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The Men, The Gotobeds, SAVAK (ex-Obits) & Christines helped celebrate Cake Shop's 10th anniversary (pics)

photos by Jena Cumbo; words by Bill Pearis

The Men / The Gotobeds / SAVAK / Christines
The Men
The Gotobeds
SAVAK
Christines

Cake Shop wrapped up its month-long 10th anniversary celebration on Saturday (5/30) with a pretty killer lineup of The Men, The Gotobeds, SAVAK, and Christines. Pictures from all four sets are in this post.

This was the live debut of SAVAK, which features Sohrab and Greg from Obits, and they seem to have appeared fully formed. (Obits made their live debut at Cake Shop, too.) Drawing from a variety of “pre-funk post punk” influences, SAVAK (their name a reference to the Shah of Iran’s infamous/feared/hated secret police) pretty much knocked the unsuspecting audience for a loop. Sohrab traded vocal duties (often within the same song) with the band’s other guitarist, Michael Jaworski, which brought an interesting dynamic to the band’s, taught, angular punk. SAVAK also had two drummers: Matt Schulz (Enon, Holy Fuck, Late Night w/ Seth Meyers band) joined themfor the first half of the set which leaned more “rock,” and then Benjamin Van Dyke (who’s played with Will Oldham and others) joined them for the second half which leaned more towards artier post-punk. Both were excellent. (Schulz, in particular, is a fun drummer to watch.) SAVAK’s set included a cover of The Stranglers’ “Get a Grip On Yourself” and “This Currency Exchanged” which BrooklynVegan premiered a couple weeks back. A very, very impressive start.

The Gotobeds seemed a little more at home in the tight confines of Cake Shop than their last NYC show (The Wick with Protomartyr) and really fed off the audience on Saturday. Their set featured most of the “hits” from last year’s Poor People Are Revolting, including shout-along “NY’s Alright.” They were terrific. Christines, whose stratospheric shoegaze is in the Swervedriver universe, started off the evening’s festivities. I bolted before The Men’s headlining set (their first NYC show in nearly a year) to catch Darling Buds at Knitting Factory. Next time.

More pics from Cake shop, below….

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