Landlocked Music was packed to the gills last night as locals *ask set up a makeshift stage in the corner and commenced to rocking through an hour-long set celebrating the release of their new single, "Painted Hole/Best Friends." After a few microphone-related electrocutions, the set was underway and didn't let up for a second until the final note of the last song.
*ask opened with a rousing version of Bowie's "Suffragette City," then launched into a high-energy set split pretty evenly between covers and originals. Make no mistake; this is indie rock. But where some of the most popular indie rock in 2012 has often come to mean "basing an entire band off one Neutral Milk Hotel idiosyncrasy," *ask plays heavy, hook-loaded guitar rock in the Pavement/Guided by Voices tradition - and I'm not just saying that because frontman Paul Mahern has a vaguely Robert Pollard-like swagger about him.
The two cuts from the new seven-inch were among the highlights of the evening, and they have even more energy in a live setting than their already terrific recorded versions bring. The night's penultimate song, "Black Vinyl," was a fitting ode to Mahern's long love affair with music on wax, and given the circumstances of the show - a vinyl release party in a specialty vinyl record store - it was rather poignant. Oh, and it fucking rocked.
That's the crux of the *ask experience - rockin'. It's something that's missed even in as strong a local scene as Bloomington's. Turning down a chance to see them is turning down fun. Don't turn down fun. See *ask.
Review and photography by Brad Sanders
