Indigo District

Wednesday nights are notoriously slow nights for clubs. It’s Hump Day, and people either want to hit the sack early in preparation for the weekend starting on Thursday night or maybe go see a flick at Movies 12 or the Bijou when the family and retiree hordes are generally busy with homework and shuffleboard. But if you want a bar with cheap drinks ($1 well drinks), casual atmosphere and tunes piped in from the ‘90s for your Wednesday night, then check out Indigo District’s ’90 Night.

I scoped it out last night, half-expecting a ton of crappy hip hop I didn’t enjoy in the ‘90s and still don’t enjoy. Instead, as I walked inside, DJ Billy was spinning Radiohead’s “Karma Police.” This was a welcome sign, as songs by Butthole Surfers, Beck, Weezer, Daft Punk, Ace of Base (by request) and a whole slough of other nostalgia-inducing songs — along with, yes, a few rap and hip hop hits thrown in the mix — were played throughout the night. At various times, it seemed like it was just me and my posse of four to five friends in the Indigo. With this event only a couple of weeks old, there's no pressure to dress up like the '90s or even dance (though how can you resist?!). It's really just nice to go to a bar that plays awesome songs.

The only advice I’d give the Indigo is to drop the cover charge for non-student men (it’s free for women and students with ID). However, this cover charge policy kept a shady-looking dude from entering the bar before us, so maybe it’s a fine policy if it will keep out the Indigo’s notorious weekend gangbangers crew. Party on, Indigo: You've regained some of the respect you lost when you went all ghetto on me last winter.

Photos by Todd Cooper

My ears, they ring. There weren't enough bodies in the Indigo District tonight to absorb enough of the treble coming out of the speakers, which looked small but sounded big enough to hold several Johnny Whitneys and all their falsetto notes.

But I get ahead of myself. Fact is, I can't speak to either of the opening bands, as I'm still not sure who was who. The second band had a nice dose of late-’90s I'm-in-a-basement-in-New-Jersey shouting crossed with early At the Drive-In, which was a good soundtrack to sitting at the nearly empty bar and shooting the shit. But we were there to see Whitney do his diva-hand (as seen above; the guy puts Cursive's Tim Kasher to shame with the diva hand) and the littler Votolato — that'd be guitarist Cody, as opposed to singer-songwriter fella Rocky, whom I also adore — and the rest of Jaguar Love do their thing. Us and about 30 other people. The band doesn't have an album out yet, so I kind of get the low turnout, but seriously, did Blood Brothers mean nothing to you people? (Confession: I had this spaced out moment at the door and kept referring to Jaguar Love as Blood Brothers. Well, two out of five ain't bad. Sorry, Pretty Girls Make Graves Guy. It's the vocals I think of first.)

It's hard to have a lot to say about the show when you've heard just four songs by a band, but the thing is, there's something about this kind of music that I find hard to describe in the best of situations. It's not like the danceable angles of a band like Q and Not U, where there's so much space between the instruments, and it's not like the density of a good poppy punk band, either. It's — this is the best I could do — an aural assault you can dance to. It hurts, a little bit, and it kept putting me in mind of Daphne Carr's paper at this year's EMP Pop Conference. She spoke about noise rock, and at the end, the lights went out and the noise started. And, just for a little minute, I got it. It's not physical the way a vibrating bass is physical; it's more washing, more drenching, than that. It doesn't just shake your eardrums, but blisters them. You can't do it very often.

The Eugenean audience exercises the right not to rock:

Jaguar Love hits that funny place where I want to cover my ears and I want to shake my ass. (Big internet imaginary hugs to the tall skinny guy in the plaid shirt who was totally shaking his. I admire you, sir.) The last three songs were the best; they were the catchiest, the whoa-oh-ohs slipping out from under the barrage of distortion and (too-sharp) snare drum to sink in just long enough to register as something to which you actually might sing along. And so I did. Just a little.

Listen to 'em here: Jaguar Love on MySpace.

So a few weeks ago I confided in the pages of the EW that I have a weakness for pop punk. Then, oddly, the show I was previewing was canceled. But no matter! A better, sleeker, poppier and, well, gothier show has risen to take its place in my heart:

Alkaline Trio at the Indigo District

I think it still confuses friends that I'm such a nerd for these silly boys in black suits who sing maudlin, sometimes macabre love songs about walls painted black, bitter breakups and washing one's bloody hands at the marina and, every so often, about, like, mushy stuff ("Every Thug Needs a Lady"). "Help Me," the new single (from Agony and Irony, due out July 1) that autoplays on their website, has a little too much mucking about with the vocals on the chorus, but I can take it. Their mastery of the pairing of pop hooks with crunchy guitars and power chords is unmatched; their glossiness just makes all the deathly imagery almost, um, sweet.

Last time I saw the Trio, I got my favorite sweatshirt ripped dancing with the kids. I hope I'm not way too old to do that again.