Car Seat Headrest, Stef Chura & The Pukes- Turner Hall Ballroom, 7/17/16

photo by Stephen Bloch

Shredding guitar, anxiously gritty vocals and pounding drums boomed throughout the Turner Hall Ballroom during the riveting 70 minute set from young Seattle buzz rockers, Car Seat Headrest.  The quartet has generated a great deal of attention in the music scene these days, and stopped by Milwaukee after playing the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, often deemed a mecca for buzz bands.  

Car Seat Headrest seem like a group of unassuming young fellows on stage, but man can these guys deliver the rock.  For a group of musicians in their early twenties, they have a remarkably advanced sound.  The star of the show was guitarist Ethan Ives, whose stage presence was reminiscent of a young left-handed version of Slash from Guns 'N Roses.  With his moppy hair flailing from side to side, Ives's fast tempoed staccato style paired perfectly with the spoken-word, sometimes yelled, ambiguous vocals from Will Toldeo, the songwriter of the group.  With catchy lines that demand thought and further examination like, the quirky line from "Vincent," "They got a portrait of Van Gogh on the Wikipedia page for clinical depression, well that helps to describe it," Toledo and company tore through their set.  

photo by Stephen Bloch

Car Seat Headrest's material varies in length, and the band wisely complemented their set to balance their longer, jammier explorations like "Vincent" and "The Ballad of Costa Concordia" amidst shorter numbers like "Something Soon," and "Fill in the Blank."  In an interesting choice, the band also did a remarkable cover of David Bowie's "Blackstar," as their second tune of the night.

Car Seat Headrest has nowhere to go but up in the music business and judging from the highly energized and engaged crowd at Turner Hall, I am sure that they will continue to evolve their unique rock sound.

Setlist:
Unforgiving Girl (She's Not An)
Blackstar **- David Bowie Cover
Times to Die
Fill in the Blank

America (Never Been)
Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales
Vincent

Something Soon
The Ballad of the Costa Concordia
Encore:
Stop Smoking
Destroyed by Hippie Powers

photo by Will Piper

Opening for Car Seat Headrest were two bands.  The first was Milwaukee local power-punk rockers, The Pukes.  For their first time at Turner Hall, the band seemed remarkably comfortable on stage and played more tunes in a half hour than just about any other act I can remember recently.  The Pukes's lead guitarist and frontman Jules Frank is quite the entertainer.  Their surfier material was particularly catchy and the large crowd that gathered for their set were bopping along with the tunes from the first note on.

photo by Will Piper

Second act, Stef Chura, hailed from Detroit Michigan and had a bit more of a muddled grunge sound. They were well-received, and, like the Pukes, tried to cram as many tunes into their set as possible.