| Upon first witnessing the band that is
the Big Wow, one is inclined to wonder whether they should be named the Big Huh? Flashy,
thrashing and with brevity to spare, Big Wow rock with such vigor as to make you wonder
what exactly it was that just hit you.
If this particular show is typical of their live offerings
(and a quick survey of the assembled devotees indicated that it was), it would seem safe
to say Big Wow are always in a big hurry. This night they charged through a (barely)
25-minute set, sound check included.
Muddy but infectious, their sound is marked by two things:
the dissonant relationship between guitarist John and bassist Anne and their collective
relationship to drummer Mel N. Koly (Mononyms, it seems, are the rule. Pseudonyms - as in
the case of, um, Koly - are the exception.). Koly’s jackhammer stylings fly into and
out of concert with guitarists’ wall of noise almost arbitrarily it seems.
That is to say every facet of the band is crushing and
distorted, just not at the same time. Which makes for a kind of unsettling – but by
no meets unpleasant – experience.
But the cheeky snarl of Big Wow is perhaps more
thoughtfully conceived than you might suspect. In fact, it’s probably the ultimate
take – the most wowee zowee far out take – on rock posturing. Only not in the
somber-ironic way Marilyn Manson does it.
No, their two-minute trips through "Rainy Forest"
and "This Savage Garden" are hard, but not a little bit fun and – I
can’t believe I’m writing this – heartwarming.
For, while other bands of the same ilk hold themselves up
as nothing if not the product of a hopelessly dysfunctional society, Big Wow seem to thumb
their nose at that notion, via both John’s punchy, evocative lyrics and the
band’s acceptance of the fact that rocking out is, after all, a blast.
Indeed, as one of their songs indicates, "Music
Saves."
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