The Johnstonsons
Stadt Garten
3980 2nd Avenue, Detroit
Saturday, January 25
The last $5 punk show I went to was in a dank basement.
Never thought I’d go to one inside of a hair salon / German wine and biergarten in an old Victorian manor for the same price.
Oh, how times have changed!
With a glass of funky orange German table wine in hand (Müller-Ruprecht Orange, to be exact, with notes of “orange blossom, mandarin orange, jasmine and overripe mango” to make for a “complex and enticing aroma”), I accepted the idea that getting older is great.
I can hang onto my youth by doing something I used to, in an “elevated” way in a different decade of life altogether. To boot, looking around a room of people and not knowing anyone at a Detroit cultural event was a relief.
It was not the same ol’ folks circulating the same ol’ shows. It was the first live music this space had hosted.
I wanted to wax poetic about how this might be a model for indie shows moving forward in light of major corporations monopolizing damn near every traditional venue in town and choking out the emerging local talent from sharing the stage with bigger, national acts.
In fact, it’s just an evolution of a DIY ethos that refuses to die. They’ve got the space, and they’re going to use it as they see fit. It just simply can’t die (and spoke to the young faces in the crowd -- the next generation putting in their time).
That’s what Stadt Garten offered up over the weekend. Limited to 40 people, it was an intimate performance a little too well lit but with great sound. The wine bar in the back; the salon acting as a backdrop for the bands, complete with wash sink and plenty of conditioner bottles lined up.
Crushing cans of PBR was not on the menu, as it was in the dank basement days of $5 punk shows. Instead, Stadt Garten actually sold out of their orange wine as musicians and patrons alike “finished the bottle by the neck, a term Stadt Garten staff love to use, apparently.
Missed the two opening acts -- DJ Diego and Ingo Swann -- but landed in time for The Johnstonsons. A lovingly retro new wave act, powered by the soaring reverb guitar work of Tim Barrett and the charming frontman antics of Nate Zinzi.
I loved the live performance of Johnstonsons more than the recordings they’ve got out -- and that says a lot because I love their recordings. There’s this goth-rock-new-wave-no-wave revival happening in Detroit and beyond.
Bands like Johnstonsons prove there’s still something new to say in an vintage format that the Cure, My Bloody Valentine and even Detroit’s own shoegaze gods Her Majesty Crush helped perfect in the era when it was born, re-formatted and duplicated over and over again.
But the space itself is what made this night special. Like viewing art in different contexts, the space you see it in is everything.
At a traditional venue, it might’ve just been lost in the sauce… another night of live music… another revival of something old, presented in a “new” way with a youthful vigor.
Combined with the urge to host art out of an unexpected space, however, it gave everything a bit more gusto and a bit more purpose that we’re preserving a DIY ethos that only stays alive because there’s nights like these to keep it off life support.
This review is published in partnership with WDET.
