There must have been a kind of pre-historic time for rock music in Seattle before Sub-Pop, before Nirvana, before The EMP, when Jimi Hendrix or The Sonics could make music in a town that didn’t have an established scene or story. Now, of course, we live after the fall of grunge, in the wake of our historical moment, with our contribution to rock’s narrative already set for posterity under museum glass.

And so our current music scene is drenched in a kind of regret and nostalgia, our brightest bands are all of the “featuring former members of” variety, and shows often lack a certain vitality- they should be alive with possibility but instead they’re flat and static.

Which brings me to last night’s show at The Rendezvous, a Seattle venue that absolutely sags under the weight of its own history. Playing in the Jewel Box Theater (est. 1924!) was Triumph Of Lethargy Skinned Alive To Death, featuring Spencer Moody and Dann Galluci of Murder City Devils, and some band consisting of Seth Warren and the mohawked guitar player from Suffering And The Hideous Thieves (I think his name’s Joel). These guys go way back in Seattle, as evidenced by the crowd for their show (featuring members of Blood Brothers, Kill Sadie, etc, etc), and my expectations were pretty high.

The ex-theives played first, with Seth playing effected violin (and occasionally kicking the amp to make the spring reverb sound like thunder) while Joel played spare electric guitar and wailed plaintively about whiskey and such. He kind of came off like Chris Carrabba trying out for Lucero. Not my cup of whiskey.

I had higher hopes for TOLSATD, having seen them absolutely terrorize the Punkin House basement with their electric guitar dirges and Spencer’s confrontational sing-speaking. At that show, his vocals were fire and brimstone, and his guitar player was all dirt and distortion. This time, everything seemed reined in and reserved. Dann Galluci seemed positively wasted (squandered, not drunk) behind the drum kit, while Spencer orated like a professor over subdued guitar work. Spencer is a magnetic presence on stage, but without the massive rock of MCD or Smoke & Smoke behind him I’d just as soon watch him sing karaoke.