Kahoots! Palomar

When we arrived, the band was sitting in the darkest corner of the room, behind the merch table. In addition to selling of this year's most subversively sweet party albums, Palomar 2, they were also flogging Palomar underwear and hats and shirts that said "My Girlfriend is in Palomar." These are, oddly enough, only available in pink, but they sell anyway.

"We have no idea why the shirts are so popular," says Christina, one of the band's two guitarists, rolling her eyes. Um, it's actually pretty obvious. Rachel, the lead guitarist, Christina and bass player Sarah are pretty, funny, sharp and fearless, and for a certain kind of unintimidated male, very close to the ideal. The sole male in the group, drummer Matt Hauser, had a big, goofy smile on his face pretty much through the whole set -- and face it, you would too, if you were in his place.

Palomar specializes in fast, melodic, carnival-ride punk pop tunes. They'll remind you, by turns, of X and the Breeders and Shonen Knife and, sometimes, of the Go-Gos played on 78 (for those of you who grew up in the digital age, this means really fast). The vocals are very high and tight and fast, layered over solid, bouncy rhythms. This is a band that is not afraid of pop hooks and doo-wop-on-speed choruses -- but if you write them off as pure sugar, you are missing the point of Rachel's sardonic grin.

There are no frills in their set, no jumping up and down, few and short instrumental solos, not much interplay between the band members beyond eye contact and an occasional smile. But the tunes are sharp and ironic, the rhythms fast and insistent, and the singing piercing. It's got to be tough to crank out what are so obviously dance-worthy tunes to a crowd that doesn't budge from their tables. But aside from Rachel's deadpan, "It's like playing a cabaret. Very relaxing," the band made no concessions to its unusually sedate audience.

The band's short set covered most of the highlights of Palomar 2. They began with the manic intensity of "Lesion", in which sing-songy verses gave way to the soaring chorus line "There will come a day where all your songs make sense to me," backed by fast guitars and ringing cymbals. After a song that Rachel introduced only as "our Beatles song", they moved on to the downbeat (by their standards) "Static". Even this relatively slow piece pulsed with nervous energy and tension.

Rachel's question to the audience -- who is Palomar covering in their next tune -- was a cinch for anyone who bought Palomar 2, and a ringer in the audience yelled out "Eno" to win a Palomar hat. The Palomar version is leaner and faster than the original "I'll Come Running", and the band clearly enjoys playing it. Even the drummer gets to sing a little. Soon after, it was time for my favorite track from the second album, the disc-opening "Knockout", with its cloud-brushing "do-do" chorus and cheerleader yells. "New Day", a slower, more thoughtful piece introduced by snaky guitar, captured the joys and uncertainties of an unreliable relationship.

There were signs that Palomar is too smart and edgy for rural Western Massachusetts, as city-style sarcasm met with blank earnestness near the end of the show. "We've got two more songs," Rachel said, and the woman who won the hat groaned audibly. "Oh, you know everything, and you hate us, too," Rachel cracked, with a fine, wasted display of New York irony. Her accidental heckler hastened to explain, "No, you took that the wrong way. I love you." The eyes rolled again -- Palomar does a lot of this -- as if to say, sure, you love us, but you really don't get us.

Palomar closed their set with "Up!", performed without the help of Nick and Albert from the Strokes, who provide vocal backup on the album version of the song. "I wonder why things cease to fly?" the band sang, and followed with a wordless "Ah-Ah" chorus that truly did.

I knew nothing about Kahoots before the show, except that Palomar liked them and had mostly agreed to the Northampton show because of them. I learned that Kahoots is a mostly Martha's Vineyard-based quintet that alternates between straight-up 4/4 punk, slack Stonesy 12/8 ballads and Kinksesque pop. They seem to have some Sebadoh connections, having split a single with Hospital (Lou Barlow's sister's band) and like Sebadoh, their sound is an intriguing mix of traditional pop rock forms and experimentation.

Although tonight's sound emphasized straightforward guitar-based tunes, Kahoots' recorded output is more eclectic. They record with a cellist, and at one point, the band's keyboardist switched from Casio to clarinet. One song had a distinctly proggish spooky keyboard introduction. Another, "Fuck the Queen", was an old-school punk pogo-fest. Still another name-checked Jonathan Richman, and approximated his tuneful weirdness.

Kahoots reinvented themselves from song to song, and as a result reminded me, at least in passing, of a half dozen other acts -- the Jam and Midnight Oil in the punkish tunes, the Kinks in the slower, more literate ones and Gas Huffer in the bluesy stomps. All of their songs are short, tight and well-played, backed by really great drumming of J.J. O'Connell. They're hard to characterize, but easy to enjoy, and that's the bottom line for any concert experience.

Article and photos by Jennifer Kelly.