Takka Takka makes hushed, spare indie rock with a lot of open spaces. Or so I thought until I saw them last night at Madison’s brand-new downtown venue, The Frequency. Now they are loud. And have two guitarists playing a lot of notes at once instead of one guitarist playing hardly any notes. And frontman Gabe Levine clutches the mike and howls and emotes and smashes a tambourine on the floor at the end of the set.
And it was great! The encore — announced as a Britney Spears cover but presumably not one — was especially strong: the whole song plays as a big slow drony uplift, a la Spacemen 3, but all the detail work was complicated and proggy instead of straightforward and druggy.
Grammar, from Chicago, opened. You know what’s a good look for a band? The look where no two people look like they’re in the same band. Grammar played energetic, not entirely tight, pop with big five-part harmonies that worked most of the time.
The Frequency is small — really small — and despite being small, wasn’t full. Maybe fifteen people were there to see Takka Takka, of whom five were Grammar. A very good place to get very close to a band you want to see. Strangely, if you order “cheese fries” there you get a white pizza. Apparently that’s what “cheese fries” means in the proprietors’ home town of Stevens Point, WI.
Quomodocumque 
I love the idea that “cheese fries” is code for a white pizza in Steven’s Point.
Funny, I thought the guitars didn’t come through on the record at all, and I knew they had two instead of the previous one — it was all thunky drumming — I would have preferred more guitar.
Hi! Lizz here from Grammar. Thanks for watching our set and you’re right – our previous bands include a funk band, a post-punk band, a no wave/Britpop band, and a jam band. I’ll let you guess who was in which, wink wink.
lk
Takka Takka was amazing – I think they’re a true talent. The first band was terribly mediocre, but whatever, an opener’s an opener. Frequency is great!
Just to clarify, Takka Takka came on third and Grammar second, so the band The Word denigrates above is not Grammar.
Pardon my error. but I was speaking of Grammar. Thanks.
In that case I disagree with you about Grammar, who I thought were good!