A post-punk, post-holiday alternative show at the Hidden Gem

Dayton bands Oh Condor, Place Position and Black Spot, along with Cincinnati’s near-unpronounceable oYoXoYo, will be putting on an “avalanche of high energy and delay-drenched experimental-leaning punk and indie rock” on Dec. 27 at the Hidden Gem Music Club.

This is an all-ages show.

Tim Krug, guitarist for Dayton post-math rock/ADHD-gaze band Oh Condor, has fine tuned the art of describing bands, as the heavily-quoted lead of this story suggests. You might also be hard-pressed to find many other documented mentions of the genre “ADHD-gaze” — a portmanteau of shoegaze and a non-music-related disorder — except in small-run zines.

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Because Krug’s tongue-in-cheek descriptions are more trenchant than anything I could produce (considering my lack of confidence with words like “post-punk” or “post-anything”), I will reference them sparingly, as to separate the music writer from the musician.

But let’s start with one of Krug’s descriptions anyway:

“Place Position is a band who likes Fugazi enough to call themselves Place Position, but not quite enough to hang upside down from a basketball hoop.”

This ultra-specific bit of inside baseball (basketball?) requires prior knowledge of a few things: you must be familiar with Washington, D.C. post-hardcore band Fugazi, and that in 1988 Fugazi singer Guy Picciotto sang from a basketball hoop at a YWCA gym in Philadelphia.

“Place Position” is also a Fugazi song that puts you in the relative sonic zone of Place Position. In 2020, the Dayton band released the raw, three-song EP “Vigil Loop.” The hard drive that housed the EP’s final mix died, so only an early mix remains. That’s more punk than post-punk, and precisely the point.

“Black Spot is a three-piece experimental punk band from Dayton, Ohio. Did they name themselves after one of my favorite supernatural French detective dramas? We’ll have to ask!”

Is “Black Spot” really one of Krug’s favorite supernatural French detective dramas? Yes, and he’s eagerly awaiting season two.

But as for the band’s music, understanding Black Spot may require the skills of a French detective. The band’s 2024 “Wasteland” EP has three songs, two of which are the same audio file on Bandcamp, with one of the titles not fit for print: another job for a detective.

“oYoXoYo is a newer act from Cincinnati featuring members of Milkmine, Thorneberry, Joseph Airport, Culture Queer and more. What if the producers of the ‘Judgment Day’ soundtrack instead paired Gang of Four with US Maple and tweaked us into a brand new, better timeline.”

In 2023, oYoXoYo released a 4 song EP, accurately titled “4 Songs.” And while the only words in Krug’s description I innately understand are “Judgment Day” and “soundtrack,” oYoXoYo does make strange, otherworldly rock music — like a gruffer Television reimagined for 2024.

Oh Condor “plays a hard-to-pin-down form of alt rock that occupies that nebulous space between subgenres; adroitly flitting between math rock, shoegaze and straight ahead college rock with impressive ease.”

This is not Krug describing his own band — it’s Grey Gordon of Colossal Man who nails the elusive sound of Oh Condor. In 2022, the band released “Emergency Psychic,” an album that defies neat categorization, so maybe it’s best we let the music speak for itself.

Finally, Tim Krug himself weighs in on the art of description:

“The entire world has become an elevator pitch,” he said in a text. “So I describe vibes instead of reciting accolades.”

That’s more punk than post-punk, and, I think, the point.

Brandon Berry writes about the Dayton and Southwest Ohio music scene. Have a story idea for him? Email branberry100@gmail.com.