It's important to understand the environment of your rock show, because it can be a wicked beast, and if you let it gain control of you, it could mean your life. You can have the party, an accepting upheaval of alcohol-fueled positive energy that's bought and sold at your local liquor stores like religion at church, or you can have the pit, a mob of teenage hooligans sweating with drug free intensity. While Daryl Palumbo's full-time band Glassjaw brings the pit, his new side project, Head Automatica, brings the party.
Many fans of Glassjaw are going to be upset here because they will fail to comprehend how Palumbo has changed. They will miss the party, a debauched deluge of what the man himself could only describe as "electronic blue-eyed white boy, white-eyed blue boy soul, but with a lot more cock," which, as the Glassjaw collective will understand, is a huge genre jump from his full-time band. In Palumbo's words though, the difference is simple to describe.
"My other bands?" Palumbo said. "Lots more cock. Like buckets more cock. A lot more cock. Like there was a lot more balls 'cause it was like metal post-hardcore."
Essentially, Palumbo always brings the cock, but while he brought the balls with Glassjaw, with Head Automatica he brings the all-necessary pelvic thrusts. This is dance music for the new generation. Forget the Electric Slide, turn your back on the Two-Step and leave your high-heels at home. This is the glitz and glamour of the party.
"Ya know the party," Palumbo said. "I was at the party last night. I was at the party a couple days ago. My man had some car bombs last night. Awww man, that's what the Head Automatica record is about. It's about that party."
Though this party is a collaboration between Palumbo and Dan the Automator - not to mention a live band featuring members of Glassjaw, Give Up the Ghost when it was American Nightmare, and the Automator's production team - it sounds nothing like Palumbo's previous efforts. Do not be mistaken, this is purely an extension of his musical genius.
"I'm mixing it up," Palumbo said after the band's final show of its first tour, at the Recher Theatre in Baltimore. "I'm not even on some indie rock shit," he said about the forthcoming Warner Bros. release "Decadent." "The record is a f--ing electric f--ing cock rock record. It's like a dance-y cock rock record. Yo, bring your boyfriend, bring your girlfriend, bring your girlfriend's girlfriend, bring all them broads you chill with. It's about the party."
And cloaked in a charcoal-grey suit and a vivid pink dress shirt, donning eyeliner and bright nail polish, Palumbo is the living embodiment of the decadence he is spreading. He is the beast.
