In case you didn’t know, when it comes to band names, White is the new Black.
Fuck-fuck-FUCKK Black Lips, Black Hollies, Black Time, Black Eyes, Black Heart Procession, Black Milk, Black Rice, Black Dahlia Murder, Starless & Bible Black, Black Sea, Black Angels, Black Keys, Black Mountain, Blackstreet, Blackfield, Black Uhuru, Black Flag, Black Sabbath, Blackhearts (Joan Jett and), Black Box, Blackbyrds, Blackfoot, Black Sheep, Blackhawk, Blackjack, Black Oak Arkansas, Black Girls, Black moon, Black Lab, Blackwell, Black Star, and all the rest; give me WHITE Shit (a better-than-the-mothership side project of Big Business), WHITE Lion, WHITEsnake, WHITE (Barry), WHITE Hills, WHITE Lies, W-H-I-T-E, WHITE Stripes, Average WHITE Band, and, of course, WHITE Denim, perhaps the best-named band in all of America.
Although my wife and I failed to find matching white-denim outfits at thrift stores before the show, we did manage to listen to the entirety of White Denim’s Fits two times on the way to the Larimer Lounge in Denver. It was no preparation; I’m not sure if they used condensers the size of a small pick-up truck or recorded in an air-proof bomb shelter, but Fits doesn’t come close to harnessing the proud pummel-horse that is a White Denim show. So sick they should give H1N1 shots at the door, White Denim are a sexless three-piece with the chops of Comets On Fire, the drugganaut bluster of Black Mountain, the ham-fisted proto-punk power of early Melvins, and the endless-jam power of fellow power-trio Titan.
Rarely giving the crowd the chance to catch their breath, W. Denim covered our noses with an ether-soaked rag of technical virtuosity, only letting up occasionally to look at each other and burst into another long-form creation full of stops, starts, ticks, tocks, ups, downs, breakdowns, shakedowns, stutters, hesitations, jukes, jives, staccato, arpeggio, triple-F blastissimo, and more tricks I don’t know the names of (and wouldn’t want to). Best of all, W(M)D don’t have a saxophone, clarinet, flute, oboe, or trumpet player giving the audience a Talibam! teabag, so you can concentrate on the guitar, bass, and drums, which the trio derive so much life from you wonder why so many acts feel they need a 12-piece neo-classical arrangement to “wow” a crowd.
Any attempt to describe specific moments of this show would be akin to detailing a high-speed car crash in which I was a participant, so I’ll just say I was visibly shaken by White Denim, unable to do much save sweat, stare, and drool. They were so dead-on I seem to have blocked out the set by openers Brazos. But just let me say, there ain’t no Cane left for Brazos; there just ain’t.
