In a show promoted by Eric Alexander (formerly of Revel in the Morning), four bands and a faithful audience filled the mt cup. Alexander opened the festivities, performing as Doog around 6:30 p.m. The two-piece Adi, featuring Christopher Newgent (Jack's Defeat), followed him, playing gentle, acoustic pop.
But just after 8:00 p.m., the man known as Castle Oldchair started hauling his gear into the mt cup. Flanked by an anonymous bass player and drummer, around 8:30 p.m., Castle settled in with his sticker-covered acoustic guitar and squeezed out a warbling, country-tinged voice that would charm the audience for the next 45 minutes. Though failing to introduce his band members or what they were playing, Castle Oldchair effortlessly fed the crowd song after song replete with a tight rhythm section, catchy melodies and inventive guitar breaks. At times sounding like The Thrills, Yo La Tengo, The Byrds or a combination of the three, Castle Oldchair hung in the veins of Americana and alt-country music, being well-acquainted with the G and C chords. With great pacing and better songs, the Indianapolis-based band's set was ridiculously catchy and ultimately, ridiculously satisfying.
The five-piece collective called Everything, Now! followed, headlining Alexander's show. Beginning in a manner reminiscent of The Flaming Lips' "Zaireeka" albums, the members of Everything, Now! spread to each corner of the room with tape recorders and instruments. Three tapes of ambient noise were played simultaneously as Crafty Johnson started a long, acoustic piece, which eventually bounded toward a rhythmic drum-led coda. As planned, Everything, Now! immediately had the crowd engaged. On a night commemorating the band's one-year anniversary, Johnson jokingly admitted the band was off, as evidenced by a few false starts during a low-fidelity cover of David Bowie's "Heroes." But rough edges aside, Everything, Now! proved again it might be Muncie's most-creative band: the five-piece featured, throughout its set, two jingle sticks, a xylophone, finger cymbals, maracas and a cooking pot as percussion instruments, each accompanied by Johnson's quirky, cryptic lyrics. Unlike Castle Oldchair, Everything, Now! plays difficult pieces, eschewing traditional pop structures (verse-chorus-verse) in favor of pieced-together fragments that sound like modernist poetry looks. While it destroys conventions, Everything, Now! is endlessly interesting; and, on Friday at the mt cup, despite self-admitted looseness, the band proved it again.
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