Live, from Santa Rosa

“Can we get less light and more people in here?”

And so began another summer rock show at Moxie’s Gallery & Cafà, with lead vocalist/bassist Josh Staples of The New Trust trying to bring a little atmosphere to the proceedings. Added on to the show just a couple days prior, Santa Rosa’s T.N.T. was as tuff looking as its initials, nothing but black—clothes, tattoos, hair and Fender amplifiers.

The music was pretty badass as well. The aggressive, rhythmically off-kilter (accidentally so at times, as a handful of transitions were off track, probably due to not being able to hear one another in the less-than-ideal sound tunnel/cafà) post-punk propulsion was decorated nicely with Staples’ melodic yelling and guitarist (and former Benton Falls front man) Michael Richardson’s dexterity on his inventive fills and melodies.

It was good live rock music that would’ve been great with even a little attention paid to diversifying the dynamics with something more than rhythm shifts and quick stop/starts.

On a side note, Staples also plays bass in indie superstar group the Velvet Teen, who, with newly acquired drummer, local boy Casey Dietz, just appeared on the cover of the North Bay Bohemian and is set to embark on massive U.S. tour. Dietz’s other band, Chico’s Americas, will be opening several dates on the tour.

Inkwell is also from Santa Rosa, and it picked up where T.N.T. left off, with more hyper-rock blended with tricky rhythms (albeit more straightforward with the latter). Here, though, the volume came down a notch, and in reward the dynamics were scrubbed clean, revealing sparkling melodic vocal breaks that would stand on their own in all their bouncy, fun, Get Up Kids-reminiscent glory.

Especially effective was “Where the Heart is,” off the Spalding E.P., with is its sing-along harmonizing: "I’ll leave the flowers by your door/ sometimes ‘thanks’ is not enough." A very pleasant sentiment for a short, subdued and pleasing night of music.