Salt Lake City Upcoming Concerts: Spinto Band, Cobra Starship, Against All Authority, ICP

By Brian Staker, 3-01-07

	Caption: Staker Pick o' the Week: The Spinto Band

Spinto Band

In the indie rock family tree, notoriety often comes through association. The Spinto Band may not readily come to memory’s call, but touring with band like Arctic Monkeys and We Are Scientists means that they’ve been in sight, if not ready recollection, of those who keep abreast of trends in new music. Nick Krill nicked the perhaps not immediately memorable moniker after grandfather Roy Spinto, a guitar in his own right, after Krill found lyrics in an attic penned by Spinto on crackerjack boxes. It seems like there’s an indie rock song in there, full of irony and humorous pathos, waiting to be sprung from Krill’s own pen.

This group of Wilmington, Delaware twenty-somethings has been compared to Flaming Lips and Pavement, but I liken them more to the Shins, with that band’s lightly lilting sensibility, netting them my Pick of the Week. TSB’s song “Oh Mandy” from the album Nice and Nicely Done (Bar None, 2005) appeared in the indie film Four Eyed Monsters as well as a Sears commercial. Thus repeating the Shins’ (and seemingly every other indie band these days) pattern of tie-in with the parallel ‘hipster nerd’ universe of indie filmmaking and at the same time ironically selling out, tongue entrenched deeply in cheek.

March 1, Kilby Court

Cobra Starship

As more and more seems to happen these days, the spinoff project is more interesting than the main focus with a lot of musicians. Maybe that’s because the stakes are lower, egotistically as well as commercially, and when you’re ‘just messing around’ some very interesting things can happen. That was the case for Gabe Saporta of emo band Midtown, while taking a breather in Arizona ventured out in the desert only to be taken from his meditations on the meaning of existence was transported up into a spaceship and bitten by a talking cobra. Thus the name, if you hadn’t deduced.

Much as the case with Prince, the message of the cobra was the end of the world, so party like it’s 1999. Unlike most of us, it took a Castaneda-like pilgrimage for Saporta to realize that emo took itself way too seriously, in its’ self-absorption swallowing its own tail, in a sense. So the dance pop that took the place of emo in the extended-adolescent crowd added another star to its sequined constellation in New York as Cobra Starship coalesced. Saporta reached another level of the stratosphere with his soundtrack tune “Snakes On a Plane (Bring It.)” Destined to be remixed extendedly, and no I’m not kidding. I can’t make shit like that up.

<March 2, In the Venue

Also appearing:
March 3, Englewood CO (Gothic Theater)

Against All Authority

Rewind back fifteen years ago, the early 90’s. The 80’s second (or third? Who’s counting?) punk revival had wound down, but commercial labels had found that the ersatz stuff, that doesn’t critique politics or, heaven forbid, commerce too astutely could yield some decent coin. As usually cycles, a few staunch acolytes yearn for the ‘old school’ and the ‘real thing.’

Against All Authority took the DIY thing to its logical conclusion, booking their own tours, making their own t-shirts and releasing their own music, before signing with indie label Hopeless, where they continue to dwell. The Restoration of Chaos and Order, (2006), with its title taken from a Bush verbal gaffe, shows that, even as they have discarded much of the ska side of their sonic personality (which hopefully won’t come off as sell-out to the hard bitten devotee—punk slash ska is such a cliché) to devote more energy to straight ahead punk rock, the commentary is as cutting as ever.

March 3, In the Venue

Also appearing:
March 2, Boise ID (The Venue)
March 4, Denver CO (Marquis Theater)

Insane Clown Posse

What kind of ‘host’ is Insane Clown Posse? Would they offer you hors d’oeurves, perhaps a light aperitif? Along with like minds, if you can use that term, Boondox, Dead By Wednesday and Wolfpac, ICP’s Tempest Release Party Tour celebrates their latest, Tempest (Psychopathic), the last in a long string of releases dating back to the early 90’s, though this cartoon rap-metal band didn’t achieve widespread notice till 1996’s The Great Milenko. (Island)

Much as Stephen King discovered with his novel It, of all the scary entities, objects and devices in the inexplicably bizarre world we live in, there’s nothing quite as creepy as a clown. Especially when you’re stoned. As ICP fans, ‘Juggalos’ if the colloquial terminology is of your wont, are not uncommonly known to be. But Juggalos are not your average fans, but a ‘community’ or perhaps ‘gang,’ depending once again on your choice of vocabulary, as well as your proximity to them. In a way an ICP show is also akin to a family reunion, of a clan of inbred circus freaks.

March 3, Saltair

Also appearing:
March 2, Denver CO (Fillmore Auditorium)