Plastic Containers, 8/21/04

When listening to an unfamiliar rock song, I often find myself dissecting its structure in my head: find the I and V and IV chords, identify the verse and bridge and chorus, listen for ways in which the lyrics mirror the song's structure, and (of course) note any irregularities. As Wordsworth noted, this kind of dissection necessitates a previous murder, but since the soul of rock music has never spoken much to me, I have often proceeded unaware of its pleas as I subconsciously unsheath the mental knife, release the song's life and turn it into a scheme. It takes a really good rock song or a really receptive me to get into the rock, is what I'm saying.

Of course, everything's better live, and so I arrived expectant at the Plastic Containers' show on August 21st at the Grog and Tankard in upper Georgetown. (In doing so, I proved once again what many of my friends have known for a long time: if you [in this case, Brian Metropolitan] send me an e-mail advertising your role in a performance, I am likely to actually show up.) And the point of that introduction was to hereby state that I was quite often actually into the songs the PlastiCons played during their 45-minute set, without my very own rock autopsy practitioner intervening at all. I could certainly give you details about the hooks, the rhythms, the dramatic arcs, etc., of the songs — "Gun Control" impressed me particularly in these respects — but the surprising thing from my perspective was that these things actually made real emotions rise in me for most of the evening. In short, I was rocking, and the Plastic Containers were the cause thereof.

Good job, gentlemen.

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