Noisemakers

Papermaps

Friday night at the El Mocambo, Goodnight, Sunrise was celebrating their first anniversary. The first 100 people got a loot bag that included a coupon for 2 cans of Foster, candies, and other goodies. The first act was a brand-new band, Rulers of the Moon. They played loud, aggressive rock giving the singer lots of opportunities to scream throat-rending lyrics. For my money, they sounded best when he toned down the yelling and added some synth samples; the industrial rock vibe went over much better.

Papermaps was firmly in the rock ballad mode, with most songs wistfully describing broken relationships. Though the bassist for tonight was the original bassist, they only played a few old tunes and stuck to new songs including brand-new ones such as "Nobody's Perfect" and "Broken". They ended their set with the anthemic "You Are My Gallows". For a second, it looked like lead singer-guitarist Dean Marino was going to smash his instrument. But he changed his mind and a good thing, too; that'd be an expensive way to conduct small gigs.

Goodnight, Sunrise came on a little after midnight. I couldn't get much handle on their music, a kind of generic indie-rock. Not sure if they have found a good sound yet. They have 2 great singers, male and female, and should play on that dynamics more often or gear the songs to one singer or the other. Before the closing song, a cover of "Psycho Killer", they handed out glow-sticks and got the crowd to dance around.