PYPY - Scared Times

This review you are about to read began being composed in my head shortly after 7:15 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 27.

My head and the rest of my body was located at the front of the stage, dead center inside the Railgarten, located at 2166 Central Ave. in Memphis, Tenn.
Yep you guessed it — I was at Gonerfest again (Gonerfest 21 to be exact) and for the third year in a row.

This was day two of the World’s Greatest Music Festival and let me tell you, day one was a barnburner with performances that would have been roof-raising if it hadn’t been outdoors by artists such as the Pull Chains (new project of Greg Cartwright), TH’ Losin Streaks (who gave a shout out on stage to Green Bay’s favorite band from Illinois Pet Mosquito), MOTO (another Green Bay favorite), Okmoniks (destined to be a Green Bay favorite) and the band that really blew me away on day one — RMFC from Sydney, Australia.

The Aussie bands on Gonerfest the last three years have been mind-melting and mind-blowing at the same time and RMFC kept that tradition proudly going.

I even got to stand next to their drummer Buz’s mum up front during their A+ performance.

So after day one, the betting money was that RMFC was going to be the band that impresses me the most at the Festival.

Even with heavyweight contenders like Gee Tee, the Rip Offs and the Cheater Slicks still upcoming.

Day 2 started out with rain and with rain in the forecast all day, Gonerfest was moved inside the Railgarten.

The rain did not affect incredible performances happening from MSR Jeffrey Evans and Ross Johnson, Sex Mex, Th’ Retail Simps, Sleeveens and others leading up to the time that PYPY from Montreal, Canada hit the stage.
I must admit, I didn’t know a lot about PYPY, besides being familiar with some of the bands their members had been in — most notably Les Sexareenos.
This is exactly why I love Gonerfest. Because it’s so well curated that it’s a guarantee that at least one band that you knew nothing about is going to floor you like Sonny Liston.

At Gonerfest 19, one of those bands for me was Snooper — a band that impressed me so much I vowed to set them up in Green Bay (which was a vow I was able to keep).

Watching PYPY setting up got me intrigued, especially the guitar pedals and effects rack of guitarist Roy Vucino.

Vocalist Annie-Claude Deschenes didn’t take long to take control of the audience with what appeared to be witchcraft, her stage presence via her singing, keyboard playing, dancing and hand gestures mesmerized the audience in conjunction with the bands garage, post punk, disco and new wave beat, uniting the entire audience in musical bliss.

When our minds were in danger of drifting into the ether, a blast of guitar by Roy would pull us down from floating near the ceiling of the room that I’m usually just in for taking a peak at NFL action or using the bathroom during Gonerfest..

Annie-Claude and Roy were quite the duo of musical sorcerers manipulating the crowd for 45 minutes with spells and tarps, literally bringing the crowd to their knees.

Roy is a combination of Robert Fripp and Link Way with a much much better fashion sense.

He is like a 00 agent, but licensed to have a killer effect rack.

Seeing PYPY live, I was worried their upcoming studio album wouldn’t hold up to what I had seen.

I had to wait a few weeks to get Scared Times and to my more-than-pleasant surprise, it doesn’t disappoint in the least.

My favorite tracks are “Lonely Striped Sock,” “Erase,” “15 sec” and “I am a Simulation” (would have fit perfectly on USA’s Night Flight or MTV’s 120 Minutes in 1987).

Sacred Times is a total candidate for album of the year and yes, I vow to set up PYPY in Green Bay.