It is the first night of the fourth year of 35 Denton, Texas’ smaller, more endearing musical conference. The Denton County Courthouse, in its stately classical revival, stands at the center of the completely walk-able musical patchwork of Bohemian North Texas. It is a festival of power-stance rockers, bearded song-poets, hip-hop braggadocio, and a heap of abstruse artists with highfalutin, electronic convictions.
The conference has donned three names in four years: the derivative (if you ask me, preferable) “NX35,” the demure “35 Conferette,” and now “35 Denton.” That is a lot of aliases, but the event’s core identity has always been intact. It is a musical experience tied to the town that is tied to the highway, celebrating the uncommon wealth of musical vision per capita in Denton, TX. Like any festival of sound, it is a place where, like sample day at the grocery store, music is dispensed in squat, Dixie cups of experience, simultaneously, in a dozen venues.
Where 35 Denton really finds its selfhood is in giving a megaphone to the municipality that now serves as its title. My own 2012, 35 Denton experience begins with Old Snack, one of the local acts that the festival serves to spotlight. Justin “JC” Collins is sipping a beer as he stares at his drum kit thirty yards away. “You’ve got three minutes to make it over there,” I warn him as his two bandmates begin setting up. “They’ll probably be done by the time I sit down,” he counters, making light of his band’s notorious, break-neck pace.
Old Snack sprints through their set, skimming the cream off fifty years of rock and roll brazenness. The frenetic guitar riffing sounds like a machine with no oil: the sharpness of metal on metal. The band takes short breathers. The laconic singer and guitarist, Aaron White, fills them with curt, deadpan words of appreciation for the crowd. As the set races on, his voice plays the slowpoke trying to catch up.
Next, I am shocked to discover Jay Fresh, a talented, new MC from Dallas with a throwback-style moniker. Hip hop and hipsterdom is one of those marriages I am never sure was consummated. Publicly awkward together, you get the sense that they have yet to be intimate. But Jay Fresh still has the crowd at Andy’s waving their hands and parroting his refrains. He weaves the stage like a punch-hungry featherweight with tireless energy. His set is backed by both a DJ and a live drummer, which gives the set a visceral appeal and lends a steady boost to Jay Fresh’s commanding rhymes.
I feel like the lines of talent in hip hop are more thickly drawn than other musical forms. It is easier to separate the chaff from the wheat a first impression. I decide within a minute that Jay Fresh belongs in the class with talent, soul and a voice worth hearing. There are enough MCs at 35Dentonthis year who release albums emblazoned with the kind of gothic font I would have picked off Word Perfect in the eighth grade. It is indicative of a kind of artistic retardation. I decide in the same minute that Jay Fresh probably deserves their marquee slots.
A music conference’s secondary appeal is that of an anthropological wonder. Among pop music audiences, you can slice them into finer segments of disposition. The crowd last night at Denton Donuts (selling donuts to drunken people well after midnight is a genius move, by the way) was of the sitting disposition. There, I catch the last portion of the set by Jacob Metcalf, who, after a self-imposed exile inMexicoand a motorcycle accident, is piecing together quite the Behind the Music episode. He is flanked by his peers from musical collective The Dallas Family Band. It is the other wonder of 35Denton. Probably more than any other musical festival, you will spot the same personnel lending their talents to multiple acts.
I stay forDallas’s Comrade. Their promotional photo for the 35 Denton site is comically outdated, taken at a time when the members probably could not buy a drink or maybe even a pack of cigarettes. Comrade has returned with a shuffled cast to buttress Jonathan Clark’s meditative tunes. Their layered music maintains a tense balance, tentative but sure, suited to the pensive audience still seated upon the wood slats of Denton Donuts’ second floor. Six members strong, Comrade paints in broad, loose, impressionistic strokes.
Om is a clear case of preceding reputation. When I approach Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, it is at capacity and I am relegated to a line of persons waiting for bodies to exit the venue. I cannot find anyone in the line who knows Om well; although, one man heard they played a five hour show in Jersualem. I suppose if you are going to play a five hour show, the well-spring of civilization is the place to do it. But the fact that people are queuing, and that the place is packed, gives me the idea that a lot of them want to know Om if they don’t already.
The minimalistic group is comprised of two members, bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Emil Amos. Om was formed by the rhythmic castoffs from metal band Sleep. When I finally make it into the venue, Om is just starting their second song, with Cisneros thumbing an intro of single bass notes. Oddly, the crowd cheers in recognition of the tune. “That’s funny,” I think. “For all they know, Om might be gearing up for a cover of ‘Running with the Devil.’”
Cisneros, with his eyes closed, continues to travel through scales of bass notes, accompanied by his drummer and, inexplicably, a tambourine player. The problem with Om is that they sound exactly like their description: the rhythm section of a metal band. It is a skeleton with no flesh or muscle. They lack the creative fury of Death From Above 1979 and the self-aware comedy of Spinal Tap’s “Big Bottom.” Unfortunately, Cisneros does seem to fully grasp the solemnity of “Stonehenge.”
Om as a word is meant to signify syllabic perfection, a sound-byte of universal wholeness, peace and tranquility. I get the feeling that I am wound entirely too tight for tranquility and Om’s methodical test of how much bass noodling I can absorb. I struggle to understand how every head-nodding neighbor of mine is able to let go and enjoy the humorless austerity of Om’s music. Then, I notice several, milky plumes of cannabin-rich smoke shoot in the air like a field of geysers: the cipher, apparently, to making Om palatable.
