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It’s the “sound that you hear in the moment…” sang Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson on the opening number of his seemingly impromptu set. But it wasn’t improvised, just hastily thrown together amid spilled beers and cocktails. Announcing that he and his band, the Family Robinson, were going to play “some stuff you’ve probably never heard before,” there was an air of uncertainty throughout their brief set. One could feel the audience grimace as Robinson treated the performance as a time slot, as opposed to opening band, and they didn’t necessarily warm up to his jester-like stage presence.
Overall Robinson abandoned the grizzled folk sound of his eponymous debut, opting for grunge, guitars, and feedback to accompany his aged vocals. Despite some shoddy sound mixing, his earnest, weathered, jaded vocal style alleviated any angst in his grungy new tone. Mostly a pounding bass drum persisted in each of his songs, suggesting more new wave than folk. But Robinson and his band did sound good when everything chilled out and he could play around with inebriated or just phantom guitar lines, where only his left hand made shadows of actual plucked notes. That, and also when he sang rusty vocals with a damning conviction over a simple chord.
