The last time I saw Car Seat Headrest live was January 2014 in a living room in Virginia. There were twelve or fifteen other people in attendance, people drifting listlessly between the dining and living rooms, picking at bowls of nuts and candy, chatting idly. Half the live members of Car Seat Headrest were people I knew from middle school. They and the band they shared the night with alternated songs, sacrificing supremacy, splitting a drummer, switching in old members (there as audience members) to play a stripped down version of “Maud Gone.” It was cozy. Casual. After the show, some other attendees took to belting Taylor Swift covers from the songbook that was perched on the piano.

 Since that winter when I last saw them, the band has signed to Matador records, has interviewed with Rolling Stone, and has been heralded by Black Flag’s Henry Rollins as an act to watch out for. Attention has continued to grow after Will Toledo—songwriter, frontman, band mastermind—cast eleven albums into the DIY musical ether that is Bandcamp. Their forthcoming album,Teens of Style, is a careful selection of songs from those old albums, offering new audiences an easy way to begin listening without having to plow through the entire back catalogue (as delightful as the back catalogue is). 

October 15th’s show at the Cake Shop was cozy as well, but otherwise entirely different. Car Seat Headrest played the last slot (a decidedly unglamorous 6:15 pm slot on a Thursday night) in a showcase set up by NYCTaper as part of the annual College Music Journal (CMJ) Music Festival, “New York’s live music archivist.” 

Yet, despite the less-than-ideal slot, the narrow, dim space of the Cake Shop filled up by the time they took the stage. Will Toledo and his bandmates, Ethan Ives (bass) and Andrew Katz (drums) took the stage—instruments all a matching black. Without any introduction, Katz kicked right into the straightforward rhythm of How To Leave Town (2014) opener, “The Ending of Dramamine.” Ives hammered away at open E eighth notes, deep and booming, for a few seconds until Toledo joined in, noodling away quietly, almost jokingly, at the high frets of his guitar. It was quiet, unimpressive; multiple people were talking over the music.