This must've been the most doomed pop show of the year. Duke Coffeehouse hasn't been putting on a lot of shows lately, and I believe I'm beginning to see why. The show was to begin at 10pm. By 9pm there was still no one there to even let the bands in the door.
But things finally got rolling around 10:45. My Pretty Finger was up first, they had two guitarists and a drummer. One of the guitarists sang and the other one emulated bass lines on his lowest-pitched strings. I later heard that this was their first show, but I've seen their 7" in stores -- who knows which came first. Anyway, they were pretty loose and looked nervous. They did some covers, including a Joby's Opinion song.
Up next was Skylab. They're from Olympia. They didn't have their own drummer. They borrowed a drummer who didn't know the songs. They seemed like friendly folks and strummed their hearts out for us anyway. They play sometimes loud and sometimes quiet pop songs. They didn't play long.
Then Bunnygrunt came on. They impressed me the most of the four bands. They looked and sounded like they were having a good time -- even if the whole gig was a little shaky to begin with. They played cute pop diddies that were short and to the point.
Tullycraft wasn't having a great night, or so it seemed to me. The guitarist had to lean over and push a button everytime he wanted distortion because his footswitch wasn't working. He shouldn't have bothered because it was much more disruptive having him stop playing to hit the little button than to not have distortion. They finally got their groove going, then they announced it was their last song. I'm not that familiar with their material -- fans of the group might have dug it anyway. For the uninitiated it was a little more difficult.