Tonic
NYC
Words by Patrick Albertson

Wednesday was a showcase for bands on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label, featuring Black Helicopter (a comically dysfunctional, albeit boring version of Sonic Youth) and the Tall Firs (ethereally tragic loneliness) but the night definitely belonged to Bushwick via Ann Arbor rock kids Awesome Color. A few scattered pails and basins caught the freshly spouted leaks as Singer/guitarist Derek Stanton, drink in hand, requested the lights be brought down, scruffed, glazed and smiling, ready to unleash.

The trio fuzzed the room to life at great volume with a new song. True to form, it fit well in their canon of broad-stroke stoned rock & roll that takes a riff and rocks it relentlessly until it can rock no more. Next song. Allison Busch’s Punchy bang-beat drumming relentlessly drove the songs toward the precipice while the steady bass of Michael Troutman laid a foundation for some vicious, angular pentatonic solos to rip through garage muck and kick out the jams. So distilled and stripped are their songs that they almost reach the point of monotony, but fortunately their raw power usually trumps the minute or so of excess. Huh. I wonder why those clich?