The Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis at the Beachland Tavern

The Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis
Beachland Tavern
Cleveland, OH
September 12, 2025

Cleveland, Ohio can lay a strong claim as one of the three mother cities, along with London and New York City of punk rock and culture (note: it took an act of will not to use the word gritty in that sentence).

This should not be controversial. The forces of de-industrialization, disinvestment and alienation—the same ones that now dominate the political conversation in the U.S.—arrived in Cleveland simultaneously with those in the Thatcherite U.K. and spawned influential bands such as Rocket From The Tombs, electric eels and Pere Ubu.

Fifty years on, punk culture has remained strong here, so the appearance of The Messthetics, a band anchored by the rhythm section of the influential post-punk band Fugazi, with James Brandon Lewis, perhaps the most talked-about tenor saxophonist in jazz circles, carried an interest that went beyond the musical.

Who would be attracted by this music here in the home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? What would Fugazi fans make of an evening of all-instrumental music? Would jazz fans stand for more than two hours in the cozy Beachland Tavern, a dive bar better known for raucous post-punk shows? Would either camp, both of which can zealously enforce their genres' borders, embrace this music as their own?

Those concerns were quickly pulverized by "That Thang," the stomping unison funk riff tune that opened the concert. It's the kind of hands-in-the-air, hell-yeah anthem that brings people together, and the quartet hurled it out with snarling, strutting fervor.

And so it went for a generous 90 minutes of music. The band played 13 tunes and two encores, most of them relatively short. That concision might serve as a useful lesson for younger improvisors. So might the legibility of the song forms the quartet favored.

And there were melodies, in tunes like "Boatly," a pretty waltz tinted with a Celtic melancholy. That's the formula for "Greensleeves," John Coltrane's vehicle for extended modal quests. Yet Lewis' eloquent solo statement was neat and short.

Elsewhere, the saxophonist unleashed his hot, thick tone and room-filling sound. No one stage-dived. There was no mosh pit. The few jazz bros in the audience had to save their polite, inside-baseball conversations for after the show. They were no match for the band's sound, not exactly thick, but weighty, as rendered by the Beachland's clear but forceful front-of-house sound.

Someone once made the quite defensible assertion that the tenor saxophone is the true rock and roll solo instrument. There were occasions, such as on the strophic, rager "Emergence," where Lewis offered proof, albeit with a greater nod to Pharoah Sanders than to Lee Allen or Clarence Clemons.

"Versatile" seems like too weak a word to describe guitarist Anthony Pirog's contributions. Yet here was a player who could lay down a sleet storm of icy loops to open "Emergence" then offer almost Grant Green-ish chopped-chord comping on the loping shuffle of "Railroad Tracks Home." That song was as close as the band came to the blues scale all night, and Pirog's acute harmonic choices consistently kept things interesting.

But the heart of The Messthetics is the rhythm section of bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty. The two have been playing together for nearly 40 years, so it was no surprise that they had a sovereign unity of purpose and a solid hookup in laying out blocks of granitic rhythm. More surprising—and entertaining—was the visual contrast between Lally's cool, almost dispassionate efficiency and Canty's sweaty, and fully committed physicality.

The gathering storm of the setbreaker "Instakntive" recalled the scorching no wave of Last Exit. There was no trace of spang-a-lang all evening long, but the rhythms had lift and drive and never ground down into turgid, plodding monotony. You could not call it jazz, but broadly defined, it swung.

In the end, everybody got what they wanted. Fugazi fans got to spend some time with beloved icons, and jazz fans witnessed a strong performance by a justly-lauded standard bearer. The Beachand Ballroom and Tavern co-presenter New Ghosts got a full (more than 120 tickets sold) and enthusiastic house.

Ring the bell, scream hell yeah!

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