Shellshag

Beat Kitchen; Fri 8

It’s easy to get jaded as a music consumer during the sensory overload that is the festival season. So it’s jarring to occasionally be blindsided by a band you never heard of that instantly becomes your new favorite. Earlier this year Shellshag was that band, and we’re ecstatic to sing its praises. Though it’s been performing and recording for a decade, last year’s Destroy Me I’m Yours (on its own Starcleaner label) was the group’s full-length debut. On it, the duo demonstrates a rocking approach to pop so simple and pure that it might be children’s music. But the band’s awesomeness has little to do with its recordings—it’s onstage that it casts its spell.

Shellhead, a guitar-slinging banshee, fronts with blissed-out eyes that give away the Brooklyn two-piece’s San Francisco stoner roots. His partner, Jen Shag, a tornadolike drummer, plays a stripped-down kit standing up—or jumping around, to be more accurate. Huddled around a customized V-shaped double-mike stand, the duo stands face-to-face, exploding with rock & roll joy, clearly playing for each other. Shell and Jen may not be facing the crowd, but their sheer glee is infectiously entertaining.

If you missed Pitchfork and Lollapalooza, you now have a chance to get a festival experience, albeit on a smaller scale. Shellshag performs as part of the four-day, multivenue Mauled by Tigers Fest, which also features underground all-stars This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb, the Ergs, Vivian Girls and a couple dozen more gloriously trashy power-pop acts. We guarantee at least a half-hour of it will be better than anything Perry Farrell ever got his hands around.