TIGER BALM
Where better to dig into Protomartyr's introspective new album than at a ballgame? (Anywhere.)
No one wants to be here less than Joe Casey.
And by “here,” I mean the Blue Moon-sponsored room at Comerica Park stadium, where 45 people are drinking $13 draft beers and carrying around greasy paper plates topped with Little Caesars pizza, about to listen to Protomartyr’s latest record via someone’s iPhone—an album about loss, extinction, nicotine gum, the occasional Baja Blast, and the belief that love is to be earned and not served freely like, well, shitty complimentary pizza.
While there may be no crying in baseball or Protomartyr’s brand of post-punk—at least not from what I can tell—on this sunny Saturday afternoon in Detroit, I quickly learn that there is plenty of squirming, self-loathing, and, worst of all, small talk in broad daylight.
“The great thing about performing is you’re in a dark room, you can take your glasses off, you can’t see anybody, it’s loud. Here it’s kind of quiet and we’re...just listening to the album,” Casey says as if he is just now realizing what a listening party actually is. “I guess I like that people can ignore it if they want to.”