You Did Nothing Wrong (The Diggs, Sin-é)

I know I mentioned this before, and recently, but:  The Diggs have a really great song.  It’s called “Trouble Everyday,” and you can listen to it here.

It’s so good it’s almost a psychosis.  Simple and minimal and vague enough to successfully persuade you it’s about everything.  Draws you in with a single, quivering note, a tight, regular snare, a reluctant riff.  Quiet contemplation turns into internal melodrama, the sound swells, scattered specifics give way to desperate, decisive aphorisms.  “Don’t apologize for anything.”  And, “I can’t afford to be wrong.”  Then, after you’ve fooled yourself, the self-made shitstorm dies back down and you can crawl back out of your head.

There are probably a billion songs just like it, but this one is so effectively consuming that for six minutes and twenty-three seconds the others don’t matter, any more.

I’ve been curled up inside this track so long it should be charging me rent.  The band’s in the midst of a month-long residency at Sin-é, so I went down and paid my dues to watch them pay their dues.

I feel like I should qualify everything:  It was a day of mood swings, and mine’d swung square-on Crappy.  The show was running late, I was tired – I’m getting too old to do five shows in seven days (gonna be nothing but roadkill at Les Savy Fav, tonight).  And while I really wanted to hear “Trouble Everyday,” I was already hearing it, in my head, on the subway in, on the walk to the bar, during set-up. 

The Diggs’ site links to a song called “Stagg”, a much more aggressive tune than their others, and it’s a good representation of what these guys sound like, live.  Listenable, bouncy rock whose POV begs mention of the dreaded E-word.  Bands like this are built on repetition – it’s a necessary element, a foundation for their inherently-assailable inner logic – and I like that these guys have the conviction to stick to their chord progressions.

But I’m not convinced that they all want to make the same kind of stuff.  Singer/guitarist Tim Lannen is properly passionate and serious, while the drummer, Charlie Schmid (who has, obviously, the greatest last name ever), is like a solid rock of crack.  He’s quite good, but seriously, man, when General Mills put out those Sugar-Coated Chocolate Lucky Charms, they really didn’t think anyone would actually eat them.  I appreciate what he was trying to do, jumping up from his seat, raising his arms:  He was stoking a Thursday night bar crowd.  It just kind of betrays the tone of the music, cheerleading like that.

Eh, maybe I was just in a lousy mood.  Thought that “It’s Just Like You Say” came out at about twice the speed it should have, tripping over that fine line that keeps mantra from anthem.  And that one song with the three-note playback?  Those three notes get really annoying.  The playback might be too loud, or the recording too clean, or... something.

But I was there to hear “Trouble Everyday,” and they smartly put that towards the end of their (very, very short – 30 mins?) set.  So, guys, thank you.  But this thing, it could go on forever.  It’s just screaming to go into feedback – and you know you were starting to lean into it, there, a little.  Next time:  Ignore the woo-hoo’ing happy-hour chicks and just go for it.  That drummer could keep that beat for weeks, let your bassist play a little with his lines, and make that noise swallow the room whole.

These are nits I’m picking.  This band puts out a good bit of sound, and while I’m not going to slavishly follow their every step, I certainly don’t dread hearing them again.  There are worse things you could run into up on the dark alley that passes for Attorney Street; they’ll be back there again on 9/1 and 9/9.

I know I mentioned this before, and recently, but:  The Diggs have a really great song.  It’s called “Trouble Everyday,” and you can listen to it here.

*

Anyone who’s going to the Bowery B show tonight and doesn’t go early is a fool.  Though it’s going to be a long night – doors are at nine, and there are four acts – you should not miss Thunderbirds Are Now!.  Saw them before, and I’ll see ‘em again.  They so totally earn the right to use an exclamation point in their name, and I can’t think of higher praise than that.

tags: indie music  the diggs  music  concert reviews  

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