Like a USB Device: Plug and Play Punked Out Jazz Combo - White Denim Live in Milwaukee (1/18/08)

They loaded in their gear, set up, and started playing in less than 15 minutes. Then it took a whole song for someone to finally turn on the stage lights. But White Denim was undaunted—the opener opener for the Walkmen show at Turner Ballroom (Milwaukee, WI). Their ability to be like a USB device that's plug-and-play won over the crowd.

Channeling the Who, the Kinks, and the Doors, White Denim is a three-piece combo—lead vocalist/guitarist James Petralli and bassist/vocalist Steve Terebecki flanking drummer Joshua Block (drums) in a group that moves through electric, punk, thrash, classic rock like a jazz combo, flexing and jiving and hyperacting like a stripped-down version of !!! (Chk Chk Chk).

There's the sound of Who live recordings in the way they play with a pounding echo reverberating with tight rhythm section flashes. Elsewhere, those classic rock thrashing tendencies recall contemporary Woodrow Lin while the punk flashes clearly say "Come on Pilgrim" and bring on Pixies.

The band's also still sort of in their own world like the early Doors. However, White Denim also appear confident that their experimentation on stage will connect. Part way through the song "What You Wanted" the trio launches into an acapella, falsetto break. It's the kind of thing that most bands would leave in the studio, somehow adapting the song for performance rather than taking a chance on such a risky bit. White Denim didn't blanch but instead sang with an attitude that says, "Here's our sound, here's this song, watch what we're doing, because we are you rock 'n' roll future."

White Denim
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