West Coast indie bands to rock for WRBC

To celebrate the end of the academic year, WRBC-FM presents three up-and-coming independent bands in concert: Hella, The Quails and The Aislers Set. This concert sponsored by the college radio station will be held at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 30, in the Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St. The show is free and open to the public.

“This has been a watershed year for our radio station, and we felt the best way to celebrate would be a free concert,” explains Tucker McKinney, WRBC’s special-events director. “It’s a way to reward both our deejays and our listenership for making the year so successful.”

Headlining is The Aislers Set, which “masterfully blends ’90s shoegazer guitars with ’60s girl-group production,” according to the Village Voice, and will appeal to listeners on either side of the generation gap. Their latest album, How I Learned to Write Backwards, is on Suicide Squeeze records.

San Francisco-based, The Quails are fresh off a recent tour with Sleater-Kinney. Their music is an improbable marriage of folk, soul and punk, and their message is one of political revolution. Their latest record, Atmosphere (Inconvenient Press Recordings) possesses an energy that only hints at the passion of their live shows.

Joining these bands are Sacramento noise-rockers Hella, whose music is a blissful cacophony of distorted guitars and complicated rhythms. Despite being only a two-piece band, Hella creates dense and intricately layered compositions. The Internet magazine Flak writes, “It seems impossible that only four hands are behind Hella.”

Concert organizers hope that the promise of such music, rarely heard on the East Coast, will draw students and community members alike despite the Sunday night time slot. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., with refreshments to be provided.