December 26
Dads w/ Yuppies and Places We Slept
The Slowdown, 729 North 14th St.
9 p.m., $5, theslowdown.com
Dads play simple-as-shit, noisy pop songs with an overcaffienated exurberance that suddenly is short supply in the years since Times New Viking briefly brought this aesthetic out of the basements of fringe-pop fanatics and to the shores of indie’s mainstream hivemind. What makes Dads stand out is their keen focus not on noise, but on melodic bliss delivered with half-nerdy, half-snotty youth exurberance. Often fizzy keyboard lines rise most prominently above the lo-fi din, cushioning he static of tumbling drums and pawn shop cheapo guitars. This show serves as a kick-off to the band’s post-Christmas Midwest tour. Yuppies and Places We Slept help send Dads off. Yuppies offer up their rougher, meaner take on lo-fi pop lacing melody with stark, angular post-punk. Places We Slept play twee-ish indie pop marinated in its own house-show hardcore education.