This past Friday February 4, Pat Noecker, one of the three members of These Are Powers, stood onstage at Death by Audio as part of the memorial series for Ariel Panero, in order to call it quits. Bill Salas left the band in the fall to pursue a full-time DJ career as Brenmar. They'd called themselves “Powers” since then, but last weekend Noecker dissolved the memorable union with the burning of some merch/cards, to a packed audience.
They'll be remembered fondly. The trio of Noecker and Salas, along with Anna Barie, rose from what was at the time a thriving, noisy, national underground rock moment, one that witnessed the rise of a spectrum of bands from Ponytail and Titus Andronicus through Abe Vigoda and Vivian Girls. TAP's racous guitar-driven noise music resulted in the wonderfully caustic Tarot Tarot and Terrific Seasons LPs on Hoss Records.
While the band was always doggedly active — touring for months on end in a van that once got its own profile on VBS.tv, the trio decisively altered their sound away from its original organic clatter, to an electronically-charged dance music. That resulted in their final LP, All Aboard Future on Dead Oceans, a release that suggested an entirely new trajectory that is now frozen in time.
Long live These Are Powers! Keep an eye on the side-projects that sprouted from the group. That means Brenmar and CNTRL Top (Barie) and RAFT (Noecker), for now.
