hella (thing)

The first time I saw Hella, it was at the Capitol Garage Coffee Company on L Street in downtown Sacramento, one of the only good musical venues in Sacramento, but in fact one of the better ones I've been to anywhere. This was in the Spring of 2001; the band, themselves from Sacramento, had only been a touring band for a matter of days. They had only been a band for a matter of months. Needless to say, given their name and obscurity, I feared for my evening.

As luck would have it, they rocked. I even bought their overpriced demo CD.

Barely a full year later, I was surfing the All Music Guide for information on a K Records band I had seen when something in the list of 'similar bands' caught my eye. Hella? I clicked and there they were, drummer Spencer Seim and guitarist Zach Hill with a record deal and a blurb on AMG only a litle over a year after forming. "Bad ass," I thought, "one more small thing to be proud of in a city otherwise barren of talent. And I acquired their debut CD.

I was glad to see that they hadn't entirely sold out their musical style to cut a record deal, which is amazing, since I thought they would at least acquire a vocalist. AMG describes their sound as Noise Rock, Indie Rock, but I think their influence is a lot stranger than that. In my mind, Zach's peculiar method of plucking and tweaking his guitar ike a dueling punk banjoist bears less relation to famouse Noise influences like the Boredoms or Unwound than to some jazz guitarists. In any case, it gives the music a distinctly popping, energetic feel, like their always straining to reach the crescendo of some fast-pitched note war. The melody gives way easily to interludes of frenzied building and cheering from the audience.

Seim's drumming in no way drags, either. He manages to pump out intricate rhythms with speed and complexity at least equal to Hill's snapping melodies, and sometimes sets the pace himself. The effect is both simple and complex. In one sense, the arrangement of one drummer and one guitarist limits the sound, but in another clears the riffs and keeps the pace from becoming to abrasive. All in all, it's damned danceable, ad that's a treasured thing in an indie band.

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