Ill Fits and Citay at Mercury Lounge

by Ryan Keith
Last night was cold, rainy, windy and just generally unpleasant outside. Still, I dragged myself off the couch and headed down to Mercury Lounge to see Ill Fits, a new super-group fronted by Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson and anchored by members of Amazing Baby, Foreign Islands and MGMT.

I got there just in time to catch the opener, Citay–a prog/jam/shred-heavy band from San Francisco steered by Ezra Feinberg on acoustic guitar. They were a little overly bombastic at times, but good. Their arrangements are smart and far-reaching, and I was incredibly impressed by the two lead guitarists lumped together at stage right. Both seemed to be seasoned students of speed metal, and their face-melting music was an interesting complement to the band's boisterous psychedelia.

Ill Fits took to the stage around 11pm. The band set up, standing ready with their instruments under dim blue lights. But, there was something missing.

"Has anyone seen Miles?" Simon O'Connor, the band's lead guitarist, asked the crowd.

After a couple awkward minutes, I looked to my right and saw a huge plume of black and gold balloons barreling through the crowd, up onto the stage. It was Miles. About twenty of the balloons were tied to his waist, surrounding his shirtless gold-glitter covered body. He wore a Phantom of the Opera mask and was swilling straight from a bottle of red wine. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I've followed Miles' mercurial career since 2009, when I saw him at Zebulon and my friend and I found ourselves dancing on a table-top to his rendition of Hall and Oates' "Rich Girl." As the first tune dropped, Miles began banging his thigh with a tambourine; with each hit, a splash of glitter exploded from his pockets. He resembled some wild, mythical circus creature in a cloud of stardust, howling incantations into the microphone.

It was hard to focus on much else for the first ten minutes of the show. Miles flailed about, smashing the drummer's cymbals with his tambourine, popped balloons, dropped to his knees or even completely to the floor. He might have looked like a drunken buffoon if their wasn't something so magical about the whole charade. Plus, during all of his antics, neither he nor the band missed a beat. Except for the moment when he knocked over the ride cymbal severing Simon's quarter-inch cable, effectively cutting off power to the amp. But it was at the end of a song and Simon made a funny quip while Miles stomped around some more, drinking and rambling into the mic. The show goes on.

The band itself was tight, and the songs were full of cool hooks and changes. In a new sea of washed-out, garage rip-offs of the Goo Goo Dolls, Ill Fits does the same thing (ironically) but with more moxie than the rest. Miles' plaintive, cavalier vocals along with the mellow disco-tinted breaks in several songs have a dream-pop feel and lend an earnest edge to the music, an edge this retro-genre begs for.

I was excited to see Miles do his thing, and also to see if the band could stand up to some of their more heralded contemporaries. I got what I wanted on both fronts. And more.