Shell's voice is a powerful instrument: it is harsh, deep, ugly: it's like listening to a black hole that sucks you into a vortex in the middle of the room. Shag, on the other hand, stands at the opposite end of a self constructed Y shape stand and bangs the holy shit out of her drums. Together they are Don Giovanni Records Shellshag and a band that DG co-owner Joe Steinhardt has wanted me to see for a while now.
And I've seen em.
And they are like nothing else in the world.
On stage, Shell seems to suck all the melody out of the songs which Shag immediately puts back in, they complement each other so completely that a third party playing bass tonight comes as a shock, like an interloper. They are noise practitioners of a punk supreme, with Shell's songs a beautiful monster and Shags a lo-fi played at loud volumes. It is emotional and off center, like Donny and Marie after electric shock. Oddly, this isn't true of their albums at all. Both 2009's Destroy Me Now and the current Rumors In Disguise are essentially straight up modern rock albums, catchy as all get out with an "He Said, She Said" (the name of a song!) esthetic and one crisp, knock out rock song after another.The quasi-expressionistic hard rock of their stage presentation isn't there.
Back to the set, "Kiss Me Harder" -a pretty good album track, is a bombastic full throttle piece of extended weirdness on stage, Shag sings along much more powerfully on stage and Shell seems to adding anger to desire while Shag batters her simply drum pattern and the place shakes. It isn't that it's better than… no, wait, it is that it is better than the recorded version. The stage version of Shellshag's song are less listener friendly; they take off the gloves and slam up against the wall. In an earlier set, The Underground Railroad to Candyland covered Shellshag's "Little Birdy", Shellshag play it themselves as part of a medley and Candylanders jump on stage in a raw explosion of sound and excitement. "Resilient Bastard", a hit in waiting, is better live and a song I don't know but wish I did has a chorus that goes "Fuck everybody" and proves it. By the end of the night Shell is on drums and Shag is playing guitar and the audience is treated to the physical manifestation of the bands concept.
Joe was right, these guys are something special.