Wham City Feet Night

After the full night of psychedelic majesty that was Eyes Night, the Baltimore music collective, Wham City, put on their dancing kicks and metaphorically kicked our asses, mania dripping from the walls of the ‘Sco. It’s a good thing Dan Deacon seems to love us so much, choosing Oberlin for one of the few places both Eyes Night and Feet Night occurred. Fuck midterms; let’s dance.

The longest break we got between 9:30 and 1:00 was a trip in itself: a man and a woman shrouded in light, gazing into each other’s eyes and panting the phrase, “We cut the throats of those who are wrong.” Judging by the standards set by the quirky, neon-splattered family that is Wham City, nothing is wrong. No one is wrong. The more “wrong” the evening becomes with such artists as DJ Dog Dick, The DeathSet, and Lizz King, the more "right" it all feels. No throats cut tonight.

The very structure of the Round Robin tour is testament to the cooperative nature of the collective. Nobody has a bad spot in the room, no band is deemed an “opener,” no microgenres are defined, and the bands collaborate to create well-done multimedia presentations that simultaneously take us back to the 90’s thrust us into the future of pop music. Aesthetically, Dan Deacon always delivers with gusto, green skulls alight, fluorescently decorated equipment abuzz…even the audience becomes a part of the visual experience as the inner circle violently dances in a halo of light, singing along to the culmination of the evening, the Wham City “national anthem” of sorts (appropriately titled “Wham City”) off of the critically acclaimed album Spiderman of the Rings.

Living up to their name, the electro-rock powerhouse Video Hippos also employed visuals in a way that captured attention without distancing us from the musical experience. Perhaps the most entrancing of the videos is that of a human profile, ideas and insecurities about direction, intimacy, and even weight filtering in, bouncing off, and melding into each other as we, in our various boozy, drugged up, or simply amped states stomped our feet, grabbed each other, and stared as human emotional universality struck a surreal chord. Hey, I’ve felt like that before. But now all I care about is dancing, music, and colors, man.

Not all the visuals felt this seamless, however. Lizz King, positioning herself as a Lolita-type figure, combined images in her video for the song, “Booty Queen,” of Tinkerbell getting spanked, Pocahontas and John Smith having sex, JonBenet Ramsey strutting her way underage “stuff” on stage, and most notably, what seemed to be webcam videos of herself in assorted levels of angst and auto-sensuality. Pursing her lips to the camera as she sings, “Ooh la la, ooh la la! She’s just a BABY!” we watched as she jammed her face almost directly into the lens, smudging overdone, burlesque clown-type makeup down her face as she cried. In person, she danced energetically on a table in a series of angles and contortions as she shrieked to the minimalist electro beats and, occasionally, belted out some surprisingly soulful notes in an alto range. Her last song, an eerily slowed-down, robotisized cover of Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth, although it was wonderful to glance around the venue as people, oblivious to the fact that it was perhaps the creepiest cover of “Umbrella” ever, paired up and shared profound drunken eye contact with the grinding partner of their choosing.

“Electrospazz” band Nuclear Power Pants jokes that they’re just happy that people talk about them, even if journalists and bloggers seem to dislike their music. Not this one. Dressed in a two-headed business suit, the two singers probably sang in different keys the whole time, but the vigor with which they were able to belt out their silly and usually unintelligible lyrics as they bobbed their heads and played catchy synth lines completely won me over. The three other instrumentalists were totally decked out in neon green shark outfits which seemed to emit a weird glow. Because the music is intrinsically disjointed rhythmically, it seemed as though some people didn’t really know how to dance to it. So, there was a lot of jumping around, splashes of PBR raining down on us like amber-tinted, electro rain.

Using virtually the same set up, Height bumped shit up to the next level with their subtle use of synth and their robust hip hop beats. Rapper Mickey Free stood on a table, a sinister light showing every detail of his face, as his flow, self-assured, not too fast nor too slow, galvanized an already-intense groove. The strongest of their songs were the rock-rap tour de force, “Smash Your Eyes,” and the gritty, supremely catchy “Bad Weather,” which epitomized Wham City sensibilities in many ways – electrocentric, danceable beats, a complete refusal to pinpoint a genre, and artsy, sometimes irrelevant lyrics, as with the chorus to “Bad Weather”: “You’ve got a safari hat for rugged landscapes. / You’ve got frosty mugs full of drinks I like. / You’ve got tropical feathers on a bad weather bike.”

Employing some elements of hip hop, the predominant dance rock of Smart Growth sparked a fuse with the audience. Although not necessarily memorable or especially original, they kept the energy alive, as did Future Islands. Future Islands had all the typical electro-pop tricks up their sleeves – the increasingly intricate beats, the vamps, the heavy bass…good thing these tricks seem to always work.

Other featured electronic artists included Adventure, a DJ who seemed to love playing in the cage, casually sipping various alcoholic beverages as his high-pitched, heavily arpeggiated melodies assaulted our ears in a way reminiscent of Crystal Castles and Boys Noize put together. The crowd around the cage couldn’t get enough of the twisting of knobs, the and ebb and flow of distortion. Even more seriously distorted was DJ Dog Dick, whose music demanded the audience’s attention through bizarre and sometimes hilarious lyrics, surprising tempo alterations, and sudden switches in beat emphasis. Both DJs seemed oddly apathetic, yet motivated some of the most extreme dancing of the evening.

Famously rejecting the ideals of “hipster apathy” and music constructed around influence, Double Dagger totally ravaged the ‘Sco and became an audience favorite. Right before their first song, “Luxury Condos for the Poor,” vocalist Nolen Strals looked me in the eye as he informed the audience that, “if you move up real close, at the end of this song, we’re all going to be good friends.” He was right. Spending more than half of the time embedded within the crowd, Strals demanded full attention.

Explosive, engaging, and badass, Blood Baby pushed all our buttons at the same time. Besides their incredibly intense appearances (and name), Blood Baby gave Oberlin a crash course in artsy hardcore. Immediately following a Wham City compilation video (soundtrack done by the Creepers from Eyes Night) and an exhibit in hypnosis done especially for those who were the most fucked-up, Blood Baby took the stage for the last time. Punky hardcore songs usually lead to the smashing of things – people, instruments, eardrums, whatever. Double Dagger and Blood Baby successfully accomplished all these things, but not quite to the degree of The DeathSet.

For such a small-statured guys, The DeathSet really know how to rip it up live. You might not guess just by walking around campus, but Oberlin students can really mosh if they want to! As one of their songs ended, I found myself in head-butted disrepair, but completely electrified by their stage presence. Drums, cymbals, audience members, and even band members were thrown and displaced, thrilling even those who thought they’d never like a hardcore show. The DeathSet summed up their appeal best themselves: "Tape deck, select / burning wreck, broken neck, / dirty speck, bitches wet, / motherfuckin’ DeathSet! /In your eye, weapons fly, / don't even try to feel our size, / wonder why the people cry / the motherfuckin' DeathSet!"

If there was anything too good to be true, it was the award Dan Deacon promised for the winner of the dance contest: “If you win, you will become Prince!” Fueled by high-octane electronic madness, various audience members shook what their mamas gave them, gaining screams of approval from those anxious to go head-to-head with other wannabe Princes. Oberlin students have never looked as good as they did in this two-minute span of psychosis, which is probably why no one definitively won this desirable new identity. We can’t all be Prince.

I don’t know much about geography, but I can tell you my favorite city just might be the City of Wham, that luminescent orgy of creativity. After all, “There is a mountain of snow, up past the big glen. / We have a castle enclosed, there is a fountain. / Out of the fountain flows gold, into a huge hand. /That hand is held by a bear who had a sick band.” Not just one sick band, two full nights of sick bands. Plus an after party. Who could ask for more? Aside for maybe a spontaneously magical A on that midterm you forgot to study for.