TAIPEI HOUSTON LIVE AT LE TRABENDO, PARIS

“This music is born and bred out of the contemporary, buzzing digital anxiety we all experience, and how we can try to escape those feelings — even for a second”

Taipei Houston

Depending on how you look at it, Taipei Houston have either had an easy ride to the position they are currently in, or you could say that they have more to prove than almost any other act out there, because while they can’t exactly be classed as musicians struggling to make a living, they do however have a hell of a job to do convincing certain types of people of their right to be on stage in front of them, something other bands don’t have to concern themselves with. Not in the same way at least.

So how would that translate in front of a French audience who are normally not on board with the idea of showing appreciation for anyone who’s been born into any kind of perceived privilege? Would they even care? Unlikely. This is a Parisian rock audience after all, and they are filling Le Trabendo for one simple reason, and that is to enjoy music. 

It was an interesting thought to kill time while the final preparations were being made on stage and the band checked their gear, but it was a thought that, as soon as they started to play, never entered our heads again.

The band have stated : “This music is born and bred out of the contemporary, buzzing digital anxiety we all experience, and how we can try to escape those feelings — even for a second” and in all honesty we managed to escape any such feelings for the entirety of their set, so, to hell with any preconceptions anyone may have had, that’s already old news and completely irrelevant.

Occupying the support slot for The Last Internationale (and playing a set generously shortened in order to give show opener, Carissa Johnson and her band an equal amount of stage time) Taipei Houston proceeded to melt our faces off, in absolutely the best way imaginable, by a giving us a compact, thirty-minute introduction to their sound, kicking things off with the debut album opener, As The Sun Sets.

Despite the fact that there are just two of them on stage, the Trabendo felt, in a way, almost too small to contain the energy generated by brothers Myles and Layne Ulrich. The band themselves are aware that this (usually forty-minute) set is an intense proposition for anyone not used to their sound yet – which is of course most people – and true enough, their sound leaves you with little chance to contemplate anything other than the performance before you.

While the instrumentation on their first album (or “debut project”, as it is described on their website) Once Bit Never Bored is shared between them, live they stick to having Myles on drums and Layne on vocals and bass, albeit using a bass rig with split signals and a collection of fuzz pedals and octave divers which combine to give a bunch of different, and pretty interesting, sounds. The current on-stage arrangement means that Myles’

drum kit is positioned at the front on the right (which could be exaggerated tonight as their equipment is placed in front TLI‘s) so anyone standing over there is not only getting a full earful of his playing, but due to minimal, stripped-down kit he’s playing you can get an excellent view of his playing as well. On balance however it is probably better to get the full impact of the band’s sound from a little further back than the very front rows … if there was one negative to take away from the gig it was that on occasion the distorted guitar/bass sound was so extreme that the music itself was lost in the fuzz.

But, for sure, this was not just an auditory assault – the songs are there and their music is more than just a punk/garage/alt-rock mix. It is also intelligently inventive. The arrangements are not all as expected, there is more than a hint of Radiohead in there at times, and plenty of catching, grooving melodies in the vocals.

Touring on support slots around Europe and the U.S., getting their sound in as many faces as possible, taking everything to 11 every night, is going to do them no harm whatsoever. For the future it will be very interesting indeed to see where the guys can take their two-person line-up musically, and how their own sound will develop over time. When it comes to live performances, the band have stated that they are undecided – but definitely considering – the idea of adding further members in future in order to fill out their sound and to give them more freedom over how they play the songs, so we will see. For now they have something that doesn’t need anyone else’s involvement, but we can be sure that, however they develop, the future will be anything but quiet. 

June 8 sees them back in Paris, and back at the Trabendo, this time supporting the legendary, Melvins. Don’t miss the opportunity to witness Taipei Houston at this stage of their career.