Over the last few years, prog-rock has made a comeback; not prog-rock in the Dream Theater sort of way, instead, a prog-rock based around punks who grew tired of the limitations of pure punk. These punks also like jazz, early heavy metal, and playing Nintendo. I present you, Bad Dudes.
According to Eben (my partner on the podcast), the Bad Dudes was an NES game, that was like Ninja Gaiden, but no as good. I never played Ninja Gaiden or the Bad Dudes, but the band of the same name has some pretty cool albums (which I discovered after their show) and they play a good live set. Luckily, the band does not take their name too seriously either. During the set the drummer addressed any false perception of arrogance due to the name. The name is "oxymoronic", and no one really believes it, [especially] if you have the attitude like Michael Jackson calling his album, Bad and song by the same."
Like many of the new progressive bands, these guys have a synth player. There's a dash of of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, with Nintendo synths, and jazz syncopations dropped in to provide another dimension. Luckily, the band is musically very tight. All the musicians are technically proficient, each with his own style on stage. The guitar players stood and fed off the other to produce complex melodic lines made from simple twisting scales, a confident drummer moved every limb rapidly and efficiently to complete unpredictable jazz-like syncopations. Then, the bass to the side swaying around to his own flowing seemingly disassociated with the beat, but really nailing every note. And the keyboard player in the side minding the millions of buttons on his keyboard racks not really moving his body but only presenting the manifestations of his fingers. The one factor they all had in common was their aloofness to the audience, which I didn't mind all that much because their performance was so damn tight.
The Bad Dudes' set was a great handling of the progressive space where sudden noises can coincide with futuristic pentatonic melodies. Loud noise sections lively at first transformed into millions of small little sound pixels from each instrument coming at a seizurous pace with perfect coherency. However, all is presented in a musically peppy manner.
These guys are definitely worth checking out. I really enjoyed their time of controlled raucous. Among other shows, they are going to be at the Knitting Factory on March 21st (I hate the Knitting Factory, but I might just go for these guys) and at the Smell on May 25th. Check out their myspace.
P.S. WILL POST A PHOTO SOON OF THE BAD DUDES SHOW AT THE RESPECTIVE SHOW. TRYING TO FINISH ABOUT 8 OTHER REVIEWS.
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