We Are Hex/Goldmines at Indy

  I have not really traveled much since Whitby where over a few visits I grew comfortable going there. And that was a long time ago. Then, I grew comfortable going to the familiar venues in Chicago. Reaching that comfort level one show at a time. Getting to know a venue, a city takes time.  Getting to know a town through its small venues is how I like to break ice. I went to see We Are Hex in their native town of Indianapolis, in a local place, State Street Pub I believe. It also functions as the home of Glory Hole records. I arrived early enough to catch a lot of Goldmines. I liked them right off. So I bought from them a shirt, cassette with download code for Drag. I don't know which ones at the show were from Drag, but I am all up into now. This was my first time seeing them.  They are from Cleveland, OH. They were once in a band called Hot Cha Cha. I recall Jilly wearing shirts with that name on it.  I did not know this was also a band. None of this I knew walking in. I'm barely taking in the venue and they go and had to be awesome all over it. Its probably a good thing when the first impression of the place is the band. And now that I can name them, well after the show and in the comfort of my own thoughts, I would lean more garage than punk with manic bouts of psychedelic. American, I mean. it would shock to hear them sound like English chavs. They got a cardio system built on running on sand by the beach. Perhaps one may retort...."where are there beaches in Indy". Well metaphorical beaches you can just trip right over. Some tracks, .....Dowager,  indeed effortlessly evoke this image for me of the beach, or at least summer time. . How Far is kicking my ass all over the room. The sweetness found in this does not overpower beyond the wonder. Free Ride, Not the Lion, each song will introduce the visual of their show all over again.
    Gold Coast induces the cinematic feeling of a protagonist in the movie that everyone can relate to in the middle of that climactic moment. It has the urgency of knowing you can lose it all if you don't sprint for it. Or it can be just me projecting.  Goldmines is absolutely great and I was not expecting it to walking in State Street. And this is what introduced me to the Indy music scene, State Street Pub and I am happy that this was so. I don't know if they ever performed in Chicago. I hope they do. I will look for them.
  When WAH played Burlington in Chicago, I missed it, but I made it to buy their latest release Bleach Brigade and a shirt. Now, here I am at State Street Pub and I've been blown away by the previous act. I don't usually recall which tracks they actually played. I'm barely figuring out I first heard Slowburner at this DIY venue on the south side with Killer Moon. It was loud and powerful even as it broods with a promise to explode. The whole track is the explosion. Jilly's voice, her presence is powerful like a howling wolf. Dante would not have walked into that dark wood if it was Jilly he encountered and not that she-wolf that he wrote about. He would have missed out on a good gig. You know what....he would have put a whole different spin on that whole fucking Inferno.
  Their shirts are always impacting and awesome. When you like the music a lot, its believing in their product, and by some weird extension a way of believing in oneself. Seeing this band....familiar....Gigs wildly different from each other but always explosive, powerful. We Are Hex are pliable and adaptive, on the edges of the urban, wild and weird.  For me its no problem to see how different their recorded work can be from their live shows. You are experiencing almost two different bands in one. And Bleach Brigade grows on me still.

  In no need to impress crudely with frilly goth costumes, Jilly in a black hoodie,  bounces around aggressively like a live wire on the ground after a tornado hits. She sweats out the black and heavy hoodie and eventually removes it. You can see her tatted arms. My first time seeing this on a Free Monday at Empty Bottle, her movements seemed chaotic, spazzy and fully in the moment. It was like turning and burning in a fucking muscle car. I know, I know. I always pulling out that metaphor for them. Many moons later I see the order in her movements and it still commands attention. She walks and charges around the crowd. Touching some of us like a preacher, hand on forehead.  Only she ain't exorcising nothing from you.  Sharing the demon with you instead. I already compared her to a live wire, what's going to happen when it touches you. This is after reading about that very same preacher comparison somewhere. Here she is right in front of me, her  hand on my forehead for a stretch of two seconds, and then meandering on to the next fourth wall to shatter. Jilly climbed the bar, is on the floor, she breaks the fourth wall, and some windows.   So this show......Its imprint like its the fucking shroud. Only this shroud has eyes that seems to stare back from every possible angle. This is music that I still listen to since the first time seeing them. It becomes the thing, the yardstick that spontaneously measures on the spot and  everything afterwards. And it was not felt remotely. It blows the mind to have seen them in such relatively small venues, and to have met them and they remember you.  So I wanna walk around with their shirt on, sweat into it while working out or just to another show. I am only too happy to bring it home and represent while trying to do that one last pull-up.
Zig