By Jordi Oliveres
For those who haven't been, Brooklyn Bowl is a place of strange juxtapositions. When I arrived, I ordered a beer at the retro, wood-paneled bar. To my right, bowling pins were crashing down, while in front of me were five hundred people dancing in the glow of blinking stage lights —all in perfect unison to the man/machine-made music played by a band named after a weapon from the Paleolithic era.
On Wednesday night, Javelin sang sweet melodies over irresistibly aggressive drum grooves, resulting in some exciting and innovative sounds. Javelin is made up of two cousins, Tom van Buskirk and George Langford, originally from Providence but now based in Bushwick. The duo, who as recently as 2009 were, “fighting off bed bugs and depression,” took a break from their tour with Sleigh Bells to play this home show, delighting fans with unreleased tracks and remixes. Tom sings, plays the bass and flicks sequences on-and-off in a relaxed manner while George beats dance-rock grooves out of a drum machine and a lonely crash cymbal with astonishing violence and precision. The result is something like Chromeo on steroids: enthralling melodic electronic music over ferocious beats (or is it the other way around?).
Cumbia, norteña and hip hop influenced sequences and beats all made an appearance – as did special guest Cavalier, who effusively made known his love for Brooklyn (if not so much his MC-ing abilities.) The cousins also played less obscure material, including the groove-a-licious “Vibrations” and the cowbell-meets-Super-Nintendo “Oh! Centra,” both from their 2010 album, No Mas.
But it wasn’t Tom’s affected falsetto or George’s metronomic brutality alone that made the night memorable. It was one of those unique nights when it felt like something relevant was happening; somehow, it felt like I'd been dropped into the perfect place and time to experience the cool/ironic culture of the early 21st century. You’re welcome, future historians.