Quasar Wut-Wut
w/ My Pal Val, The Luddite
Saturday, December 01, 2012 at 9pm
$5
Send an email to motorcityblog@earthlink.net for your chance to win limited cassette of their new album
Formed back in 1990 at a Metro Detroit Area high school by founding member Matt Schwarz and original drummer Dave McWilliams, QWW was soon joined by Brent Sulek on guitar and a string of bass players, each more handsome and talented than the last, culminating in Jordan Frank joining back in '94. The band centralized in Ann Arbor in that same year before deciding to head to Chicago in '99. Unfortunately Dave was unable to make the move and parted ways after 10 long years, and there was much crying. Fortunately Doug Walsh, a drummer in a rival Detroit band, joined after months of intense backroom power games. When his 10 year shift ended, Tom Giers took up the sticks. This time no backroom dealings were necessary, only the promise of massages and bi-monthly "tantric cleansings". The years in Chicago have produced two full-lengths (Taro Sound in 2004 and an as-yet unnamed LP to be released in Feb. 2013), an EP and a soundtrack for Buster Keaton's silent film "The General". Prolific? No. But in the cosmological grand scheme of things, it could be argued that it is at least a predictable constant.
From it's earliest days Quasar Wut-Wut has displayed a sort of bi-polar existence: being studio rats employing countless hours experimenting with songcraft and sound while at the same time putting on a no-fuss stage show with reckless abandon. Onstage they come off as restless and exhilarating, almost as if they are there to wash off the cabin fever of their studio lives with some cathartic performance.
Quasar Wut-Wut's music can range from challenging experimental to tight and hook-ridden. Lyrically dark but sonically thrilling, it plays like a dense and frantic soundtrack. Frenetic guitar lines give way to swells of odd grandeur; inspired playing finds manic grace inside folds of loose-limbed indie pop.