Most notable, perhaps, was the rousing response one of Touch and Go’s more recent signings received late Friday night. Ted Leo, a singer-songwriter type who got his start in DC’s mod-punk Chisel, hit a fat classic-rock vein with his band the Pharmacists, bringing to mind the Who at their most anthemic. It may be hard for some to accept the idea that the same label that once championed the beautifully damaged mess of David Yow (who reunited with Scratch Acid for a set that went as right as Big Black’s went wrong) has now embraced an artist as OC-friendly as Ted Leo. But that’s business. And Rusk has built Touch and Go into a successful business not just by sticking to the loud, guitar-fueled, confrontational punk rock of a Killdozer but also by embracing everything from the recently Interscope-signed TV on the Radio to artists who were in at the beginning of the current wave of confessional singer-songwriters, like Tara Jane O’Neil. Which reminds me, Rusk also released Slint’s Spiderland, the album that invented indie rock.
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Music Features
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