WAND LIVE
August 12, 2016 ~ Non Plus Ultra, Los Angeles
Pure shit, missed opportunities, and a disturbing lack of elevation: Wand delivers fast-paced, mind-bending psych rock in a strange little venue that makes up with volume what it lacks in basic concert amenities. I deliver a weeks-late, incompetent review where I pretend like I know shit. To be clear, this is a review of a concert that took place back on August 12. I blame E. coli.
Non Plus Ultra is about as garage rock a venue as you can get without being an actual garage. Stashed off an incongruously silent street away from restaurants or shops or anything that could be construed as a main thoroughfare, the overall effect doesn’t exactly scream “live music.” If you didn’t know about the concert, you’d probably never even realize there was a venue in the area- which, to be all cute and everything, is actually a semi-decent analogy for Wand as a band.
The founding three members (Cory Hanson, Evan Burrows, Lee Landey) are all art students and self-professed nerds who happen to pack some hardcore garage/psych/prog rock talent. Cory Hanson, on guitar and lead vocals, looks like your idealized good-ol’ American kid- quiet and of mild aspect, with slightly awkward, hesitant crowd talk that evokes a teenager playing music in front of his friends for the first time, rather than a veteran rocker who’s toured with the likes of Ty Segall. It’s a slick contrast, since when Hanson starts singing his eerily beautiful vocals are as confident and trippy as his abstract lyrics demand.
The entrance to Non Plus Ultra is through a narrow side alley. Dim white Christmas lights, languorous drifts of smoke, dull ringing of bottles and the wordless roar of a crowd engaged in the act of milling- the basic ambience of a party with some high school band. Inside the building, a small balcony overlooks the stage/place where the bands set up. There isn’t actually a stage in the traditional sense, since the musicians are at ground level with the crowd. And, in true garage rock fashion, everything is very late to start.
PHOTO OF NON PLUS ULTRA, FROM: THE BAIT SHOP
A few words about the opening bands, the first of which was Pure Shit. Non Plus Ultra definitely cranks up the volume, and this kind of a band wouldn’t really work any other way. It takes me about three songs before I realize the band actually has a singer- hard to discern nonverbal screaming from the background noise of screeching guitar and thrashing drums. I finally glimpse her through the forest of bodies between me and the stage- a figure wandering about in casually erratic patterns, mic grasped in a two-handed grip as solid as rigor mortis, face frozen in grim rictus, absolutely screaming her guts out. Listening to Pure Shit’s set is definitely an experience, but one I’ll say is probably worth going through once. I wouldn’t be first in line to attend another performance, but honestly, for what it is- it’s pretty fun. Fits the venue and garage rock vibes very well, and for all the over-the-top weirdness and screaming, it feels like a joke the band and the crowd are in on together. You don’t sound like that and name your band Pure Shit without a healthy dose of self-awareness. Cory Hanson was rocking out in the crowd, at least.
Second opening band was, I believe, Rearranged Face. I completely failed as a spectator by stepping outside for their set, so…not much for me to say here. I wasn’t exactly down for round 2 of Pure Shit, but after listening to some of Face’s music online, I entirely regret that. They’ve got a kind of more electronic Ramones vibe going, which sounds like it would have been pretty fun live. Basically, I suck. Couldn’t find much about them online, but I’d definitely recommend checking “Invaders From Another Sun” and “D.O.A.” Then imagine them live, and that’s what I could’ve been writing about instead of this. Goddamn. (https://soundcloud.com/rearranged-face/tracks)
A few minutes after Rearranged Face’s set ends, I set myself up on the balcony. Without a stage to protect the musicians from the mosh, I’m not exactly eager to make my way to the front of the crowd. Instead, I get a nice bird’s eye view as the band sets up and starts rocking.
Again, Wand seems to dig transformations and concealments. They’re never quite what you anticipate. Listening to their recorded music, I’m not expecting the show to be as crazy energetic as it is- I guess I think the sludge will slow it down. I’m blatantly wrong- Wand cranks up the pace for their live shows. Hanson goes hard at the frontman role- plenty of swagger and sweeping, violent movements. Pretty great showmanship- it’s a lot of fun just to watch him swing and roll with the music. Last time I saw him play live, he was manning the keyboard as an Emotional Mugger while Ty Segall salivated over the stage, cried for his mommy, and swung his plastic umbilical cord around the crowd. While not quite that degree of crazy, Hanson’s style is kinetic and frantic and plenty of fun.
CORY HANSON, WAND, PHOTO FROM: LA RECORD
It’s a fairly complete set- they pull songs from all three of their LPs, without favoring one over the others. Great for fans, since there are some killer tracks on all of them. “Fire on the Mountain” from Ganglion Reef and “Self Hypnosis in 3 Days” from Golem particularly stand out. The band speeds everything up from the recorded tracks, and “Hypnosis” is when the crowd finally breaks into the mosh it’s been threatening since the beginning of the set. It’s an explosive song, and not only great for moshing but also kind of perfect for moshing at this venue in particular. The crowd gets dangerously close to the band and almost immediately knocks down Hanson’s mic, but the song pulses in alternating blasts of noise and silence, allowing enough time for the band to recover. It starts to feel like a weird back-and-forth mingling of band with crowd. It’s a lot of fun to watch from overhead, and I’m looking forward to catching Wand next time at a venue with an actual stage, where the crowd can mosh to this song (and, for that matter, to the entire set) without fear of accidentally destroying the band.
Wand is a pretty fantastic study in contrasts. Their most recent album, 1000 Days, emphasizes a bunch of softer, more folksy elements within their prog/psych repertoire, which allows the weird, twisted lyrics to shine through. To be fair, that kind of mixture is present in all their albums, and often within the same song. It makes for a great set, because Wand has a lot of different material to work with and weave together without being stagnated by too much of the same sound. Again, “Self-Hypnosis” is a great example. The song starts off at a frantic, driving pace, drops into a slow, melodic bridge, then accelerates into a head-banging sludge march. The overarching theme of the set is heavy and fast, but there are plenty of quieter moments when Hanson’s vocals take the forefront and display the band’s folksier take on psych rock. Evan Burrows has some epic drumming as well, especially on tracks like “Lower Order” from 1000 Days.
There’s a flare up from the mic on the intro to the title track from that album, “1000 Days.” The band takes it in stride, Hanson reeling back from the blast of unexpected squealing feedback and carrying the motion through in a sort of loop so he falls back towards the mic, already singing the original lyric again, the rest of Wand picking up behind him without a pause. It’s raw and it’s very garage rock, and it makes sense even as an unintended component of this set, in this venue; part of the intimacy of the genre that makes it so appealing. Shit happens. Fully pre-orchestrated sets probably don’t deal with this kind of stuff as well.
Eventually Hanson announces they have two more songs left in their set. Seems a bit short, but since they did go on pretty late, I assume it’s reasonable they might not be playing for too long. Turns out, their penultimate song carries on into a surreal jam session that lasts upwards of 20 minutes. This one’s slow and sludgy, the band improvising together in a wave-like rhythm that feels both heavy and light at the same time. I would’ve been okay with something a bit shorter, but hey, more music for my money- plus it’s a great lead-up to their final song.
Hanson thanks the crowd for letting the band play their extended jam, then strikes the first melodic notes of “Growing Up Boys” off Ganglion Reef. My favorite Wand track, this song is sweet and haunting and nostalgic, perfectly showcasing Hanson’s weird, beautiful voice with some top-notch lyrics that capture the feeling of dreams disentangling from reality. Fresh air after the plunge-into-sludgy-depths of the preceding jam, and a perfect way to close the set.
Even without considering the entertainment value of Pure Shit and Rearranged Face, Wand’s set alone was worth well more than the $7 I paid for my ticket. Listening to the band live for the first time, with a faster tempo and more frenetic sound, was pretty exciting, and I’m looking forward to catching them again. Where someone will hopefully give them a stage. If only these kinds of bands came to San Diego more often…
9/10
One final note- Cory Hanson’s debut solo album, The Unborn Capitalist from Limbo, is coming out this November. The first single, “Ordinary People,” is available now, and sounds great: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/18495-cory-hanson-ordinary-people/
If you want to check out more Wand, their website is kind of a trip- random photos, a surreal poem with links to completely unrelated youtube clips embedded in the text (cherry crop yield? Interspecies kangaroo and dog love?), and some supremely trippy music videos.
Header Photo from: Tulip Frenzy
