May Veracity

For the first time since I've on the Veracity committee I actually was involved in booking a band. My daughter has a friend in the band Ser.0 (ser punto cero, in English that's version point zero, I think) and I got them in touch with Monica who booked them for this month's show. All 3 of the guys (classic power trio lineup, guitar bass & drums) are from Mexico City originally and they do songs in a mixture of English and Spanish. They were the first band to perform.

They had a fun upbeat guitar driven sound. This song is about heading out to parties I think (I had to get my daughter to translate and I'm not sure I got the translations vs. the songs straight). On this one the drummer sings lead vocals:


This number was more political, it's about street kids in Mexico City and mixes Spanish and English. I liked the candle, the guitarist lit it for the song and it made me think of praying for the poor kids stuck on the street.

When I commented about it being more political to my daughter she disagreed, saying "What's political about the plight of street kids?" I love that attitude, but in the US political scene today, any kind of concern for the poor seems to be political, and somehow a fringe political thing at that. Definitely a subject worth singing about!

This song is called "Liar Liar" and it has a slower intro, a bit of a Black Sabbath feel with grinding slower guitars and angry lyrics. I enjoy the sound, quite good for a power trio. Some swearing but that feels like an authentic emotion given the topic:


I got some more videos of them performing, check out my YouTube channel if you want to see them or watch them in HD. In case you can't tell I liked these guys and recorded more videos than usual.

Next up was Haystack Charm, an interesting band with some folk influence in their instrumentation.
They included an electric and acoustic guitar, bass and drums, and an additional musician who played fiddle, mandolin, banjo, and melodica depending on the song. Interesting sound, some folk elements but with the electric guitar and bass it definitely has a rock and roll flavor too, but the older less guitar pytotechnic oriented rock that I grew up listening to way back when in the early sixties. This song is called "Fireweed":

This one is called "Pier 52" and it has more of a folk/bluegrass feel with the fiddle and acoustic guitar in the intro, before it kicks into a more rock & roll sound:

I enjoy the instrumentation and transitions, the music takes me back to my childhood and listening to my dad's bluegrass and folk music alongside the early rock and roll. Tasty!

The last act of the night was Tribe Revive, a duo with a guitarist/singer and a drummer.
They had a reasonably good sound - I'm a little prejudiced about bands without a bass or some sort of replacement like a keyboard or bass pedal to fill in the low end, but they got a good full sound, not too tinny, so I enjoyed their performance. I wonder if they aren't interested in including a bass player or just ended up with the current lineup more randomly - I should've thought to ask them.

This tune has an interesting transition from a more melodic sound to a bit of a march, which then mutates further.

Interesting transitions both in the chords and in the beat, the drummer and the guitarist definitely keep each other on their toes!
The guitarist tells me this is their first show, I'll definitely keep an eye out for another chance to see them, or any of the 3 bands for that matter, I enjoyed them all in different ways.

This show had a wider variety of approaches than most, but they all had fun and kept the crowd engaged. I also got some of my coworkers who are visiting from India to see the show which is cool, and my son in law was there too - it's all good!