On The Scene: Hot Cat Club 07-07-2012

After a long week, I was looking to take it easy Saturday – I wanted mellow..mellooww. Thus I jumped at the opportunity to head over to Hot Cat Club and check out Dwaas, the jamrific indie rockers, who haven’t been around for too long, but have managed to jump strides since I last saw them in April.

Listening back to the videos, for some reason the image of autumn colors keeps splashing across my mind. I don’t know what it is but there’s something progressive and seasonal within their sound that immediately stirs those innocent romanticized emotions we have (or wish we had) whenever those leaves turn red, yellow, and orange, and blanket the streets of our cities, hometowns, and campuses.

It’s a mood that Dwaas owns one hundred percent throughout their set. I hear dabbles of everything here, from sixties folk, to post-rock, all the way to nineties angst – but they explore each of these sounds with such organic ease and creativity, that even when their ideas get muddled, and they try to pack too much into their arrangements, it never feels forced and heavy-handed. It’s genuine to the core.

Each of the members bring a lot to the table, whether it be Michaels’s crackling voice, to Joewi softer melodies, to Fei Fei’s calming bass, even Hui Han’s earthy drums – it’s obvious these guys know what they want and can get out of each other musically – not too many bands can make eight minutes fly back this smoothly. Let’s hope Dwaas find the time to give us some more shows in the future – with some fine-tuning I think these boys may attract quite the following.

Stay tuned for part two of my mellow night, as things turned not so mellow at Temple.