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That new band smell: The Number Twelve Looks Like You, and you should be so lucky
By nick g | December 9, 2008
It’s that new band smell. Fresh, invigorating and slightly sweet.
I went to see The Number Twelve Looks Like You at Slim’s in San Francisco tonight just to see if they were real. I heard one of their albums, and a couple songs on the Myspace, and thought it had to be fake. The drumming and guitar work was so incredibly intricate they must have had to double or triple take everything on the recording. I love being proved wrong sometimes.
We arrived just after their first song. I was delighted to hear the thunderous, lightning-fast double bass and 7-string guitar solos, accompanied by alternating screams by the two singers and pulsing, rhythmic bass lines being played by actual people. Well, they might be part robot. But they’re good robots, that’s for sure.
I don’t know any of the songs by name yet, so I can’t review this show like a fan would want, but I can say they kicked my ass pretty hard. This is the opening act? Wow. I’d hate to be the headliner.
The songs varied between super-intense hardcore to melodic, almost simple ditties with hummable tunes and touches of flare from the musicians. The pit was filled with violent 19-year-old boys surrounded by girls who wanted to be close to the action but not get hurt. Typical hardcore show, I guess, but the music was actually intriguing.
Everything was a bit difficult to understand, musically speaking. It was riff-heavy, but almost nonsensical. The rhythms would have been random if they had never repeated, and when they did it was left to ponder: How in the hell do these guys remember all those changes?
After dusting off my jaw from it’s stay on the floor, things began to feel normal again. OK, these are just musicians playing music. That’s all. OK, I can handle it now. Then, during one particularly intense song, the black-haired vocalist grabbed a peace flag from behind the stage and waved it like a banner of greater things to come. If I had remembered my camera I’d be calling up Rolling Stone.
Then he asked who in the audience had never been kissed. One boy, maybe 16, shyly and quickly raised and pulled back his hand. The singer brought him on stage and, naturally, asked if any girls would like to be his first kiss. He said this had happened on every show of the tour, and asked not to be disappointed. Finally a girl, about the same age, volunteered and was brought onstage. A countdown, and the magic happened. He really went for it, too. She was accepting. It was adorable.
As their lips touched an anti-ballad with doublebass and snare rolls started followed by shredding guitar and heavy bass lines. Spike Jones would be proud.
They finished up and I wished I had a new pair of pants to change into.
Oh, Fall of Troy followed them. It was anticlimactic. Another new band, but one that didn’t wiggle my gherkin. Maybe it was because they played after The Number 12, because Radiohead could follow this band and I might be a tad disappointed. Thank you, new favorite band. You’ve taken the place of The Blood Brothers, my former favorite (existing) band. I’m now going to listen to my Mongrel record (it’s like a big CD you play with a needle instead of a laser) for the rest of the night. Thank you for making such wonderful music.
Topics: Music News, Reviews, Things We Love |
December 9th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Wishing for a new pair of pants after the kiddies kissed? Oh, dear!
December 10th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Annie, you are a bad person. Bad and wrong.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Hey man, you wrote it.
December 12th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
i meant from pooping. because i lost bowel control. not from jizzing you sick monkey.
by the way, i love that we’re the only ones commenting. maybe if i posted that thing about you roasting chinchillas over an open flame (with photos) we’d get more people stirred up.
December 12th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I’d sooner eat your poop off your pants than roast a chinchilla. Bad Nick, Bad. (read second definition on link, coincidence?)
I think this site is really just a means for us to keep in touch, and that’s ok.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
thank you, again, for proving you are a disgustomatic disgustomator.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:29 am
you guys kill me with your comments XD
June 16th, 2009 at 2:49 am
Hi. I like the way you write. Will you post some more articles?
June 28th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
we will. thanks for the feedback!