Into The (Not So) Humble Abode of the Head-Nodders

By Kate Jackson

The Black Cat in D.C. is well-known for a few things: obscure and varied (and, quite frequently, local) bands, late starts, and hip folks who dig the music but don’t feel inclined to dance to it. These are, more or less, quite accurate; yet the point being most surprising to most is that people really don’t tend to dance. This could be explained in a few ways: the tight pants so common in this scene may possibly inhibit truly masterful dance moves, the small space may make passionate swaying quite annoying to your fellow concert-goers, or, as many assume, they may just be “too cool”. I have observed such apathetic exhibitions on every outing I’ve ever had to The Black Cat; all except one. When New York, NY’s The Pains of Being Pure At Heart played on September 30th, the room was aglow with the muffled shuffles of leather shoes, the brilliant beams of light that echoed around a bespeckled room, and, yes, reason to dance. In the front row, we were all swinging our limbs, blinking in the vibrations from the room and the tapering of the words in our ears. This is the kind of band that you have no choice but to dance with. Kip Berman and Peggy Wang-East’s voices are delightfully mellifluous and mellow. Their songs please the crowd so much that the band’s obvious exhaustion (after having been on tour for about a year) seems almost irrelevant to the experience. The instant that “Young Adult Friction” begins to emanate, the passivity stops. People are jumping, clapping, snapping, smiling-some, still, are just taking it in…but the room is undoubtedly delighted. The songs were soothing and generally well-performed (if not exactly with exceptional clarity). This seems to stem from the often evaded fact of a history of a poor sound system, which unfortunately depreciated the value of some of the better songs, such as “Higher Than The Stars” and “Everything With You”, which were sadly closer to empathetic mumbles than the energetic raptures typical to the band’s sound. Their single, “Young Adult Friction”, was released in September of ’09 and is very representative of the band’s ascribed dandy twee resonance. Wanna give it a spin?