Caught in the Carousel

In our post-hipster flight from all things Portland, my son and I saw you, dear Bangs, play the shit out of a little hole-in-a-Los-Angeles-wall last Friday night.

Here's the deal, oh Bangs: You need more fans. The place was crowded, no doubt, but most of the drifters who'd wandered in had no idea this volatile, ass-kicking trio from Knoxville even existed.

Who? They'd say, when I asked if they were here for the Royal Bangs.

As we say in LA, whatever.

So, I'm watching the Bangs set up. It takes them, like (we also say that in LA), five minutes. They don't do a lot of "check check" bullshit. Very few thumbs-up/thumbs-down gestures to the soundman. Chris Rusk's drum kit looks rather... well... Spartan. And the guitarist, Sam Stratton, has very few pedals and shit. Ryan Schaefer brings out one old Telecaster and two little keyboards.

They plug in.

And that's it.

I'm, like, Are you guys actually beginning to play after, like, a minute-and-a-half? You didn't even act all set-uppy-and-pissed-off and shit...

And then, holy crap.

Three guys. That's it.

Schaefer rolls his eyes back when he sings, a kind of Rasputin-meets-Mother-Teresa, like he's channeling some kind of divine message, and the band opens with their newest, "Grass Helmet," from their March, 2011 release Flux Outside.

This is a band that needs to never be ruined by studio-generated production values. But, then again, that's really the underlying theme that connects a lot of the Bangs' stuff: the what do you do when nature and machines are out to get you kind of paranoia one might expect from angst-ridden emo kid knockoffs… but these guys play with pure joy, a kind of shoulder-shrugging release that's... well, all Rasputin-y and stuff.

I'm old. I have seen a lot of great drummers. I have never seen anyone better than Chris Rusk, and that's all I have to say about that guy. Most drummers are just drummers—keepers of the beat. Rusk does something else. It's something that the machines of a recording studio can't quite capture. You have to see it.

You have to hear these guys.

I have always had a fondness for three-piece bands. Ones who can pull it off kick the shit out of stack-up shows with all those pedals and moments of sound-check drama and changers of guitars and such. Stratton played one guitar for the entire show. I think he tuned one string just one time.

Holy shit moments: Two great cuts from the band's 2009 (brilliant) album, Let it Beep—"Poison Control" and "War Bells."

I love that album. I've always liked the cut "Poison Control." But seeing Royal Bangs play it live—especially with Rusk at dead center almost made my head explode. But I'm old, so it was nothing a couple low-dose Bayers couldn't bring me down from.

Totally unpretentious. Totally kickass. And almost totally unheard-of in Los Angeles.

They didn't even play their almost-close-to-being-a-hit "My Car is Haunted" (another mechano-apocalypso Bangs treat), and actually chose to close with an encore cover of a Led Zeppelin track that Rusk ended by throwing his regular-old, never-switched drumsticks into the air.

The guy was drained from all that Bangin'.

—Andrew Smith

The Royal Bangs

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