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Go! Team athletic, energetic at TLA

Although Ian Parton founded the Go! Team in 1999 as a one-man-with-a-plan band - facilitated by a four-track tape recorder and an old sampler - he soon began its evolution to a live group. As anyone who saw the tight British/Japanese six-piece at the TLA Wednesday night would probably tell you, Parton's sonic brainchild has grown into its name - and "Team" is doubly fitting, considering the unit's athletic performance.

    by David R. Stampone, For The Inquirer
    Published 

Although Ian Parton founded the Go! Team in 1999 as a one-man-with-a-plan band - facilitated by a four-track tape recorder and an old sampler - he soon began its evolution to a live group. As anyone who saw the tight British/Japanese six-piece at the TLA Wednesday night would probably tell you, Parton's sonic brainchild has grown into its name - and "Team" is doubly fitting, considering the unit's athletic performance.

The sporty conceits began at center stage with Ninja, the kickboxer-fit front woman on vocals, pep-talk banter, and free-dancing cheerleader moves. Born Nkechi Ka Egenamba to Nigerian parents, the Londoner stayed in near-constant motion throughout the band's 80-minute set, stopping only between tunes to exhort the crowd to "show your moves," and connect with them. "Can I call you 'Philly,' is that OK?" Roar of approval. "Ah, friends can call you Philly!"

Understandably, she repeatedly pitched the band's new album, Rolling Blackouts, a cheerful hard-sell that began with concert opener "T.O.R.N.A.D.O.," the disc's first track. Her energy and appealingly shouty rap-rock vocals made it all fine, winning over the crowd on song after song.

Everybody else obviously came to play as well, including wrist-banded drummer Chi Fukami Taylor and vocalist/keyboardist/glockenspiel- ist/guitarist/bassist Kaori Tsuchida, who came forward to sing a number of songs in Japanese-accented phrasing (sounding a bit like Shonen Knife's Naoko Yamano on the new "Secretary Song") along with her higher-pitched, enthusiastic backups.

And then there was Parton, the Go! Team's player-coach, occasionally playing the second drum kit but mostly twitching to his catchy guitar lines - think Archie Bell & the Drells' "Tighten Up" - or swirling through vigorous Sonic Youth-style guitar, which somehow complemented the group's often-irresistible up-tempo bounce. The encore set began with an artful Parton-driven guitar-noise/indie-rock instrumental before the new album's dance-rock blow-out "Apollo Throwdown," being released Saturday in remixed 12-inch form for Record Store Day.