Time Spent Driving, Favez, Stars Upon Thars & Scott Ritcher

Wednesday night’s festivities, the highlight of which was to be the triumphant return to Chico of Time Spent Driving, promised to be, at the least, an intriguing affair. Along with Santa Cruz’s Time Spent Driving was Switzerland’s Favez, the solo styling of Scott Ritcher and Chico’s most musically and aesthetically pleasing indie-rockers, Stars Upon Thars.

The evening began on an introspective note with Scott Ritcher, armed only with an acoustic guitar, a sensitive vocal tone, and the occasional laptop-produced robot-beat, which presented somewhat soulful numbers to the growing audience. The songs themselves were decently crafted and well structured, but Mr. Richter did not thrill me much with his vocal performance; although not distastefully bad, Ritcher’s voice did offer an unpleasant distraction from the otherwise pleasant nature of his music.

The crowd, for the most part, offered polite indifference to Scott Ritcher, as it seemed many were there solely for the appearance of Stars Upon Thars, who were, to the glee of many, the band next on stage. Although relatively new to the world, Stars Upon Thars has nevertheless attracted a sizeable amount of interest and excitement amongst those with a nose for the new. The band opened up with a mild-mannered, multi-layered instrumental, which immediately gave way to a switch in both instrumental duties and musical genre. The drummer assumed the lead vocalist position and with the guitarist manning the drums, the unit as a whole launched into a swinging punk-ish song about a girl. This was to be the modus operandi for Stars Upon Thars for the remainder of the set; members switched instruments freely and often, each uniquely suited to the varying styles of the songs.

Some songs reminded me of new school melodicore in the vein of Thursday, while others had a vaguely indie-rock, Modest Mouse-y feel, with still others offering an altogether distinct blend. The true talent of Stars Upon Thars was that their version of instrumental musical chairs and genre jumping was accomplished in an unexpectedly fluent and smooth fashion. Isabell and Stars Upon Thars shall soon be forced to cage match wrestle for the title of my favorite Chico band.

Favez, from Switzerland, was the next band to occupy the stage. Never having experienced Swiss emo, I was anxious to hear what Favez had to offer. Call it ethnocentrism, but I was surprised to hear that Favez sounded as American as the next guy — they basically sounded like Time Spent Driving, only with a little less pop. But this was by no means a bad thing. Favez was a very agreeable group, one that is certainly worthy of further inspection.

As the hour neared midnight, Time Spent Driving took the stage. The members of Time Spent Driving are very pleasant looking people. This comes across freely in their music, which although not obviously uplifting (in fact it would seem initially to be kind of a downer), nevertheless gave me a feeling of contentment and satisfaction. Playing songs I knew (off their recent EP, Walls Between Us), and some songs that I didn’t, TSD were a very capable live band with each member showcasing an obvious talent at their relative instrument.

They also played at a somewhat subdued volume that seemed to utilize the otherwise cumbersome reverberations of the Senator as an enhancing effect upon their music. Aside from all this, TSD just simply writes good songs, simple verse / chorus affairs that are a welcome deviation from the sometimes tedious, unstructured nature of many indie bands. TSD played a short but sweet set, successfully capping a somewhat unexpectedly gratifying night of music.

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