Green Trees turn into Love Canal, result is chaotic perfection

I showed up a little early. The marquee said the show started at 9:00. I've been doing this long enough, I should know when a show bill says 9 p.m., it really means 10 p.m. But hey, 9:15 leaves me with plenty of time for a drink.

By the time the band started to set up, I already had a pretty good buzz going, which was excellent for what was about to transpire. Green Trees was up first.

From my table in the back corner, already littered with empty beer cans and whiskey glasses, I could see five emaciated men dressed in orange-painted clothes setting up their amps and many pedals. I nestled back in my chair to await the psychedelic onslaught I knew would be...

Wait a minute!

Stop that track.

Rewind.

Five members? As far as I know, Green Trees has three members. They're Green Trees. The noise pop trio of John Freidel, Evan Hill and Joe Foreman. What the hell is this?

Green Trees is no more. The band is still there, but Green Trees they are not. With the addition of UUVVWWZ alum Jim Schroeder on drums and Acid Cowboy, Mark Green, on yet another guitar, what was once Green Trees has become something more. It has become a more vital force. It has become...

Love Canal?

"Tonight you all get to see the birth of Love Canal," Freidel said from the stage, "But not the love of birth canal. That comes later."

So Love Canal is what this "new" group chooses to call itself. To each their own, I guess. I'm game, though. Let's see what they can do.

The first track was an "old" Green Trees song from the "Tubular Dude" EP. It was good.

"We're going to play some of the old Green Trees stuff tonight," guitarist Joe Foreman told me before the set, "But after tonight, we won't be playing them anymore."

So this was more than just the birth of Love Canal. This was Green Trees' send-off show. Well, they were sending it off in style. The additional members brought some freshness to the lineup, especially Schroeder on drums.

"Having Jim drum for us has been really great," Freidel said. "We used to perform with a drum machine, but he's Jim Schroeder, a god among us mere men."

Live drumming is always superior to the fake kind, and Schroeder, although better-known as a guitarist, knows how to beat the skins. It made the live band sound much more, well, live.

Then there's Mark Green on guitar. Now Green Trees already had two guitarists. So why the hell does Love Canal need three? What could the Acid Cowboy possibly contribute here?

In a word, noise.

What most would call "traditional" guitar, playing utilizing scales, chords and picking, is not Green's bag. His guitar is pedals and amps and feedback and drones. Sure all that other stuff goes into it, but that's not what comes out. Green is an architect, fashioning soaring psychedelic head spaces for the songs to live in. If you heard a crunch, that was Green throwing his guitar at the ground as hard as he could, trying to strangle one last burst of sound out of it. If you heard a whine, that was Green doing something hard to describe, making an equally indescribable sound.

All the while, the original Green Trees lineup did what they do, filling in everything in the middle with noisy ridiculousness.

The set was solid. Autumn came to the Green Trees, and Love Canal was born. I always get kind of a body high every time I go to a psychedelic rock show (I know how that sounds, but this wasn't related to the drugs), and Love Canal was no different. The noise, the drones, everything was in its right place. Mission accomplished, boys. Great set.

After the set I went outside for a smoke, and there happened to be Freidel and Hill. I tell them I enjoyed it, and they start to talk to me in turn.

I learn that Hill has a record label, Spaze Records, which will be releasing Love Canal's inevitable album, whenever they get down to actually writing one. I learn that Spaze has released, or is going to be releasing, a number of local acts, all of a strange, noisy, difficult-to-describe nature.

Also, according to Hill, exactly two-thirds of these recordings were recorded in Hell.

"Junk Punk!" said Hill to describe the kind of music Spaze specializes in. "A man made of glitter, raining glitter down. It's the best of rock music from the past, juxtaposed upon rock music from the 90s to the President, who is a man made of glitter, whose husband takes off her wig and she's made of glitter, raining glitter down. That's Junk Punk."

Whatever it is, I want more. If Love Canal embodies Junk Punk and Junk Punk is a world leader made of craft supplies, I'm game. Let's see where this goes. Let's see what Lincoln can do.

Bring it on, Junk Punk.

Bring it on, Love Canal.

Lincoln needs more.

And so do I.

caseywelsch@dailynebraskan.com