The Drama, Inner, Four Minute Mile & The Autumn Era

When we arrived at Moxie's (the publicized venue for the Inner show), the coffee shop was all but empty. The kind employees informed us that the show had been moved to The Catacombs, a recent addition to Chico's concert halls. The Catacombs (Located on 1st Ave and Magnolia) is basically a house that has been converted into an art house / performance venue by a local organization and a few hard working individuals.
As we entered the living room stage area, Chico's The Autumn Era was already halfway through their set of physically charged, emo-style convulsive flailing. Yeah, they rocked. Their songs were packed with intricacies and each number contained some great ear candy if you paid attention to the minute details. The guitar parts and counter-melodies worked to create tension, and the shared singing / screaming duties gave listeners a lot of variety. Given, some of the aforementioned intricacies were sloppy and their instruments continually fell out of tune, but in the construct of a spastic, presence-heavy set, it totally worked.
Next came San Francisco's Four Minute Mile with a set of hard driving, melody-conscious emo. The quartet was tight and well developed, with the two guitarists sharing the singing duties. They were reminiscent of Sacramento's dearly departed Far, only with more standardized chord progressions and less screaming. Their music was a mixture of pretty and grimy, their tones were thick and burly and they proved themselves to be good performers. They also proved the time-tested fact that as long as the drummer doesn't stop playing, nobody will notice the band has made a mistake…unless, of course, if the drummer leans over and tells his / her band exactly that…
Inner followed with a blistering set of joyous power pop. The dual female vocals (provided by guitarist Jen Turner and bassist / keyboardist Erica Quitzow) delivered some tasty and fun harmonies, often with unique voicings and spirited falsetto "ooohs" and "aaahs." Turner played her Les Paul with conviction and style, sometimes dipping into Ian MacKaye rhythm / noise territory. A few songs had near-Black Sabbath progressions and utilized snaky meters and tense moods, but for the most part, their music struck me as a cross between the indie rock goodness of The Pixies and the cheeky bubble grunge of Imperial Teen. Their last song stood far out from the rest. Resembling a somber hymnal, the heart-wrenching number could have been included on Natalie Merchant's Tiger Lilly (which Turner had written much of the music for), except it was far gutsier. Inner was simply fantastic.
The last band of the evening was The Drama. The Sacramento trio was very, very loud. In fact, hurting loud. Their set was enjoyed from the audio comfort zone of the porch just outside. Their sound could be characterized as gloomy post-goth rock with atmospheric feedback, harrowing emotive vocals and a stout, powerful rhythm section. Basically, they sounded like what The Cure would sound like if they had more balls…
My first experience at The Catacombs was highly successful. Be sure to check out music there in the future.
- Maurice S. Teilmann

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