Story last updated at 7:06 p.m. on Tuesday May 5th
Devil Music Ensemble Tears it up
 
By John Borgmeyer
Borgmeyer@c-ville.com
 
In its five-year history, the Boston-based Devil Music Ensemble has
performed as a rock trio, an Eastern European folk group, a country 
band and a 25-piece orchestra. This spring, DME is touring colleges and 
theaters,playing live soundtracks to silent films.
 On Thursday, April 29, Devil Music¹s three founding musicians 
Performed an original score to the 1919 German Expressionist classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, at the Satellite Ballroom on the Corner. A packed house sat enthralled by the lush, well-rehearsed orchestration. Jonah Rapino¹s violins and Brendon Wood¹s guitar and keyboards added eerie tension, Tim Nylander¹s snare hits and cymbal crashes rendered fistfights and doorknocks while urgent rock vamps propelled the movie¹s chase scenes.
 DME¹s three music school grads enjoy an honorary membership in
Charlottesville¹s indie rock scene. Rapino runs a record label called
Massive Distribution with former Bostonite Colin Matthews, one founder 
Of Belmont¹s now-defunct Pudhouse (the site of at least one sizzling DME show) and one-half of the wild rock duo USAISAMONSTER.
 Unfortunately, most of the crowd split at the end of Dr. Caligari 
And left four bands performing rock sets for a flock of empty folding 
chairs.
 While Richmond¹s Tulsa Drone trods the same melancholy ground 
broken by Slint¹s 1991 masterpiece, Spiderland, TD¹s first record, No Wake, has received rave reviews. Following that brooding set, D.C.¹s Tone ramped up the volume with a four-guitar, two-drumkit attack that swelled and crashed as images of steam trains, floods and suburban blight flashed on the screen behind them.
 If Lester Bangs rose from the grave to front the Butthole Surfers, you¹d get something like Charlottesville¹s own Bucks and Gallants. Singer Tyler Magill ranted and smoked his way through a set built on Davis Salsbury¹s MC5-ish riffs, Darren Hoyt¹s eccentric keyboarding and Jarrod Hood¹s gonzo drumming.
 Merely a handful of DME¹s local friends remained when the trio 
Returned to cap the evening with a rock set of quirky, virtuosic insanity. This is only the band¹s third rock set on its current tour, so maybe that¹s why DME seemed a little off its game compared with past Pudhouse sets. Still, DME gamely treated the few loyal hipsters to slow-burning jams that spiraled into soaring freak-outs with an intensity and skill that deserved more ears.

5-3-04John Borgmeyer