Thursday was one of those nights when it was possible to see a couple of good concerts in the same night. After King Tuff at Subterranean, I headed over to the Empty Bottle, where Grass Widow was headlining a late show. The all-female San Francisco trio harmonized in a way that sounded similar to other bands in the recent crop of “Girl Groups,” but they also went beyond the usual garage-rock three-chord template by playing some really creative melodies on the guitar and bass. The group’s latest record is called Internal Logic, and the songs are indeed built on a strong foundation of musical logic. But hey, it’s also rock, and that’s just what Grass Widow did on Thursday night.
The Empty Bottle show also featured San Francisco punk rockers Neon Piss and Iowa City’s Wet Hair, who sounded vaguely krautrockish. But my favorite of the three opening bands was another all-female bunch, Chicago’s Blizzard Babies — who played more of that girl-group garage rock, but with one unusual touch: a ukulele.
