Feel like dyeing? If yes, there are many products available to help you do so, but it’s unlikely that any color you choose will be anywhere near as exciting as the fearsome fun that Bleachy Bleachy Bleach conjures up. By the time they’ve set a dance beat behind their computer-scrambled screams and guitars, second-guessing is out of the question: these two shred hard without having to bring any ordinary instruments on stage.
Band members Kadienne Eslami and Jessie Abbey met in high school in Pleasanton and often went to shows in Oakland, Berkeley, and friends’ houses before deciding to start a band. According to Eslami, who spoke about the project by phone from her Pleasanton home, it was the frequent re-dyeing of their formerly purple and pink heads of hair that brought about the Bleachy Bleachy Bleach name — a moniker that also suggests the purging, triply frown-obliterating force of their music. Smiles are what got them started in the first place. "We started out playing through a PlayStation on a DDR mat, then started putting more emotion into it," said Eslami, who spells out her first name on one of the group’s earliest tracks, "Boobopera," before the bass beat kicks in and a splintered "easy lemon squeezy" rap unravels into screeches and buzzing chatter in French.
They employ noise in a variety of ways, alternately emotional and playful: the manic skitter of their new song "Toys" closes out its beat with a small dog’s bark. The duo also make use of a toy guitar, saxophone, and other assorted odd instruments in their convention-melting assemblages.
"Mostly what we do is record with instruments and collaborate with friends to make beats," Eslami says, "particularly Dylan Reznick from [the now-defunct band] Robin Williams on Fire, and most recently with Vice Cooler of XBXRX." When gigging on the John Benson–built Bus venue and elsewhere, they sing on microphones alongside their programmed laptop, adding that human presence that makes their songs so affecting. "Tennies," a song off their 12-inch coming out later this year, is about a guy Eslami met on Muni who had holes drilled in his head: "he explained how when people talk to him, he interprets their sentences backwards and has to translate them back to himself." Backwards translation won’t be necessary to keep beat with the Bleach, but scratching a chalkboard could make for fun accompaniment.
BLEACHY BLEACHY BLEACH
With Rubber O Cement, Take Up Serpents, Ettrick, Amir Coyle, Mikey Yeda, and Hora Flora
July 17, 8 p.m. doors, $5
Balazo 18
2183 Mission, SF