8/30/08 - Zest of Yore, Ume, Record Hop

made the journey westward to hailey's in denton to catch record hop. managed to drag Knuckles and The Piledriver wif me, cuz i knew they would enjoy the greatness of record hop, plus which, RH and Ume both have hot chick lead singers, and those two are just like that.

also enjoyed the company of a local denton gal, who apparently knows everyone in the denton music scene, being as how they all apparently have hung out at Dan's at one point or another (where she apparently has a chair reserved in her name).

first up was Record Hop. i've seen these guys 3 times now (previous write-up here), and they kick my ass every time. blistering, visceral, & gut-wrenching are terms i've used to describe them. small problem at hailey's - couldn't really hear ashley's vocals very well. still don't understand how the sound guy can't hear that, too, and fix it. knuckles and the piledriver seemed to be offended when ashley and scott turned their backs and jammed for like 5 minutes, but i thot they were kickin ass. great set.

next up was Ume, from austin. very similar in style to record hop - some incredible, high-energy, hard-rockin bluesy stuff. 3-man band - 2 guitars and drummer. awesome vocals (sounded just like ashley to me, and you could actually hear them (maybe the sound guy woke up)), plus some amazing guitar playing from the whirling dervish that was the lead. fantastic set - would definitely like to catch them again. knuckles and the piledriver actually liked them better than RH.

knuckles damn near had to kick some indie-rocker ass when the dude dared to get between him and the hot-chick lead (knuckles was front and center, as he is wont to do when there's a hot chick singin lead). too funny. he also had to dodge Drunken Lame' Boy, whose shirt was so shiny he served as a mobile disco ball as he stumbled around.

last up was Zest of Yore, and they were turrrrrrible. not sure what it was, but dear gawd, we couldn't wait for it to be over. didn't like the vocals, the guitar playin, the musical style, nothin. maybe it was because they were a let-down after two great bands, i dono. i'm not sayin they were bad, just that all three of us didn't care for it. at all. they closed their encore (!) with "purple rain", which just about killed us.