Onion A.V. Club Red Rucks Tour feat. VHS Or Beta: at The Mercy Lounge (Nashville, TN) Mon. October 29, 2012

Onion A.V. Club Red Rucks Tour feat. VHS Or Beta

Presented by Killian's Irish Red

Nashville Scene Critic's Pick …

Depending on your perspective, the early Aughts were either an incredibly exciting time to listen to indie rock or an exhausting era rife with hipster garbage. The dominant sound, propagated by Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol and The Rapture, in particular, was dance (or disco) punk, and kids who once despised the clubbing class were finding every reason to spend Saturday nights in a drunk and slutty mess on dance floors from New York City to L.A. to Nashville (thanks to Buddytown and Left Can Dance). The Brooklyn-via-Louisville duo VHS or Beta also figured prominently in that scene, though they never reached the acclaim of the aforementioned acts. Still, they made a name for themselves by adopting a purer French house and trad-disco feel than their more Gang of Four-influenced peers, and honed their chops by DJing and remixing other acts while most of these bands explored other avenues. Is dance punk dead? Probably. But VHS or Beta don’t seem to care, which is endearing considering the point of this music is to make people stop thinking so hard about what’s cool and simply have a good (and, well, drunk and slutty) time.

—RYAN BURLESON