Only White Keys

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s Owen Ashworth Plays it By Ear

Don’t front like you haven’t heard of him, indie rocker: The guy with the brown cardigan and the glasses who had the nerve to stand in front of you on stage at The Rickshaw Stop last week with a cadre of broken down Casio keyboards and a microphone. You thought he was setting up for someone else, or just sound checking maybe, when all of the sudden: he started singing in this husky rasp of a voice. He began rocking little ditties about a cellist with a broken heart or a friend who worked at a candy store or a shut-in Smiths fan. You thought he was being ironic, or overly cute maybe, until half way through one song, he abandoned melody altogether and made sure every little note on that keyboard was feeding back in the most brutally obnoxious way possible. Clearly, dude was not joking.

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