I found it actually more comfortable to raise my arms, thereby airing out my torso and ‘pits. I was not the only one doing this, mind you. But as I got gradually pressed more and more uncomfortably against the soundbooth, I eventually had to flee to the back, where only pockets of people were dancing, like kids cranked up on ripple at senior prom.
The night’s abandon also made me briefly forget that I’m coming down with a sinus infection, so I elected not to go to the afterparty at Davey’s Uptown where the Presets were allegedly playing. If you went, be sure to report in the comments below.
Critic’s Notebook
Personal Bias: INXS is my hot sex.
Random Detail: I kid you not, the Presets have a lyric that says, “the dingoes got the babies.”
By the Way: The Presets did have one slow moment: a synthesizer-xylophone duet that sounded like the lost reading-on-the-toilet scene from Blade Runner.
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How the hell did I miss this excellent review, Jason? Hope to see you out and about again sometime soon. (If you even see this comment on such an old post.)
kim form the presets and 1/2 of cut copy went to karma to drink with me for my and koims birthday. it was fun . sorry davey's.
kim form the presets and 1/2 of cut copy went to karma to drink with me for my and koims birthday. it was fun . sorry davey's.
kim form the presets and 1/2 of cut copy went to karma to drink with me for my and koims birthday. it was fun . sorry davey's.
I hauled over to Davey's and watched goth girls dance for about half an hour before word came 'round that the Presets weren't playing again after all. Apparently, they had to get back on the road to beat some rainstorm. Stupid weather.
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