The Kirksville Socialite

Pony and Ryan of The Melismatics. Media Credit: Casey Millburg.

Posted by Casey Millburg.

It’s been about ten minutes since The Poison Control Center ended their set and half of the people on the Wrong Daddy’s dance floor have decided to grab whatever tables can be found.  The other half of the crowd is milling about in a post-play adrenalized frenzy; they’re like closet junkies, casting half-hidden and half-desperate glances at The Melismatics as they’re setting up their gear on stage, silently pleading with the group to dose them up with the sound of something good.

The lights are casting bright spotted patterns upon the band members as they go about their business, and as I’m watching them move through the sea of dots I remember a story I came across while getting ready to interview band frontman Ryan Smith.  There was one night when they were playing a gig to which only five people had shown up for, and while the band they were playing with viewed the small crowd as a pass to mess around onstage, The Melismatics gave all five attendees a proper show.  Among the small number of attendees, unbeknownst to either of the groups, was an advertising executive who enjoyed The Melismatics’ set so much that he ended up offering them fifteen grand for rights to one of their songs.

The moral of the story is that the group never quits.  “Our shows are high energy, we always put one-hundred-and-ten percent in,” Smith explains to me during our interview.  That proves to be quite an understatement.

Concertgoers asking for more. Media Credit: Casey Millburg.

Abruptly, the patterned lighting disappears and the room darkens.  Some people begin to stand up and make their way towards the stage where Pony, Ryan, Mark and Ron are fine-tuning their instruments, but a fair amount of people are still sitting down.

And then The Melismatics start playing.

It’s literally like a collective “whoa” goes through the room, there’s no other way to describe the sensation but to say that the sound hits you as a perfectly orchestrated onslaught of guitar riffs, vocals and beats, with the pulsating thud-thud-thudding of the bass line of “Soul Sucker” driving it all home.  Their sound is relentless, and looking around the room I see that more than a few people actually have stunned looks on their faces; if this is only the first song, what happens next?  It doesn’t take long for many of those still sitting down to maneuver their way closer to the front to find out.

Smith describes their sound as being rooted in power pop, “definitely influenced by post-punk and punk and new wave.  Basically, we’re a band of a lot of different types of music, we like to integrate everything into what we produce.”

It’s a sound that’s been well-received many times over.  They’ve rocked CMJ, Austin’s Mecca-like SXSW in 2007 and Molly Malone’s out in L.A., and the ever-innovative John Fields helped produce their fourth album, “The Acid Test,” after seeing the band live at SXSW. (I highly recommend the album, by the way, it was just

Ryan Smith. Media Credit: Casey Millburg.

released at the end of September and can be purchased online or on iTunes.)  The Melismatics also played Lollapalooza this past summer alongside such artists as The Ting Tings, MGMT, Jack White and The Black Keys, after winning the concert’s intense “Last Band Standing” contest.

“Lolla was kind of a trip,” Ryan says, “We were surrounded by great bands we grew up listening to.  And everyone was in such close quarters, we’d be sitting down and the Ting Tings would be right there, just a few feet away.   It was pretty cool.”

By their third song two guys up at the very front of the crowd are bowing at the waist in front of the band, their hands extended, beckoning for more as Ryan coaxes sounds that are at once both scorching and haunting out of his guitar.  I’d read several reviews describing their live performance as “euphoric”; it’s that, to be sure, but there’s also an element of danger about the group that makes you almost afraid to take your eyes off of them for even a second.  It’s exciting, there’s something in their stances, the way they sing into the mics, their uncompromising insistence on always—always—giving nothing less than that one-hundred-and-ten percent (and frequently more than that) that lets you know The Melismatics are fully capable of throwing it down any way they like, and that you better get ready to take it because it’s coming at you whether you’re ready or not. 

To call their show an intense experience would probably be proper; at several points during the beginning of the set the equipment begins to overloads with power, especially Pony’s.

Pony (who is married to Ryan) is the woman standing to his right, and the same one I saw outside the club earlier on in the evening.  Allow me to be perfectly blunt: Pony rocks.  I don’t know how many times I found myself thinking this on Saturday night, but it’s true.  She’s got an onstage swagger that gives any rapper out there a run for their money and a no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners approach to playing that holds your

Pony. Media Credit: Casey Millburg.

attention captive.  A memo to any aspiring little rockstarlets out there:  ditch Hannah Montana, and ditch her fast.  If this means burning half of your wardrobe, so be it, because Pony’s the one you should be keeping an eye on.

Saturday’s show was Pony’s first time playing in Kirksville, but the overall band’s fifth. 

“We’ve had really good experiences in Kirksville, Royce Kallerud [of Kirksville Rocks!] has been pretty good with putting awesome shows together.   There’s a cool radio station, it seems like there’s a good environment with the college and there’s a lot of cool bands playing here,” Ryan explains.

Of course, Smith has seen a few cool bands in his day, too: 

“Radiohead, for sure.  Radiohead is always a good show.  There’s also a band from Minneapolis that broke up about…probably five or six years ago, ‘12 Rods,’ that I first saw play after they’d moved to Minnesota from Ohio.  They came out in the Minnesota scene really strong and they were like nothing I’d never seen before, I remember the first time I saw them it was, like, ‘up there’ as far as the impact and impression it made for what a live show should be like.”

 The Melismatics are the latest in a long line of Minneapolis-bred bands and musicians.  From the Twin Cities have emerged such varied and critically-acclaimed musicians as Bob Dylan, Prince, The Replacements,

The Melismatics. Media Credit: Casey Millburg

Atmosphere and Hüsker Dü.  There’s a thriving underground hip-hop scene in the area—actually, there’s a thriving scene of almost every genre of music in the area: electronic, techno, indie bands and folk all flourish courtesy of the culture rife with independent labels, radio stations and performing venues.

It’s an environment that’s nurtured a love for the art of performing in many an artist, Ryan being no exception.

“I feel like this is what I was born to do, there’s nothing else I want to do and I knew that at an early age.  I think that’s there’s a driving force that makes you continue to do this, playing shows and being gone a lot is difficult in a lot of ways but it’s also exciting because you meet a lot of people around the country.  You get to know them and they become friends and it’s always exciting to go back to those things.  It’s an innate thing that I can’t escape, and I think that everyone in our band would say the same thing.”

Everyone is on a massive high as end of the set arrives and The Melismatics receive some well-deserved cheers from the crowd.  The spotted lights come on again but this time no one moves to sit down; instead, everyone is standing up and moving towards the stage where Dressy Bessy is quickly setting up shop.  They’re riding on the amazing sea of energy built up by The Melismatics and The PCC, the atmosphere is electric, and when Dressy Bessy frontwoman Tammy Ealom stands in front of the microphone and says,

“Hey everyone, we’re Dressy Bessy and we don’t bitch: we just rock.”

The place goes nuts.