Tropical Fuck Storm/Marnie Stern/Michael Beach @ Warsaw, Brooklyn, NY 10/2/24

I first discovered Tropical Fuck Storm around 2017 when I was doing a legal document review temp job and would listen to WMBR's morning rock programming in headphones. This band caught my ear, and I went to see them play around that time somewhere in Brooklyn maybe the venue Elsewhere. I liked them and forgot about why for a little bit, so I thought I'd check this show out at Warsaw. They seemed slightly different that what I remembered in terms of freneticism. Nowadays what stands out are the two ladies do borderline dub influenced noise rock and bassist Fiona Kitchin and guitarist Erica Dunn sing together in a way that brings to mind the Slits and the B-52's while front man Garreth Liddiard seems to have mellowed out a bit.

Although TFS came out around 2017, the bands had toiled in bands for a decade and played with some acts from that era. The first I remember buying an album on Kill Rock Stars back around 2007, Marnie Stern. She had a reputation as a good technical guitarist which made me look forward to seeing her. She does a chord to tech lead to tapping and back thing. As far as indie rock goes it is a distinctive approach and she apparently went away for a decade at least in terms of releasing music, hence last years The Comeback Kid on the label Joyful Noise which also release TFS.

Michael Beach was a balding longhaired bandleader also with an extensive catalog that Goner Records put out. This was my first exposure to him and I thought he was good. He splits time on keyboard songs and guitar songs.

I find it interesting that here is a bill with three acts with different degrees of familiarity and I don't remember a single songs among any of them. Their styles are distinctive and likeable, but none of them command the deep diving and focus on a massive amount of released music that make any of them rise above mid-tier and seeing them live here and there won't change that. Beach may have the best material of these three even if TFS is clearly a cut above in the performance department. Stern is a technique over songwriting talent type, and proves that you can put an indie veneer and a great personality on skilled technique but if you come up short in the vocals and songs department it might add up to premature retirement and later discovery for the traits that put you on the international level.

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Tropical Fuck Storm/Marnie Stern/Michael Beach @ Warsaw, Brooklyn, NY 10/2/24

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