by Fred
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Here is how the tall guy behind the piano tells it: a big-venue show is like a keg party. You invite everyone you know, and tell them to bring everyone they know. You gulp down cheap beer from beer bongs, everyone’s clothing gets a bit too warm, and then things get weird. This show — featuring Wakey!Wakey! with Denton’s own Andrew Tinker — was different. It was more akin to a wine and cheese affair, with a few close friends. Wine is sniffed, examined, and sipped. Cheese is nibbled. Sophisticated banter is exchanged. Politics and religion are avoided, but the coastline paradox is not.

Then, after too much chardonnay, everyone’s clothing gets a bit too warm, and then things get weird.

Wakey!Wakey! — at least for this brief, intimate tour — is Mike Grubbs and Caitlin Moe, with Grubbs on piano, lead vocals, and stand-up comedy, and with Moe on a mean violin, and backing vocals. The urge to describe this diminished roster as “stripped down” is nearly overwhelming, save for this, the fact that the term is soaked with expectations. The present correspondent had no expectations. I had only fleeting knowledge of the band when walking into Rubber Gloves last Saturday, and had never heard a single note of their music.

As luck may have it, piano, voice and violin is not a bad introduction to the realm of Wakey!Wakey!, either.

The set was short, and early: just shy of a dozen tracks, wrapping up a few minutes to nine. Post-meridian. The musical terrain was mixed, covering roughly half of the 2010 LP Almost Everything I Wished I’d Said the Last Time I Saw You…, three tracks from the 2009 EP War Sweater (great title track, if you haven’t already heard it), and a well-met nod to Cyndi Lauper.

And Mike Grubbs, live. Damn.

The vocals are savory. Tragic. Often slurred with heartbreak. Keen on drama and tension. His court jesting between songs (if you know anyone who saw the show, ask them about the train) belied what must certainly be a deep well of scarring. Maybe it’s just personal circumstance, but if they had performed “Light Outside” I would have sobbed. Yet again, there is the playful bit during “Square Peg In A Round Hole,” and the whirling Eastern European dervish that is “Take It Like A Man.” You see why Grubbs has taken up acting, although you’re probably a bit reluctant to ask him about it.

Stand-out tracks were the aforementioned, Cold War-cool, “Take It Like A Man” and “1876-The Brooklyn Theatre Fire,” which didn’t sound too far off from this:

You’ve read, or maybe seen first-hand, that the Wakey!Wakey! stage can reach 18 members in all. It’s hard to know what to do with all the rest, because Grubbs and Moe absolutely filled the place with sound.

* * * * *

Local pianoman Andrew Tinker warmed up the small, rather timid crowd (and keep in mind, this was 6:45 Saturday afternoon, so we needed it). None of the tracks were familiar to the Muse crews, but you can get a feel for his vocal stylings here. Tinker’s sound traversed between piano pop, country, and Heartbreak Hotel. His vocal control is exquisite, and his interests, multi-faceted. Watching the singer work the room between sets was a telling reminder of the new music industry and its growing pains.

At least one of the co-bloggers lamented the venue as a poor representation of the North Dallas indie rock scence. (“Rubber Gloves is a dump” was, I believe, the soundbite.) But I wouldn’t describe it that way. A better word: “cheesy.” Of or pertaining to cheese. As in: wine and cheese. Indeed, the perfect venue for things to get perfectly weird. But only in an intimate, coastline paradox sort of way.