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Written by David Lichius Saturday, 24 February 2007 09:31

In my life, I cannot remember seeing that many moms and dads at one show. One mother spent her time inside the Creepy head in hand, in slumber.

Creepy Crawl, St. Louis

This Sunday evening was day one in Omaha band Ladyfinger's tour and the attendance was sparse. In fact, to describe the crowd as such is being rather generous. Whether the masses were nursing their Mardi Gras hangovers or were in the process of completing the MG weekend bender trifecta, the room was filled with high school kids from St. Charles and their parental chaperones. In my life, I cannot remember seeing that many moms and dads at one show. One mother spent her time inside the Creepy head in hand, in slumber.

After the blues-rock stylings of the youthful Logos, Ladyfinger took stage. Taking cues from the Jesus Lizard and Drive Like Jehu, their Saddle Creek Records debut Heavy Hands was a decent, if a tad underwhelming, record. I suppose a lot of that had a lot to do with the height of bar set by the aforementioned bands. However, those impressions were augmented rather quickly by the quality of their performance. While Chris Machmuller and Co. may not flail around stage and into the crowd á la David Yow, they are all seasoned musicians and their tunes stand on their own.

Sticking to numbers from Heavy Hands ("Smuggler," "Cause for Shame," "Too Cool for School," and others), Ladyfinger gave a rather chatty and upbeat performance unfazed by the lack of audience. The highlight from the set came during a pause between songs, when Machmuller jokingly chided a young lady among a trio of Logos fans to "watch your mouth," as there's "no cussin' in rock 'n' roll."

Shortly thereafter, that Ladyfinger closed out its brief but impressive set. Still in their relative infancy, despite their members' previous experience in Mayday, the Faint, Bleeders for Treats, and Race for Titles, Ladyfinger (NE) is still a relatively unknown quartet. However, with the current state of post-punk (all things loud and/or mathy) being near an all-time low in terms of new acts forming, it would behoove you to find this band out when they swing on by. | David Lichius