Milwaukee can crank out all the meat-and-potatoes rock and roll it pleases, but the California bands are still gonna get all the glory. Laguna Beach native Ty Segall, a veteran of the nth wave of American garage rock, made a rare stop in town Tuesday night and blazed through a 90-minute set for a boisterous Turner Hall Ballroom crowd. It was the sort of music that’s been heard in bars and clubs all across Wisconsin for the past four or five decades, and as long as guitars can still be plugged into amps, it’ll never die.
Segall came on the scene during the tail end of the ‘00s “shitgaze” craze, when an uber-lo-fi approach to rock music was a marketable asset. Having made the rounds early through hip garage-rock labels like Castle Face, Goner, and In The Red, he’s taken his sound and songwriting in a more polished direction since finding a home at Drag City, resulting in a growing cache of psych/glam/power-pop gems across his formidable discography and beyond it.
Someone in the crowd preempted Segall and shouted, “How’s everybody feelin’ up there?” after Ty and his Freedom Band walked onstage. “We’re good, yeah,” was the frontman’s nonchalant response before launching into “Feel.” Turner Hall shuddered in the glorious guitar din; Segall was about to do his best to strip as much of the remaining paint from the ceiling as possible. “Candy Sam” was almost unrecognizable as it began, distortion cranked to a more fitting level for the song’s vaguely disturbing imagery.
After a fairly faithful rendition of “Thank God For Sinners” came the title track from Segall’s 17th solo album, last year’s Possession. The rollicking country-rock tune got cranked to 11 and the brief instrumental bridge was especially gnarly. It was one of only two songs he played from his latest release, focusing instead on a bunch of as-yet unreleased material to absolutely no one’s dismay. Riding a wave of ongoing creative freshness, Segall already has way too much material for fans to conceivably get precious over individual songs, so the chance to hear new stuff is still a big part of the thrill of seeing Segall live.
“Black Paint” was the first of the new songs, a two-minute slab of aggressive pre-grunge alt-rock, followed by “Buildings,” which crept in gradually, sounding heavier and more foreboding than the studio version. Next, a surprise in “Void,” usually a show-opener when it appears. Originally an acoustic-based tune, this was a fully electrified arrangement that played to the group’s overt psychedelic tendencies, verging on dare-we-say “prog.” Ben Boye’s Wurlitzer made a strong impression during this mid-song jam. It was only a couple minutes long, but the ensemble play was dizzying in the best sense, electrons transcending instruments.
They followed this with a dynamic rendition of “Finger,” arguably Segall’s signature tune at this point, from his 2010 album Melted. A lot can happen in 15 years; few would’ve singled this song out as an enduring staple back then, yet Segall still finds ways to keep the oldies interesting. “Finger” on record almost sounds like a novelty tune now, but with Segall and Emmett Kelly guitar-battling each other into oblivion, it came off like a bona fide anthem.
A slew of new songs followed, highlighted by “Glass,” a long-ish Platinum Boys-esque cruiser that featured a rich slow psych jam as its meat, and “Chrome,” a kraut-gaze barnburner in the vein of Piles. It’s not as though Segall’s studio work is light, but the sheer volume and the booming acoustics of the ballroom amplified the Freedom Band to a new level. It can be a challenging room for some acts, but it couldn’t have been more perfect for Segall.
Chants of “one more song!” began almost immediately after set-closer “She;” the band returned to the stage quickly, Segall declaring, “We’ll play…two more songs for you guys.” The first was the relatively epic “Warm Hands (Freedom Returned),” another opportunity for the group to stretch out with some twin-guitar heroism, and a final capper of “My Lady’s On Fire,” still no acoustic guitar in sight. Perhaps on other tours Segall indulges his mellower side, but not this time; fans who bought tickets to rock the hell out surely got their money’s worth. As one enthusiastic attendee screamed out: “TY SEGALL’S THE FUCKIN’ TRUTH!” Amen to that.
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