Turn Records showcase

With Thee More Shallows, Dealership, the Dying Californian, and Calling All Monsters Bottom of the Hill, Dec. 9

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Who knows what trickery lurks in the chambers of Thee More Shallows' infamous red suitcase? On Dec. 9 at Bottom of the Hill, it sat, illuminated and center stage, the beating heart of a delicate organism that sought to enchant audiences with ... Madonna? Madonna. Or something like it, as vocalist David Kesler was joined by Dealership's Chris Groves in a strange amalgam of Madge's "Holiday" mashed with Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" and a smattering of their own improvised yuletide lyrics. Under his trademark too-large baseball cap, Kesler was nodding, eyes closed, a slight smirk breaking through every now and then just to let the audience know the joke wasn't totally on them. As the song progressed, the crowd went from nodding appreciatively to laughing to shouting back at the headliners as it became clear this was not the most serious musical endeavor.

It was definitely a lighthearted, celebratory kind of night. Promoted as a showcase for Santa Clara's Turn Records, the evening marked the label's sixth year in business. Label founder Jeff Walsh was on hand to work the merch booth and hand out free posters and buttons for each of the featured acts, all of whom hail from the Bay Area. Intentionally or not, the night's bands seemed drawn from the four corners of indie rock, making for an interesting game of compare-and-contrast throughout the evening.

The first band, Calling All Monsters, definitely set themselves apart from their labelmates as the loudest band of the night. Fronted by Trackstar cofounder Matthew Troy, they shelled out plenty of noise and never got lost in pretense. "That was terrible!" Troy announced jokingly after one song, as if he were shouting across the garage during practice. Up next was the Dying Californian, who took advantage of the stage by filling every square inch of it with musicians. Guitarists, a fiddle player, a keyboard player, and, what the hell, a vocalist or two all joined in for their own brand of country-fried indie. Anthemic without being schmaltzy, the Dying Californian paid homage to the sweet and the sorrowful.

After wispy, quiet songs of the country, it was time for the (pop) rock. If the music of Dealership didn't bring a smile to your face, I would've had to assume you were dead. It wasn't just the sweet interplay of vocals between vocalist Groves and keyboard player Jane (full name: Miyuki Jane Pinckard). It wasn't the tapping rhythms of drummer Chris Wetherell. It wasn't even that they only play a few shows a year, thus ensuring you can never get tired of them. Dealership had an unfailing pop sensibility – where other bands have hung back for fear of sounding too perfect, they rushed headlong toward pure sonic bliss, even in songs about heartbreak. They also mobilized the crowd into that dancing-in-one-spot "stay-put indie dance."

There really wasn't a single moment that epitomized the music of the final group, Thee More Shallows, and tonight was just one more extended dissertation on the reasons why. Graceful, swanlike melodies nodded in the audience's direction, only to dart away before one could grasp at them. The gently tinkling bells of songs like "2AM" covered the audience like a curtain of lace. Sweet nods to Debussy gave way to painstakingly restrained drum tracks, the two meshing into an almost unbearable tension of melody and meter. "It's on the tip of my ear / It's almost palpable / I have to listen closely / To get my mind around it / And when I understand it / I'll just transcribe it," Kesler explained in the lyrics of "Freshman Thesis," a song about the tortures of channeling one's muse. Just as suddenly as his words began, they trailed off, dangling the audience over a menacing, gray pit of silence before lurching into a final, grubby crescendo of drums and guitar fuzz that would make Captain Beefheart proud. The approach also proved that Thee More Shallows as a trio can rock just as hard and as well as they did in their incarnation as a quartet. This has obviously taken some careful planning: As the band progressed down the playlist, band members Brian Fraser and Jason Gonzales passed from guitar to drum kit to the suitcase, where they tweaked the knobs within. "You guys are movers," Kesler joked. "You keep on moving all the time!"

One of the best moments of the night was the inclusion of "A Perfect Map," from their first album, A History of Sport Fishing (Megalon), a calm treatise on life that started to gather like storm clouds on the horizon before erupting into guitar loops of kaleidoscopic fury. It faded into the distance again, barely perceptible for what seemed like the longest two or three minutes in the world, before it was reestablished and sent home for good with its audience leaning forward and hanging on every last note. Maybe that was the crystallizing moment, then: a confirmation that Thee More Shallows have resculpted indie rock into a veritable discipline. It's a path they continue to blaze in their own idiom, comfortably and quietly, from the helm of their bright red Samsonite.

(Kate Izquierdo)