Merchants just kill it at every show. That’s really all there is to it. I’ve seen them play at a packed Neitzsche’s, at a weirdly empty Mohawk Place on a Monday during infringement, and to an uninterested college crowd at Mr. Goodbar; at each of those shows they played the absolute crap out of their instruments and lead singer Benjamin Maries always, somehow, found a way to extract that awesomely substantial voice of his from somewhere in the depths of his lungs. This Saturday at 10pm, they bring their heavy, fuzzy, psychedelic grunge to buffaBLOG’s 3rd Birthday Party at Duke’s.
Merchants: they’re so hot right now. They released their debut EP, The Red Room, last month amidst a lot of fanfare and a bottle of whiskey. But let me get back to that packed show at Neitzsche’s. We randomly walked in, completely unaware that we were about to be blown away. They were a trio back then, and what really struck us was how they were able to achieve that raw, screaming loud sound of theirs with just three people. I looked at my friend and we gave each other that wide-eyed, eyebrows-raised, holy-shit-did-that-just-happen look. No other band in Buffalo has ever brought out that look.
We talked to the band after that show, if “talked to” is the right choice of words to describe what actually happened. They told us about their plan to move to Alaska to work on a railroad, and we begged them to stay in Buffalo and hit the studio because we knew, after seeing them play for an hour or so, that the bar for local music had just been raised. We then lost whatever credibility we had as quickly as my friend lost the contents of his stomach into his beer cup right in front of the band, but here we are now: Merchants are in Buffalo and Merchants have kept playing. Everyone should be thankful, because good bands in Buffalo are a dime a dozen; bands as passionate and loud and talented as Merchants are not.
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