The Goodz on the Hop: It began with lateness. After admittedly missing most of Record Hop’s set I was lucky enough to lounge around and encounter the tragedy of a terrible sound system ruin a good band’s performance. She (I don’t know her name, folks) swung the gee-tar like Kim Gordon on brown sugar while they (two dudes) plucked their electric guitars (say what!?!?!?) to the drowsy beat of the nameless drummer. Like a sedated Erase Errata (sans the stringy guitar work) they worked the stage like craftsman sculpting a skilled soundscape based around solid instrumentation. “Two more songs, then the Apes!” she yelled at the fuzzy-haired students and dropouts alike, the weary and the wise, and they responded strongly. Unfortunately, this band, like many others at times meshed sameness with a twangy energy, yet resulted in a dope excursion into a raw, yet-unpolished independent rock crew. May you all study the Apes.

Planet of the Apes: holyfuckingshit. From the depths of Washington D.C. they came to deliver an Oddeyesee into the Out There. They brought with them the History of Antagonistic Performance (I’m thinking of Stravinsky, Dylan circa ’66 and the Sex Pistols). The Apes are what the apocalypse would sound like if Iggy Pop was god. They are the reason for the Plantet of the Apes film (not really) and they make every other whiny indie-band’s performance look like watching your grandma bake cookies while knitting an apron for the lead singer of such indie band. In short, they rock, kid! Take notes.

A slushy organ swept the chilly club. Post-soundcheck, these People of the Other were ready to translate their true school Rawkness into a frenetic ssssssizzle of a set. Amanda Kleinman as the masked organist (scarier than she sounds), Erick Jackson’s prodigious bass abuse (homeboy looks like a 12 year old, its weird) and Jeff Schmid as the scruffy-bearded drummer that could easily hang with Slayer or Napalm Death any day strolled up the tiny steps onto the stage. (small footnote: Lead singer Paul Weil, has a history of confrontation/directness with audiences. When I last saw them headlining here a few months ago, he was treating the mic chord like a sex slave, performing in the middle of the actual audience, whipping his hair back and forth frantically to the BEAT and running outside and closing the door: all while maintaining his signature tenor squeal at optimum levels). As the Apes ripped through nameless tracks off their delicious post-Stooges aural novel on Frenchkiss records, oddeyesee, Weil taunted audience members, yelled his obscure lyrics in their faces and swung his mop of a hairdo around the cold air. The mic stand/chord, like his arch nemesis were whipped, wrapped, stepped on, kicked, thrown, massaged, kissed, loved, despised and ultimately left standing in the middle of the audience while they pumped out the jams. So, as all budding students with shit for brains do, a bespectacled faux-hawk\’d striped-shirted kid steps up to the microphone while Weil was turned around strutting his stuff like Mick Jagger on coke, and screamed aimlessly with all his teeny-tiny might. An innocent joke? A comment on the role of the participatory audience? A radical statement of disgust? A-cause-to-get-your-ass-kicked-for-messing-with the-band’s-mic-while-they’re-playing-and-ruining-everyone’s-night-because-you’re-a-moron-who-doesn’t-know-how-to-comport-himself-at-a-show? Probably. Homeskillet should’ve just stayed put and not walked up to the mic, cause: Mista Weil gets hella pissed, starts wrestling with the kid for the microphone (who wouldn’t give it up as he kept yelling into it) and acts worse than good ol’ John McEnroe at Wimbledon when he waves to the band to stop the song. Like Whoa. They stopped. The music, a raging, furious spectacle of whining keys, guitarless distortion rooted in Jackson’s James Brown-like fingerwork on the tremolo’d bass all while Senor Scruff (Schmid) whipped the thick, chunky beat into shape, simply ceased. (friend # 1: ‘is this a joke?’) No, sir. So, freewheelin’ Weil, decides to get up all in the little guy’s face and yell at him for fucking the show up. Never, rock reading friends, have I ever witnessed such a spectacle. All in all, Mista Weil decided to be the bigger man and apologize for overreacting and as the show rolled on, dedicated the entire set to his new friend, “Clint” (ah, the deliciousness of sarcasm). The drama ceased and the Apes reminded me why I loved rock in the first place. Songs bled into each other, grungy no-guitar work welded grooves while the cherry red, knee-high boot wearing organist girl (now maskless) slapped the space with her hair. As it went, the insane whirlwind of hair, screams and mic chord that was Paul Weil kept his intensity high, spitting the realness into the crowd, still in their face and still not giving a fuck. Iggy and Eazy-E would be proud.

Enon, oh Enon, you came for a pool party: cherry-voiced Japanese singer/bassist and former Blonde Redhead member, Toko Yasuda bellowing out beauty over a thrift-store Casio keyboard, John Schmersal’s slinky bass sexin’ up the song while Matt Schulz’s red tiger-striped drum set wheezed out beats to post-80’s indie grooves: these rhythm professors lectured through vintage synths, two-dollar equipment and a soft-voiced rawness that almost made me blush. Abandoning their noisier material for the recent glittery science of their recent record, Hocus Pocus, Enon wiggled, shook, shaped and strutted their multicultural booty-shaking hymns amazingly. A recent convert, Enon blessed me with the cluttered cacophony of noise, post-punk and Yasuda’s sweet voice. I wanted to chew on her voice it was so sweet.

The sardined bodies in the club yelled and bounced to their bangers while maintaining a meditative silence between songs (strange, these kids are, I tell ya). Guitarist/vocalist Schmersal repeatedly, after each spellbinding song, asked for a floor to crash on and their desire to have a pool party. A pool party. Ah, rock musicians: nothing is too glam for them. Nonetheless, each dope song followed another, catchy chorus after catchy chorus, and as the trains slowly chugged through Denton behind them, Enon amazed the crew of progressive peeps worrying about skipping class the next day by delivering an encore and bidding the Lone Star State farewell with Noise. And like that, they reminded us that the shadow of all sound is silence.

Such was another sleepy night here in the dusty baby brother of Austin. Students walking around with synthesizers under their arms, pens in the other, studying the rhythm of the sun, the ethics of a rock show and why the Apes are the pure reason to belittle the naysayers by shakin’ that azz to the new groove: catch the illness.