If you are really a fan of a band, then you take the time to learn more about the musicians. If you’re really really a fan of a band, you listen to and go see the musicians side projects.

I’m really really a fan of The Faint, and Broken Spindles is Joel Petersen’s- bassist for The Faint- side project.

Let’s use an analogy about bands and side projects: listing to a band is like eating a casserole. If you never listened to one of the musician’s side projects, you’d never know what the ingredients taste like.

Broken Spindles is the space electro rock, slightly suicidal ingredient to The Faint. It’s pretty ‘out there’: avant garde, songs blend together and end abruptly kind of thing. I often don’t know when to clap. But this guy goes beyond musician- he’s an artist. This is not for the masses.

“The last song was about death. The next song is about death…” It’s mood music; fitting, since this whole thing started when a friend needed a soundtrack to a film. Haunting and unpredictable, it’s not the kind of show I normally go to, but I still enjoyed it.

We briefly chatted with Joel at the merch booth. Mentioning we are fans of The Faint, when asked about the upcoming album he said “we’re happy with it”. I can’t wait!

OVERALL: 8/10
Broken Spindles performance: 8/10
venue (Cafe du Nord): 8/10
crowd/scene: 6/10
value ($10.00/ticket): 9/10
memorable: 8/10