When one door closed another was opened for Allen Aucoin. He parted ways with the Disco Biscuits but joined Social Assassins behind the kit, playing his first shows last week, first at Neitszche’s in Buffalo and then the next night at Bug Jar in Rochester Thursday May 21.
Aucoin joined bandleader and guitar wizard Gabe Marin, of Consider the Source, guitarist Sage Xavier of Domashi, who opened the show, and bassist Nick Jozwiak.
Marin commandeered the stage both aurally and physically, his double-neck guitar being run through pedal boards that occupied almost half the stage. All those wires cloaked his guitar in magical spells, turning it into various sounds of his own concoctions. Maybe you could hear a trombone here or a fiddle there, but there was always a twist.
Marin led the Assassins on a wide-ranging journey that traveled further in an a little over an hour than one could possibly go by any other means. A reggae beat mixed with Middle Eastern flavors hopping instantaneously across the globe from the Caribbean to the Arabian desert. Marin moved from the fretless top neck of his guitar to the lower neck with ease, squeezing the full range out of his instrument.
They made a stop in the far East before jumping off the planet entirely, floating through mystical otherworlds. Actual instruments weren’t enough to rein Marin in, and neither was he Earth-bound. As if to emphasize that, he tossed consecutive Harry Potter and Star Wars teases into a solo.
A cover of a-ha’s “Take On Me” sounded as if it was being beamed down from a civilization far far away. An alien race reinterpreting sounds they captured from one of our far flung probes as a peace offering. Marin’s guitar weeping over the melody like a cosmic theremin.
Aucoin’s addition paid off with a monster drum solo to start the set closer. Though with just one rehearsal and one show under his belt, he comfortably fit right in driving the spaceship’s engine. All of Social Assassins were given time to take the helm during the final jam, bringing the Bug Jar down for a satisfying landing after a wild cosmic journey.
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