Every Hippy who goes home bloody feels like a martyr back in the city

Show: Pink Mountaintops, Catfish Haven
Venue: 7th Street Entry
Date: 5/30/06
My folk-friendly upbringing is starting to show. I mostly lay it at the feet of Neutral Milk Hotel who had to release an album I like very, very much and then decide (t)he(y)'d had enough, leaving a gap to be filled. So I am something of a sucker for sonicly adventurous pop (side note: I define 'pop' more as a structure - verse/chorus/etc. with a certain idea about melody, hooks, etc. - than as actually popular music; this is probably a misleading, maybe I'll put a personal glossary on this thing at some point) with some 60s influences.

Latest up were Pink Mountaintops. Stephen McBean's mountain empire (there's Black Mountains as well) has gotten some decent notices in the online press as of late; so finding myself with the later part of my eveing free, I stopped by the Entry to catch them and Catfish Haven. The latter were better than I expected. The singer carries the show with an intense performance like Ted Leo if he had grown up listening to 60s R&B/soul, Jim Croche, and the Guess Who instead of Thin Lizzy (or so the consensus description seems to be) and the Who and spending his youthing front punk bands at ABC No Rio. Not typically my thing but they got my head nodding. Pink Mountaintops took the stage (and by took the stage I mean took every inch of it) with 7 people playing a variety of guitars, keyboards, percussion, bass and singing. They reminded me of a less spacey or gospel influenced Spiritualized but with more of a groove. Their performance was infectous while they were on the stage (or at least until the fatigue of going to work and playing a game of ulimate settled in on me) and in slightly different circumstances the crowd might have been actively dancing instead of just swaying and bobbing our heads. I can't say I took much of the show away with me, but it was fun while it lasted.