Quasi @ The Tractor Tavern

Friday, March 3rd • 8:30 pm

Quasi was once called a band that “puts the rock in rocky relationships.” Including, perhaps, their own. When they released Mole City in 2013, Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss thought they’d come to a point where Quasi’s story was done and dusted, and it was time to move on. But during the pandemic, they re-established their musical bond, practicing together every day, becoming an even more formidable unit as they waited for the return of live performance.

The end result of all that woodshedding is their newly released album, pithily entitled Breaking the Balls of History, their first for Sub Pop Records. It’s a monster wall of sound between Coomes’ raging Rocksichord (a keyboard) and Weiss’ pummeling prowess on drums as they regard a world that’s crumbling around them. “Doomscrollers” are stuck in a virtual loop of “Black coffee, no future.” A silent movie-era organ sounds like a portent of doom in “The Losers Win”—and what is it that’s worth winning anyway? Weiss, channeling Julie Cruse, reminds you that “Inbetweenness” leaves you stranded. And remember, at the end of it all, the “Last Long Laugh” is on you.

So for a real pick me up at the end of the working week, pop down to catch Quasi steaming up the windows of the Tractor Tavern with some help from the openers, fellow Portland indie act No. 2, and Seattle’s own “gunk pop” band Black Ends.