Concert Review: Torche And Big Business’ Unlikely Business Deal

With the major labels on the outs, a set of unlikely candidates is stepping in to help fill the vacuum: other corporations - specifically, ones that haven’t been traditionally associated with music.

The day before last Halloween, Verizon celebrated the launch of the Blackberry Storm with a decadent party. That much was expected. What wasn’t was that the company would shell out however many thousands to coax Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age into playing sets at the Avalon in front of a mix of corporate lushes, lucky contest-winning fans and members of an older age bracket that didn’t quite get the appeal of either band.

Last night at the Knitting Factory - the one in Hollywood, duh - the same thing happened on a smaller, and much, weirder scale. Scion threw a bash - this one not seemingly based around anything in particular - and recruited Torche and Big Business to play the role of the evening’s performers/entertainers/lounge acts.

[IndiePit Blog loyalists will recall that we anticipated the gig with this news item.]

Now, Torche and Big Biz are about as un-photogenic as they come. Their grungified, gutteral music can be perceived as beautiful, in an abstract or demented sense, but when looking at beer bellies and wiry-haired beards, “photo op” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

And that stands as one of the reasons the marriage between the bands and a car company - which of course is obsessed with image and marketing and presentation and all that - is so bizarre.

Another? Even though the bands don’t make much more than dirt, Scion isn’t exactly an affordable line of cars: the xD is listed at $15,320, its xB model has a starting price of $16,420, and the tC is pegged at $17,670.

And this brings us to the third confounding point: The Foos/QOTSA show kinda made sense if for no other reason than it would spark a ton of chatter among the Storm’s target demographic: culturally aware 20- and 30-year olds. But a show by two underground bands for a product that just about no one in the crowd could presumably afford? Was this just a pipe dream conjured by a young exec who fell into a cushy marketing gig? Surely this couldn’t be part of a larger strategy - but then again, it being corporate and all, it must be, right?

It wasn’t our ears that were bleeding at the show - it was our scalp, from all the head-scratching.

At. Any. Rate. Like “Guitar Hero,” late-night shows and other accidental media sometimes give complimentary access to bands that are otherwise inaccessible (in more ways than one), the Scion-sponsored free show provided two powerhouse indie-metal bands an opportunity to - if not transform some newcomers into fans or sell a lot of merch or make Hollywood connections - at least have a good time sharing the same stage.

And have a good time they did. The bands’ sets ran about the same length - 45 minutes or so - and while Big Business have a bit more material under their belt, they did the opening favor. This writer hadn’t seen them since the addition of their third member, Toshi Kasai; the ruling? He is definitely a plus, not a minus.

After witnessing the two-man version of Big Business in concert so many times, it’s easy to forget that the studio recordings of even their earliest songs often incorporated the instrument that configuration lacked onstage: the guitar. But with Kasai - a younger guy, who tends to play with his mouth open - that early material is reintroduced in its original state - or revisited with additional licks that lean hard toward hard-psych. And as far as the later material goes, well, with Kasai contributing from the get-go, the possibilities are endless.

[For Big Business' set list - and a couple of cool mementos from the show - go to the latest edition of "The Shoebox."]

Big Business' Jared Warren

Between sets, the crowd had to tolerate a bit of pro-Scion cheerleading from the MC - but it was a quick moment of hype, much less painful than having to sit through even a Geico commercial.

Thirty minutes later, Torche took the stage, grinning as if they had just been born again. Maybe that’s the trait that best distinguishes the band from its Pacific Northwest brethren - the Miami squad are all smiles, all the time, whereas Seattle folk like Big Business are firmly in the doom-and-gloom camp. It’s hard to imagine that musicians who play such heavy music would be happy-go-lucky types, but then again, in terms of underground metal, Torche’s sound is about as party-oriented as it gets.

Anyway, in a nutshell, the force of the Melvins was strong with both bands last night (Warren and Willis regularly back the band). When Torche weren’t proving with their poppier, three-minute songs that they might actually have some crossover potential - perish the thought, right? - they were launching themselves into the same hypnotic, pulsating well that Big Business spent most of their set snorkeling in.

Torche's Jonathan Nuñez

And when Torche singer/guitarist Steve Brooks came up for air toward the end of the set, he again grinned and drank in the happiness that had clearly nourished him during the show.

To paraphrase him: Hey, we got flown to L.A. on someone else’s dime to play a 45-minute set with one of their favorite bands opening up.

He smiled and took a big gulp from his red plastic beverage container. And as he scanned the crowd - who, like him, were able to enjoy the whole night gratis - it was if he were saying along with them, “We win.”

Torche fans, don’t miss our profile on Pirates Press, which has been pumping out the band’s releases on vinyl.