The Bassment doesn’t quite live up to its name. Not only does its claustrophobic enclosure constrict and warp acoustics beyond measure (bass especially), it’s also crammed in an attic. Still, the new venue—dreamt up and operated in the spirit of similar DIY venues all across the country—has a distinct charm to it that no degree of accurate nomenclature could ever bring. Sitting unassumingly at a redacted address on a redacted street (sorry, you’ll have to facebook message the owners for the location), when I walked in for the venue’s christening show Wednesday night there was nothing to indicate the beat up living quarters were housing a show that night, aside from a self-made poster taped to the door. Not until you ventured to the attic to find a group of 15 some people (which later swelled to around 50 or so) chatting, laughing, drinking beer and eating homemade cupcakes, surrounded by streamers dangling from the ceiling and even a disco ball.
Despite the apparent innocuousness Tyler Fassnacht—lead singer of Fire Retarded, the show’s headliner—later admitted with a grin, “you can hear the music all the way down the block.” And that’s a perfect summation of the scene boiling just under the paper thin skin of the Madison mainstream—you might not see it at first, but listen hard enough and you’ll find what you’re looking for.
Hailing from Milwaukee, Apollo Vermouth, the solo ambient project of Alisa Rodriguez, kicked off the festivities. Rodriguez didn’t say anything before she crouched the middle of the crowd, shielded by a magic circle of pedals and effects. She was small and demure; wearing all black aside from a rumpled pink hat. She made no effort to draw attention to herself—she didn’t need to. It was only after she started to strum her guitar that people began to gather in hushed awe.
Her music was equal parts crushing and ecstatically beautiful, a painfully loud jubilee. “A lot of my music deals with depression, anxiety, feeling lonely—something that anybody can relate to,” Rodriguez said after her show. But then, later, smiling; “my boyfriend Tyler over here, he inspires me with my music.” In person, Rodriguez was talkative and energetic, but while playing she was pure focus. At one point during her set her hat fell from her head as she crumpled inward over her guitar, but she didn’t seem to notice. All that existed was the billowing waves of sound from her amp, a display of pure power over a captivated audience. Watching artists make drone and ambient music is something that’s always captivated me, because it’s a corner of music whose production is still an absolute mystery to me. Rodriguez’s soundscapes were gorgeous and sharp and completely unknowable—it was only when she stood up, put her hat back on and quietly announced there was merch at the bar you realized she was even human under all the squall.
Afterwards, Madison’s own Sacerdote stepped up to the plate. It was the band’s first show ever, the brainchild of guitarist and frontman Tyler Peterson, drummer Jacob Wolbert—both formerly in Giant People with Fassnacht—and bassist Martin Potter. All three are music students at UW-Madison, and their eclectic influences shined in their performance.
The band only played a few songs (unsurprising, considering they’d only formed a month prior on a whim), but the standouts were an extended instrumental groove with Peterson on trombone. With a winding bass rhythm and an offbeat time signature and even a fakeout ending, Sacerdote, natural showmen, had the audience in the palm of their hand. The closing number had Peterson ditching the brass for his guitar and noodling out a math-rock riff and shouting about something indecipherable. All the while Wolbert’s intense percussion—perhaps the most technical part of an act rejecting the complexities of academic musicianship for the grittiness of rock—kept everything propulsive and on target. For a band fresh from the blueprint, Sacerdote had all the components for something great.
There was an air of excitement for Grooms’ set. Maybe it’s because they were the real big name of the night—relatively speaking, they were the veterans—but it also could have been that Fassnacht was a tremendous fan. “You should buy some of their music,” he said breathlessly during the “thank you’s” portion of his own set. “You’re probably not going to see Grooms in a venue like this again for a long time.” If that proves to be true, I wouldn’t be surprised. Contrary to everyone else that played that night, Grooms exhibited a level of control and nuance where otherwise there was just raw talent and youthful vigor. There were times where they sounded too big for the tiny, crowded attic, especially when delving into earlier, nosier arrangements.
Lead singer and guitarist Travis Johnson had an almost gothic ferocity to him, a calmness and composure only betrayed by long passages of complex and searing guitar work—and when he jammed his guitar into the rafters above him mid solo. Next to me Alisa Rodriguez danced and headbanged furiously, shouting every word back at the band, and the rest of the crowd (perhaps less devoted than Alisa) followed suit. “We only have time for… how many more songs?” Johnson asked midway through his set. Fassnacht excitedly shouted they had three more, and the band, surprised, complied with some of their best material. “This is some older stuff,” Johnson said. “All the new stuff sucks anyways.” But none of it sucked—quite the contrary.
The real star of the night, though, was Fire Retarded. It was their birthday, after all—it was only last October they played their first show as a three piece. Things have changed since then, and the band has as well. You can tell by listening to the material on their bandcamp—especially between the early recorded version of their recent single “High Horse,” which, through the production work of Bobby Hussy, has a markedly shinier feel for their recent debut 7” release. It still sounds skuzzy and ugly as all get out (“Everytime I think about it/I just want to break something” serves as the effective chorus), but it has an air of professionalism to it that just wasn’t there in the demo. “I would say that’s the biggest difference [between now and then], we take it way more seriously,” said drummer Alex Ross.
That seriousness showed in their live set. The band was as tightly interwoven as a punk band can be, more in line with the Stooges’ brand of apocalyptic mayhem than their hardcore roots would lead one to expect. Particularly in the guitar exchange between Fassnacht and Bobby Hussy (member and namesake of The Hussy, another staple of Madison’s music scene) as the two swapped effortlessly between rhythm and lead, both virtuosos in their own right. Fassnacht is a stellar frontman; his lighthearted demeanor off stage, all professional and eager, caved into something more ferocious, as he kicked around stage with aggression and fervor unseen thusfar in the night.
Hussy, who’s been involved in various bands here and there for the last 13 years, knew exactly what he was doing. In what felt like an impromptu closer, Hussy, stick thin, wearing wiry glasses and with blond hair to his shoulders, yanked off his shirt and led the band in a barking rendition of The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” He curled up fetal, leaned into the crowd, jumped on Ross’s kick drum and howled all the while. The song ended with him shifting to rhythm guitar while Fassnacht laid down an incendiary solo—and then all of a sudden it was quiet. “Happy birthday to us!” Ross shouted as he dismounted his drumset. “Yeah, now get the fuck out!” Fassnacht said—but his big smile gave him away.
“Other cities [are] cool and [have] things to offer, but Madison’s just the best for shows,” Ross said prior to the show starting, and through the night his fellow musicians, one by one, backed his statement. When I left The Bassment, I couldn’t help but agree too.
