Since local bass guitarist Darwin Sampson opened the Frequency on West Main Street last year, the club has become an incubator for newer bands, both local and national.
Like O'Cayz Corral in the '90s and the King Club earlier this decade, the Frequency is a place where the touring band you see today may play to 900 people in a theater next time they're in town.
This Sunday's appearance by Washington, D.C.'s Deleted Scenes is poised to be just the kind of pre-breakout show that Tapes 'n Tapes played at the King Club in 2007 before returning months later to play the Majestic.
The buzz surrounding Deleted Scenes has been building since they recorded their first EP in 2005. Last month, they released their full-length debut, Birdseed Shirt, after spending two years carefully composing the CD's 11 diverse tracks.
The band's musical range is their foremost talent. The disc opens with quirky organ pop that unfolds into a circus-music crescendo, all backed by the adrenaline rush of a droning electric guitar.
But the follow-up track, "Fake IDs," chills the vibe in a hurry. The mellow keyboard riff of Matt Dowling is made dreamy by the distant, echoed vocals of Dan Scheuerman and pulsating bass of Chris Scheffey.
My favorite track on Birdseed Shirt is "Got God." It's a sweetly harmonic but angular country song. And that makes sense, because it's also a teeter-totter lyrical tale of sin and redemption: "Got God, got bored, lost God, stayed bored, got drunk, found God once again."
The disc ends with the kind of Christmas song only an indie rock band could make. "Get Your Shit Together for the Holidays" is a dissonant carol that grows into a mildly psychedelic season's greeting.
Birdseed Shirt is big on wit - fitting for an album named after a passage in Jonathan Safran-Foer's postmodern novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
So go see the Deleted Scenes in a small club while you can. I'm betting bigger venues are in their near future.
