Trying something new, and by new I mean something that’s already been done for at least a hundred years – a show review! Gonna see if I can share some thoughts about live shows on what will surely be an intermittent basis, now that they’re more or less back in action. Let’s start with this one…

It was a perfectly crisp early-Fall evening for the soupy swirl of Glass Band, the trio of Bill Nace, John Truscinski and Steve Gunn. I arrived half an hour early, walking through the foyer’s tight curation of avant-garde printed matter and bespoke free-jazz reissues towards the bar to greet some friends, both those with pre-purchased tickets saved to the Dice app on their phones (a tolerable annoyance, we agreed) and a couple inveterate psych-rockers who didn’t even know the show was taking place. When I explained to one of them that tickets for the show cost something like thirty dollars, he told me about his band being asked to open for Animal Collective in a larger theater some eight years ago, and politely declining when it turned out their show was also thirty dollars, not wanting to subject his fans to what he felt was exorbitant pricing at the time. Now, of course, we dolefully accept that the entry-level starting price for anything on Earth is thirty dollars, though I don’t think he ended up making his way into the 150-cap room in the back where Glass Band performed.

Playing without an opener in support of their Three Lobed full-length from earlier this year, the three men shuffled on stage in staggered order. Truscinski was the first to visibly produce sound, bowing an unlucky cymbal as Nace and Gunn sat and knelt respectively in stoic contemplation. After a few minutes, Gunn plugged in, and the sonic dust started to accelerate like one of those mini trash-tornados that kick up on certain city streets, looped moans and crackle emanating forth. Nace initially contributed to this dusky sonic vista with some harmonica – though never approaching a full John Popper frenzy – and then draped his taishōgoto on his lap, his primary mode of performance in tonight’s trio format. If any other white American noise/psych guy starts brandishing a taishōgoto, they better be paying Nace royalties, as it’s quickly becoming his signature style. The taishōgoto bears similarities to the families of pedal-steel, dulcimer and guitar, but Eddie Van Halen’s guitar most in particular, Nace ceaselessly tapping its effected strings to form a dramatic, nearly violent pulse. By this point, Gunn was standing upright, guitar strapped on, wearing a Captain Jack Sparrow-level of metal finger picks and unleashing exuberant chords before joining Nace in the finger-tapping firework display. Is this what Godspeed You! Black Emperor by way of Musica Elettronica Viva would sound like? They buoyed this dazzling release for what must’ve been minutes, Truscinski transferring from drone-rub and tappy improv to the rollicking percussive flurry suitable for this thrilling moment.

Soon enough, the group found a break in the blinding sunlight and slowly began their descent, though Gunn was clearly so enthused by the moment that he was hopping from leg to leg in a fighting stance, surely a muscle memory from his high-school straight-edge hardcore days. Trusinski, taller than most NBA point-guards, stood up from his kit to move to a nearby synth and bopped his head on the overhead mic. (Amusingly, he mentioned after the set that this happened to him during the previous night’s performance as well, just in a different moment. Perhaps it’s become an official part of the show?) In perhaps the most perplexing moment of the performance, Nace then picked up what appeared to be a small metal doggy bowl, attached at the end of an electrical cord, and proceeded to blow vicious raspberries into it, dig his fingers around inside of it, and even swing it like a lifeguard’s whistle, though I could not discern how these enjoyably visual maneuvers shifted the crunchy feedback emanating from his Fender twin. Regardless of sonic properties, his enthusiasm wasn’t wasted.

As the intensity steadily dissipated, Glass Band found their feet once again in the dry dirt of their physically-rendered drones before coming to a final close, a brief moment of silence hanging in the air before Nace gave a wave, signaling “we’re done”. One piece, a robust and engaging thirty-plus minutes, and that’s that. The multitude of couples surrounding me (one of the best date-nights in town) offered their appreciative applause as I lapped the final drops of my Grüner Veltliner (found under the “Skin Contact” section of Solar Myth’s wine list), turned room-temperature from either the warmth of my palm or the ragged and radiant sounds of Glass Band.