Brian Slattery Photos
Schlesinger.
Best Video’s transformation into a steady outdoor club continued on Friday evening with sets by two bands with different angles on their music, but a common commitment to psychedelia and a mission to transform the space into something else.
Shyne and the Family Stoned.
The New London-based Slyne and the Family Stoned — today, Michael Slyne on guitar and Randall Elliott on pedal steel — dove in deep with a 20-minute performance. It started with a drone from a sampled organ and a woman’s voice making a statement: America is about “buying, eating junk, and selling junk … it’s dying on its own ass and it can’t see why.” Elliott drummed on the strings of the pedal steel to thicken the organ’s drone, and Slyne’s guitar melted into it. Together Slyne and Elliott moved into more distorted, darker textures, settling in on a sound like a very slow country song disintegrating at the end of the bar long after closing time. It was raucous and also somehow deeply meditative.
Slyne fed distortion back into his map to produce a wall of feedback, while Elliot used a violin bow to produce a shimmering melody from his instrument. Slyne then tossed his guitar to the deck, where it was still producing feedback, and returned to his samples. As Elliott got acrobatic on the pedal steel, Slyne let out a recording of a man enthusiastically singing “Amazing Grace,” the strong voice rising over the din. That dine began to clear and a chorus of serene notes shone through. Slyne ended with another sample, this one of Charlie Chaplin’s last speech in the film The Great Dictator, a cry for humanity in the face of tyranny. The growing crowd clapping enthusiastically at the set’s end.
The New Haven-based Drifting North — Jon Schlesinger on vocals and guitar, Richard Brown on guitar, Scott Amore on keyboards, and Michael Kiefer on drums — started where Slyne left off, with a drone from the guitars and keys that Kiefer then fixed to a groove. The band’s first song, “King of the Corner,” strutted out of the fog like a conquering champion. Brown went for psychedelic guitar and atmosphere while Amore both held down bass and used the feed from Schlesinger’s guitar to create an expansive bed of sound for the song to rest in. As Drifting North moved through its set, the parking lot filled with people, chatting and listening — an audience of about 50, turning the pavement in front of Best Video into a gathering place for neighbors and a meeting ground for friends.
“Anybody got a cigarette?” Schlesinger said toward the end of the band’s set. “That was a joke. I don’t expect anyone to be smoking here. But if you do smoke, this is a good song to smoke to.” The band then headed into a shuffling version of Merle Haggard’s “Silver Wings” and got spacey with it. Schlesinger and Brown traded ideas on guitars while Amore added layer after layer of sound. The band created waves of music that washed over the crowd, cooling the air on an early summer night.
