Wednesday, March 12   10:30 p.m.
Habana Calle 6   (709 E 6th St)

  Pterodactyl - Esses
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Born in a cornfield in Ohio, Pterodactyl migrated to Brooklyn, where they spent long hours in a flooded basement writing songs that sounded "as if someone plugged them into the nearest available wall socket and flipped the on switch" (Doug Mosurak, Dusted). After releasing two 7-inches, "Friday, During the Day" and "I Can See a River," Pterodactyl bought a sampler, discovered their fascination with thickly layered vocal harmonies, and set to work on what would become their debut full-length record, officially self-titled, but operationally called "Blue Jay." The songs on this record range from incessant and infectious ("Polio") to sparse and spacious ("Three Succeed") to epic and redemptive ("Esses"). Combining a noisy post-punk palette with adventurous, arresting lead vocals and harmonies, Pterodactyl's first full-length offers up a compellingly catchy, scratchy sound that is not easily forgotten. In 2006 Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau caught a performance of "Polio" at the tail end of Pterodactyl's set and ranked it the best "tail end" in a month of New York live shows, writing: "A 20-minute Dungen song deserved its 10-minute flute solo. The unknown Pterodactyl repeated the same climactic six-note riff for six minutes. This was so much better than that flute solo."