Basics: A Thundercloud When You’ve Been Praying for Rain
We'll start with a healthy dose of emotion
There are three basic elements that constitute rock music in my opinion — rhythm, melody, and emotion. Without emotion, there is no drama; no cliff on which to teeter while our fate is decided. There is no rock & roll without emotion.
Wichita Falls three-piece Basics brings emotion like a thundercloud when you’ve been praying for rain. Austin Rupe sings from the heart and provides emotional release to an inner voice that evokes hints of punk, emo, and new wave. It was all original music, but I swore I heard hints of everything from Depeche Mode and REM to The Clash and The Smiths at various times in the set.
You cannot see Basics in a live setting and not notice the incredible young man on the drum kit. Maycen Miser, at the time of this gig, had not yet entered his second decade of life. That’s right, he’s 19 years old, and the guy drums like he’s been doing it since the day he arrived.
Now and then, if I arrive early, I like to put down my phone and just people watch. Before this gig, I saw Maycen at the side stage area with the other band members, and he couldn’t stop playing air guitar and lip-syncing along to the house music… he was amped-up and having fun, and when it came time for the show, Maycen let it fly.
Even with their amps, the other players in the band are nearly overpowered by the cannonfire rolls and frenetic fills provided by Maycen Miser. Maycen’s drumming style seems a lot like Dave Grohl’s in it’s modernity, with high hands and bent elbows and trembling drums, but at other times he shows elements of big band drummers like Buddy Rich, where it’s all motion from the wrists and shoulders, in a more flat attack on the kit.
The other half of the rhythm section is Trevor Teague who provides a solid bottom and the weight to anchor Basics’ sound with Miser’s drums. Maycen told me they’ve been together as a group for 8 months, and I thought he and Trevor were still finding their nexus as a unit, but when they gel, they provide the platform for the magic of Basics. The message and emotion of Austin Rupe.
Austin Rupe’s vocals and lyrical content are plaintive, contemplative and heartfelt, but it was his guitar that surprised me. I heard Austin let loose once or twice with something that reminded me a little more of millennium-era post grunge guitar work than emo — a little octave-hopping syncopated rhythm thing, or a fuzzy lead line that conjured thoughts of Soul Asylum or The Replacements. Just a little rock riffing to accompany an otherwise strummed song, and it was an engaging change of tone. I’d like to see Austin lean into that a little.
If you’re a person of my generation, who remembers when the phone was lashed to the wall, you had to get up to change a TV channel, and there was no autotune, you may have occasionally wondered, as I have, where the next generation of musicians will come from. Basics is a welcome reassurance that there are young people still out there following their gut and playing from their heart. As a new friend reminded me recently music has saved us all.
Wichita Falls three-piece Basics brings emotion like a thundercloud when you’ve been praying for rain. Go see ‘em live. You won’t be disappointed.
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All photos by the author, © FallstownFUSE.com
Great read and pics!
Maycen is my son thanks for all the nice words about the band. He is self taught on everything he does. And is very talented so proud of him.