Disappears at Valentine's Music Hall

As far as name drops go in the rock n’ roll community, Steve Shelley is a pretty big one. Any mention of the Sonic Youth drummer and people start foaming at the mouth. However, Shelley wasn’t with his main musical squeeze –– he was drumming for Disappears, a balls out, guitar amps pushed to 13, mind-blowing garage rock quartet.

The Chicago based band was a pleasant surprise for whoever attended Valentine’s on this evening. Yes, I had heard a few tracks and read the reviews on Pitchfork, but hadn’t really prepared myself. I’m glad I didn’t plan for this because it knocked me 10 times sideways and completely altered any previous perception I had about garage rock bands of the current year 2012. My goodness what a display we had here.

First of all, these are grown middle-aged men that have made their ways around music. We all know what Shelley has done with Sonic Youth (let’s not talk about it) and maybe you’ve heard of Brian Case (ex-90 Day Men and Ponys)? The other two dudes are Jonathan Van Herik (guitar) and Damon Carruesco (bass), who seemed to have dropped out of the sky as Shelley’s and Case’s personal raconteurs of rock. Second, Shelley is an amazing drummer. We know this. We love this. He fills Disappears with an illustrious back beat, and, at times got extremely raucous, propelling the other three musicians into fiery bouts of distorted goodness.

I consider Disappears as a form of punk music, which is a fairly wide genre at this point in time. I’m talking about an attitude. Before Disappears took the stage, my friend told me that the band sounded like Daydream Nation era Sonic Youth, but more “structured.” Shelley was there, so this made sense. Four names come to mind –– Wooden Shjips, Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth and Spacemen 3. The later is a clear influence of Disappears throbbing bass, suggestive guitar, and echoing vocals. I don’t know how long the set was because my sense of time was warped by the repetition of the music. It couldn’t have been all that long, but I wish it never ended.

Repetition can be a boring aspect in music, but it can be lovely when it reaches hypnotic levels. Disappears made my body sway and twitch in interesting ways. Also, my head was about to explode when Shelley kicked his bandmates into gear, as the guitars immediately throttled out of control.

Disappears was a lot to take in at once, especially the pure noise coming out of those loud guitars. Van Herik, stage right, had some nice swoop hair going while he leaned into his yellow Dunlap, putting pretty steal lines over Case’s blistering racket. Case had echo going on his vocals to give the environment another bit of psychedelic haze.

If you can’t see Sonic Youth, then Disappears isn’t a bad alternative. However, the band is only one-fourth Sonic Youth.