Critters Buggin: Keeping it unorthodox with a monster jam session

Concert review |

Critters Buggin finished their show at the Tractor exactly where they began Wednesday night — with all four members banging on drums in an unhinged tribal freak-out and the crowd lurching along with them.

OK, that's not true — that's where Critters Buggin should've finished their show, but this band of possessed geniuses was indifferent to the crowd's limited tolerance for bang-a-can convulsions and completely wrapped up in its own rabid momentum. The rhythmocetric quartet played a half-hour past its own climax, proving a crucial point about all of Skerik's projects: The music isn't for you, regardless of how much you paid for it (in this case, a whopping $20 at the door on a Wednesday night). Rather, the music is for the musicians. If you happen to be astute/involved/intoxicated enough to catch their drift, they will usher you to sonic heights you otherwise never would've known. Along with the cover charge, attention must be paid.

Critters Buggin is a 15-year-old homegrown unit renowned for performing in Mexican wrestling outfits and bashing drums with unorthodox (i.e., unprintable) body parts. Wednesday night, though, the quartet — mop-topped Mike Dillon on vibraphone and miscellaneous percussion; dead-serious Brad Hauser on bass; Seattle drum major Matt Chamberlain on drums; mad doctor Skerik on organ and electronically-enhanced saxophone — were mostly sober and studied, albeit studied in a weird language all their own. Songs from early Critters albums surfaced during the double set, a particular rhythm or chord change instigating long, meandering, and ultimately satisfying traipses across unpredictable spazz-jazz landscapes. Any two-set show is bound to arrive at a much different place than it started, and after three hours of music with a 20-minute break, only the hardcores — mostly pony-tailed dudes and the sandaled dudettes who love them — stuck around to find out exactly where that place was.

They were rewarded with a mesmerizing performance. The music — loud, abrasive, sometimes laugh-out-loud dissonant — was not for everyone. Passive listeners seeking relaxing melodies and hip-swaying grooves should've looked elsewhere, though these elements emerged at various points in the night. Skerik — these days Seattle's only true rock star — led the band through instrumental jams that were simultaneously difficult and addictive. With every skronky, post-jazz hallucination, they revealed a side of the city that's too often buried beneath convention and faddism. If they played a half-hour too long, it was only in an effort to flout expectations. It was the band's first show in Seattle in over a year and they were enjoying their own mayhem too much to stop for anyone.

Jonathan Zwickel: zwickelicious@gmail.com