The Very Knees

With Heartwarmer and Coco Netrox. Friday, July 27, at Pat's in the Flats.

The Very Knees Nirvana “Ohio Peaches”
There's a two-headed punk-rock band that jams and records inside a mobile home down in the Flats. Nicknamed "the Mill" because of its blast furnace-like temperatures, it could be Cleveland's only practice space on wheels. The trailer's tight quarters bring this pair's musical chemistry closer. And even with AC, the duo's aluminum river refuge turns out canned heat during intense jam sessions.

The two members of the curiously named Very Knees have been together for only six months, but this guitarist and drummer have wasted no time in releasing their debut EP, Superbowl Sunday. The music is as crooked as the Cuyahoga. "Ohio Peaches" grooves like Bleach-era Nirvana, while "Pour Poor Moi" is a drunken tribute to the Damned.

"People say it sounds like more than two guys," axeman David Petrovich says of the band's sound. "That comes from the way I hem on the guitar and the way William [Hartman] plays his drums, which is not straightforward. When you put those two kind of crooked things together, the end result has a lot of depth."

The twosome play in front of homemade projections and garbage-picked lighting, creating a psychedelic theater of rhythm and color. Petrovich screeches like a sickly Perry Farrell, while Hartman crashes more cymbals than a brass monkey, summoning flesh and bones for their Hellraiser brand of Rust-Belt grunge.

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