I Am an Essential Element

Author

By Wate Charles

Publish Date

Aug. 16, 2010

"It's DNA," YellowFever drummer Adam Jones says fresh out of the van after a hot drive from Phoenix into "sweater weather" as Roxy Jones howls a mic check at Soda Bar. The Austin-based tropical malady sweated out eight shows at hometown festival South by Southwest a few months back, four in one day, and now head north to Vancouver, but not before a stop at Disneyland for Adam's nine-year-old son, who hangs with the travel-along babysitter while Dad gets loose at the bar.

A far cry from no-wave angular spazzoids DNA, Roxy Jones does jangly rock stuff until the bass cord comes loose and the guitar man proclaims, "What a treat! Fourteen years as a band and nothing's ever gone wrong before." Boy-girl duo YellowFever in twin Morrissey hair-dos give the audience chills with guitarist Jennifer Moore's (in "I am an essential element" T-shirt) Stereolab vocals lilting over minimal kraut-surf melodies.

Locals Apes of Wrath ditched a primate and the goofy moniker to establish themselves as three-piece New Mexico. While cuing up a few old Apes hits, the set echoes the expansiveness of their name, trading dense power-chord verses for melodic leads and reverb.