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TagsThough it's cooled off considerably now, Monday night a hot and sweaty Neumo's played host to a packed crowd for Freelance Whales and Tokyo Police Club. I've seen both bands before, and came into the show with my own preconceptions. While I feel that Freelance Whales has its moments, some of their lyrics are downright cringeworthy, and while they've got good chops, the lead singer is so overtly geeky that it is occasionally painful. As in, I ache for him, not with him. Our own Josh is much more generous: Freelance Whales remain one of those bands with acres of potential. I mean, aside from the player-hater lyric, that song ["Hannah"] is fine Mates of States-ish girl/boy vocals. Tons of people seemed genuinely entranced. To the point of arm-dancing even!
As to Tokyo Police Club, the first time I saw them is going on four years ago (!), and oh, how much the boys have grown. As in, now the Ontario quartet can legally drink--but they have just as much energy as ever. They brought the clap-happy super-short songs from their first two EPs, as well as the (relatively) more mature work from their two full-lengths, including new album Champ's near pitch-perfect, near power ballad "Breakneck Speed." Says Josh: I very much appreciated how well suited the venue was for that band. They really brought it, light and soundwise, in a way that few other mid-level indie rockers do.
Surprisingly, there were a lot of bros at the show (some of whom should've been straight-up iced), so I'm guessing that the TPC discography is getting heavy airplay at the frat house. Keeping with the bro theme, the band itself always has some tender bro-to-bro moments (broments), and Monday night's show was no exception, as it included some guitar playing to each other whilst on bended knee, as well as a playful cross-stage tambourine toss....
Yesterday, I described "You Won't Let Me Down Again," the second track on Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan's upcoming album, Hawk, as "strangely uplifting despite its rather downbeat, but hopeful?, lyrics." Hours later, the duo issued a video for the song, their first for Hawk:
Downbeat despair on the open road? Check. Glimpse of hope? Yep. Pretty Isobel? Uh-huh. Stony Mark? Nope. He's one elusive dude. You'll definitely see the guy if you grab tickets for the pair's October 26 Neumo's gig.
Three albums into an initially very surprising collaboration, the sandpaper-and-velvet duo of Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan is finally cozy enough to play live in the U.S., including a stop at Neumo's on October 26. The third album, Hawk—following the acclaimed Ballad of the Broken Seas (2006) and Sunday at Devil Dirt (2008)—hits shelves August 24, but can be streamed via Campbell’s Facebook page now.
If you know Lanegan from his days fronting Ellensburg's Screaming Trees and have (ignorantly) tuned him out since, these atmospheric, South-souled songs will surprise you. If you're familiar with his eclectic, smoky solo catalog and/or work with the Soulsavers and Greg Dulli (as the Gutter Twins) or Campbell's Snuggie-soft voice (going back to 1996 with Belle and Sebastian), you'll be pleased. Either way, their latest work, though similarly fit for a long-forgotten, remote Texas tavern, is even more of a sonic—and somehow almost tactile—joy. (Campbell, the musical pants-wearer of the duo, produced.) Think salted caramel ice cream. First you wrinkle your nose, then you lick your lips.
Here's a quickly-penned reaction/review of Hawk's thirteen dusky, scene-setting songs, eight featuring Lanegan's awesome rasp, two surrendering the mic to young folkie Willy Mason (not actually featured on the Garden State soundtrack; more on that below), and one with fretwork from former Smashing Pumpkin James Iha....
Anyone that heads out to local shows regularly knows it's pretty rare that anyone shows up before the first act, much less starts crowding the stage. Nonetheless, Neumos was packed for the all-ages show on Friday, starting with Morning Teleportation, going strong with The Builders and The Butchers, and blowing it out of the water with Portugal. The Man.
Everyone was revved up for the show, especially the school-aged kids already flanking the stage at 9 p.m., a good thirty minutes before the first act. They had good reason to be excited.
Morning Teleportation @ Neumos
Morning Teleportation has an uncanny aural similarity to Modest Mouse, from the lead singer's voice to the complex, awkward melodies. They mixed in a dose of synth-pop and voice distortion that intrigued the audience rather than putting them off--that's a fine line to walk.
For now they're selling homemade CDs covered in Sharpie drawings, but in the future, they'll actually be touring with Modest Mouse (there are only two dates set in Boston so far). Not sure how well that'll work, considering how similar the bands sound, but it would be a great boost for a group with such potential.
I've touted The Builders and The Butchers before, so let's keep it brief: They killed, end of story. With each show they get better and better. The enthusiasm they bring on stage every single time is infectious, which is obvious from the exponential growth of the local fanbase. I'm excited to see where these guys are going; from what I can tell, they aren't stopping anytime soon....
I was excited to see Kate Nash at an intimate venue like Neumos. I guess I should have expected the mostly teenaged crowd--given that her music is largely about the angst and bitterness of love, it makes sense.
The opening act was Supercute. Their whole shtick was being teenagers (two age 14, and one 16) and singing about typical teenage girl issues (even while swinging hula hoops, definitely impressive). Again, totally down with that, considering the age of the members and the age of the crowd. I may not be into it, but I can appreciate the music for what it is.
Unfortunately, from the get-go, they seemed to expect everyone to listen to their every word. They shushed the crowed about five times, thinking it would make a difference. The sense of entitlement was off-putting and reminded me of Sparkle Motion from Donnie Darko. Near the end of their 20-minute set, some asses in the balcony were shouting some things about finding them when they are legal, and then a couple items fell into the audience and on the stage. I happened to be next to a girl that was hit by one, which turned out to be a (still wrapped) condom. I thought that was more than rude, but what're you gonna do....
Despite their placement on the bill, it really seemed like Phantogram was the main event at Neumo's on Thursday. Perhaps because of their connection to local label Barsuk or because their glitchy electronics were more in the spirit of a warm up for adopted drinking holiday Cinco de Mayo, the crowds turned up early and in force. So much so that when I arrived an hour after doors opened, there was still more than a half hour's worth of line keeping me from the guest list and entry to the showroom. By the time that I made it inside, the band had only a couple songs worth of strobe lighting and video projections left for the wall-to-wall adoring audience. Due to poor timing and queue management, I didn't hear much, but I what I heard justified the throngs.
I suspect that competing dance parties and buckets of Corona helped to provide a little more breathing room after Phantogram left the stage and the Antlers started setting up, decorating each of their stations with small potted plants. The Brooklyn band's latest album, Hospice, is among the recent crop of of records gestated during a songwriter's self-imposed isolation. In the pseudo-autobiographical concept album Peter Silberman provides a mostly reliable, generally sympathetic narrator who has gotten himself into the unenviable problem of falling for a cancer patient. Sorrow, loss, recrimination, heartbreak, blame, and all sorts of grief and recovery ensue, all through haunting production, deeply affecting lyrics, and cheesecloth pure falsetto vocals. For all of its raw emotion and heartwrenching themes, the record is polished to bedroom obsessive standards....
Recently I texted a friend, "Two words: Fang Island," and he was sold based on the name alone. From their set at Neumo's Thursday night, it's clear that all the Brooklyn five-piece needs to have a good time is three guitars, a bass, drums, and a whole bunch of pedals. Okay, so there's the occasional keyboard too--and five mics, because everybody in the band gets to sing, yell, and chant along to their songs.
Fang Island describes their sound as "everyone high-fiving everyone," which is another way of saying that it's just plain fun. (You can stream the whole self-titled full-length debut or buy it for $7 at their site.) I always make the comparison to Ratatat, because even their instrumentals seem to have lyrics, in the form of super-catchy guitar riffs. The only thing the band needs to fear (besides the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of the music blogosphere's love) is becoming a soundtrack for frat boys, as per the guy "toasting" the band, with his Red Stripe in the air for most of last night's show. Fang Island is just having fun, playing songs and rocking out, not even aware that there's an audience present. Probably for the best, since the crowd at Neumo's was a little more sedate than you'd like for such an exuberant band.
Fang Island were allotted forty-five minutes for last night's set, which I thought was long, considering they've only got one album and a couple EPs. Indeed, at the thirty-minute mark, they got done playing "Davy Crockett" and started packing up their gear. "One more song!" a few guys in the crowd yelled, but that was it. Fang Island ain't got no more.
Post-punk noise trio Liars are but the latest band to appear on Dirty Laundry, the new web series (we dare not say vlog) to feature musicians in unlikely places--in this case, what is assuredly the coolest laundromat in L.A. In the above interview, Angus Andrew and Co. discuss love songs, opening for Radiohead, System Of A Down, lunch meat, and reality TV.
The experimental art-rock band's playing a 21+ show at Neumo's Saturday night, with openers Fol Chen and Flexions. To celebrate, The SunBreak has a Liars prize pack to give away, which includes a poster and a selection from the band's catalogue: They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, Drum's Not Dead, Liars, and a Sisterworld two-disc deluxe edition. We'll be drawing the winner of the prize pack from all entries received this Friday at noon. Enter below for your chance to win.
Post-punk trio Liars have become wily veterans of the noise scene, considering last month they just released their fifth (!) album, the dark, brooding Sisterworld (see track "Scarecrows on a Killer Slant," performed at SXSW above). Since their first full-length, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, was released in 2001, as Americans we've experienced two wars and six Brangelina children, while Liars have experienced one poorly received witch-themed concept album, a few band lineup changes, and one breakup with Karen O.
The experimental art-rock band's playing a 21+ show at Neumo's Saturday night, with openers Fol Chen and Flexions. To celebrate, The SunBreak has a Liars prize pack to give away, which includes a poster and a selection from the band's catalogue: They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, Drum's Not Dead, Liars, and a Sisterworld two-disc deluxe edition. We'll be drawing the winner of the prize pack from all entries received this Friday at noon. Enter below for your chance to win.
Yeasayer's setlist care of crafty ace photog Josh Bis.
Can we talk about the em-effing Yeasayer? I've seen the experimental proto-futuristic band play at Neumo's twice before, but last night's sold-out show was the first time it really all came together. The previous times I've seen them, I felt like everyone was having a blessed-out spiritual moment with the band but me. But this time around, I had a moment or two, while the now-five-piece mostly played from their second full-length, the poppier, at times reggae-ish Odd Blood, starting with first track, robot-vocaled "The Children." (Check the setlist.)
The difference from past shows is that with a successful follow-up under their belt and no signs of slowing down, Yeasayer is officially all growns up. The air at sweaty and smelly Neumo's may have been thick with weed last night (credit/blame goes to 4/20 and an all-ages crowd), but the Brooklyn hippies have cut their hair—seriously, compare Josh's photos from November '08 to now—and learned how to put on a professional show with lights and showmanship and everything, like a boss. The band's sound was well-balanced, and most of the crowd was feeling it, singing, clapping, and dancing along to the rhythmic world roots jungle gospel.
Heartfelt and utterly unironic singer Chris Keating played to the crowd, chiding them for boos (and booing himself) when he announced the band's final song, only to say that he loved Seattle so much he didn't even mind if the audience booed. (Cue cheers.) Meanwhile, he gave deserved props to the band's other main vocalist, Anand Wilder, who as a multi-instrumentalist is contributing way more to their dense sound than you'd suspect. For the encore, Yeasayer brought out their black guy to be the hype man (that's racist!) before the rest of the band took the stage to close out the night with "Grizelda" followed by All Hour Cymbals' "Sunrise."
And now a couple Yeasayer pro tips:
- If your girlfriend does not like Yeasayer, do not bring her to the Yeasayer show. She will make you give up your good position in the crowd and/or leave early.
- If you think you and all your friends are going to push forward, even though there is clearly no room, for the global call to arms of "2080," think again; that ain't gonna happen. However, if you're solo, and politely maneuver through the crowd to get close for "Ambling Alp," telling folks that you need to get through because you love the song's bass line, that'll work. Can't argue with that....
"A Place To Bury Strangers @ Neumos.. March 12th,2010" by jandrew33, via The SunBreak Flickr pool
There was something I had forgotten about A Place to Bury Strangers since the last time I saw them, at Chop Suey two years ago: The Brooklyn noise-rock trio doesn't like people looking at them. Sure, they're standing onstage in front of a sold-out Neumo's crowd, but they play in heavy clouds of smoke machine fog. They either have the lights way down (see frontman Oliver Ackermann, right) or turned all the way up, with shards of white aurora borealis streaming over the band. APTBS waited till towards the end of Friday's set to turn on the strobes, and when they did, most of the crowd found themselves unable to look at the stage and stood wincing from both visual and auditory overload.
It's fitting though, as it's not as if this is a band that needs much interaction with the crowd. You don't sing along or dance to APTBS songs; you just stand there and let the noise wash over you. The band played songs from both of their full-length releases, not that you could really tell what was what. It's all head-sploding distortion of one type or another. I could pick out songs here or there, like first album reverb jam "To Fix the Gash in Your Head," but for the most part, just surrender and give yourself up to the noise....
When A Place to Bury Strangers released their 2007 self-titled debut, the press promptly dubbed the Brooklyn trio "the loudest band in New York." APTBS' appropriately-named follow-up Exploding Head is more of the same: skull-crushing shoegaze with nods to both My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain. It's a wall of noise, a whiplash of volume, a sonic assault of customized effects pedals crafted by frontman Oliver Ackermann himself. Wear a pair of earplugs and then put in another set of earplugs, just to be safe. Your ears will thank you.
They'll be playing Neumo's tonight with The Big Pink, who will assuredly have nearly as many effects pedals, but probably won't be quite as loud. The British producer duo put out one of the best albums of last year, A Brief History of Love, and will definitely have the crowd dancing through the noise.
- A Place To Bury Strangers, The Big Pink, Grave Babies, and io echo play a 21+ show at Neumo's tonight. Doors at 8 p.m., $15. Tix are almost sold out!
Last fall, Scottish quartet We Were Promised Jetpacks played Neumo's, along with their fellow countrymen Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad. It was a great set, full of sound and fury and soaring vocals and broken guitar strings--all of which was over in thirty minutes, as they were the opening opening band. Well, the lads have finally gotten their headlining spot, as We Were Promised Jetpacks return to Neumo's tonight. Expect lots of big choruses, melancholy guitars, and heavy accents. And FREEEEEEDOOOOOMMMM.
As to the rest of last fall's Scottish lineup, Frightened Rabbit is headlining a show at Neumo's come May 16th, and The Twilight Sad is opening for MONO, also at Neumo's on May 11th.
- We Were Promised Jetpacks, The Lonely Forest, and Bear Hands play Neumo's tonight. Doors 8 p.m., $15, all ages.
Meh. That's what I thought of Mudhoney in 1993, after seeing the unabashedly scrappy band open for Pearl Jam. And what I've thought, for almost as many years, of New Belgium Brewing's beer resume.
Sometimes you're just wrong about shit.
Lucky for the ignoramuses among us, Mudhoney's still around and making fantastic fuzzy rock. In fact, as announced yesterday, the band's exhibiting its classic grunge style at Neumos next month. Also fortuitous: New Belgium's plugging the massive hop-hole in their product line with the new 7% ABV Ranger IPA.
But what really has the angels singing in my animated, clouds-parting sky is this: Mudhoney is playing Neumos on February 8 to celebrate the launch of said India Pale Ale. (As is opener Sleepy Sun.) And you can catch the iconic act's set for free by purchasing a Fat Tire amber (still...meh!) at Moe Bar. (No ticket price is listed on Neumos calendar, and no Mudhoney show exists at TicketsWest, so this, what, four dollar? beer may be your only means of admission.)
Get thee to Neumos that Monday, fellow ignoramuses (and already-enlightened ones). A Mudhoney show can change your life. Great beer can too, but unless there's a Ranger keg tapped (as there damn well should be), it probably won't happen this night.
Things happen for a reason, and not talking to Zia McCabe prior to The Dandy Warhols' December 11 gig at Neumo's was one of them.
Instead of eking out a few scant minutes of conversation amidst the tumult and noise of an impending show, we spoke one week later at leisure, over the phone for a good forty minutes. McCabe oscillated between committed artist, doting mom, restless kid, and music geek—a combination that makes for many engaging tangents.
In a lot of ways, the keyboardist has undergone more intense personal transformations than any of her bandmates. McCabe was still a teenager when she joined The Dandy Warhols. Now, to a great extent, she's a full-fledged grown-up—the first of her comrades to juggle parenthood as a rock musician (band leader Courtney Taylor-Taylor, now an expectant father himself, follows her example in just a few weeks). As she explains, though, she's still not the mini-van-and-picket-fence type.
How did the tour go?
It was only three shows [two in Portland, one in Seattle]. They went really well; I don't know if you stuck around for the Seattle show, but I think that was the best show we've ever played up there.
I was there. I've seen the band live three times, and I'd definitely agree that it was the best I've seen you.
Courtney pointed out that we hadn't played in Neumo's in forever, and aside from them being absolute Nazis about their backstage rules, it just shreds in there, sound-wise. There's such a fun, super-rock sound in 'Mo's that I think it made it really easy for people to move around and feel the music. That kind of reflects back to us.... It was an easy gig to play.
The audience was definitely into it. It's the most packed I've ever seen Neumo's....
...And Seattle crowds aren't usually super-responsive to us. It felt more like a Portland show than a Seattle show....
On Thursday night, Mew, Copenhagen's angelic-voiced earnest dream rock trio will pay a visit to Seattle in support of this summer's lengthily-titled No More Stories Are Told Today . . . [I'm Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories The World Is Grey I'm Tired Let's Wash Away]. Despite the dour and long--but still-tweetable--title, the album finds the band a member short, borderline happy, occasionally danceable, and occasionally dabbling in singsong autotune. That said, it's more of a modest detour from on the spaced out guitar fog, glittery falsettos, and stormy prog rumbling counterpoints that you came to know and love with And the Glass Handed Kites.
At shows, the band provides projected visual accompaniments to help transport the audience into their intergalactic dreams and cosmic mental voyages. Attack dogs chase through the rain, tiny stuffed animals float through woodlands while playing tiny instruments, creepy dolls, or just swirling color saturated screensavers. While I've probably done a fine job of making this all sound unsufferably pretentious, it's actually all that you'd want from an indie rock show with a few bells, a couple whistles, and three affable Danes who are bound to be swarmed with admirers after the encore.
Want them to warm you up on Thursday night on Neumo's dime? We have a pair of tickets to give to one of you loyal Sunbreak readers. Tweet a hypnotic and Mew-inspired alternate album title to @thesunbreak. We'll pick a winner on Wednesday night.
- Mew plays Thursday, December 10, at Neumo's. Doors open at 8 p.m. and tickets are $14 (ticketswest).
It used to be throwing devil horns was enough to show your appreciation for a good metal band. Now, forming the classic "rock on" sign is simply not enough. Bands these days have gotten so technical and interesting that it takes a little more effort to show how much you care.
The new sign of approval is the "rock claw." To perform this move, imagine you're lifting a golden goblet of fine wine to the sky. Hold it there a moment. Then, slowly crush it and bring your elbow back down to your waist. You've just shown a metal band that they have melted your face off with awesomeness.
Helms Alee provided quite a few rock claws at the beginning of the evening. A local group comprised of Ben Verellen (formerly of local noise/hardcore legends Harkonen , and who now makes a successful line of beautiful custom amplifiers ) and two viciously talented ladies named Dana and Hoz. The audience was very appreciative of their--dare I say it--grungy and dark sound.
Helms Alee reminds me of this small barn at the intersection...
It's hard to upstage, in writing, how much we need music. The description isn't even an echo. If you were there, on the floor, shoulder-to-shoulder with the strangers and singing along, it might spark a memory. Or it might not. And anyway, that's not what I'm interested in here.
I was at two shows this week, the Mountain Goats at the Showbox Market, which is downtown's gritty rock palace, a sprawling, sunken main floor overlooked by terraced bars; and Faun Fables at Neumo's, along with Chop Suey the ideal of the indie Capitol Hill music club: a shoebox of a room with a concession stand of a bar at the side.
The Showbox was already full during Owen Palett's Final Fantasy set; he closed with what he said was a song by Theodor Adorno: "Independence is no solution for modern babies." Babies (read "hipsters"), we learned, just want to dance. Adorno, I have just read, was critical of the replacement of art's merit by its social value. Music becomes a fetish when you enjoy it because other people like it.
That is not John Darnielle's problem. His album The Life of the World to Come is twelve songs all titled after Biblical verses, selections from Hebrews 11:40 to Matthew 25:21. Here's an mp3 of "Genesis 3:23," which contains the chorus, "I used to live here." It's about a return to a childhood home, and there is also a superposition of a naive Eden of faith, "creeds and prayers that he can't wholly buy into" these days. (Maybe this is also why he's at the keyboard more often on this album, which impersonates a heretic organist's hymnal.)
Darnielle is a strange apparition in concert--skipping about the stage, face contorted in a middle-schooler's rockgod transport, he can remind you of David Byrne's spasmodic too-much-coffee guy except without the cool, self-appraising distance. Between songs, he drops little drawled hints as to their inspiration in a pleasantly low-key manner that contrasts with his higher, forced-nasal singing register.
He's funny, disarming, and a master of unsettling emotional harmonics. "Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle" was prefaced by an explanation of his delight at unexpectedly freeing a "little dude" instead of the princess. That bright "8-bit choir" catharsis has its malevolent bass counterpart in "Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod," as the protagonist is battered by an abusive drunk.
The new album is more reflective than entrail-spilling, and as likely to question its Biblical sources ("Romans 10:9" contrasts the redemption of confession against taking your medication before you have anything to confess) as to quote them. The religious lessons that Darnielle has learned, or found, are in his music, despite the nods to the Bible....
"Bad name. Lame name, actually. But kinda funny in its lameness. That was the point, to some degree. It was the late 1980s and Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and swarms of other Seattle area bands released albums on Sub Pop Records, the label started by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman. The kids were so uncool, they were beyond cool. They embraced and reclaimed their high school denigration: LOSER. Sub Pop Records even threw an event they called Lame Fest."
That's how Grunge, a new book of photographs by Michael Lavine, starts—with contemporary indie rock figure Thurston Moore's intro spotlighting the wink-wink, Can you believe this shit is happening? side of Seattle's inevitably overblown musical era.
He would know. Moore, of Sonic Youth, was making noisy guitar rock when Kurt Cobain was a hormonal, directionless teen. And he introduced honchos at Geffen Records imprint DGC to Cobain's band in 1990. (Nevermind hit on the label the following year.) And you could argue that thanks to grunge's massive success,...
There's something going on in music right now. And yes, that's intentionally vague, but what I mean to say is that it seems like there's yet another movement afoot. Not too long ago, all the energy was behind the modern yet antiquated, even ritualistic, sounds of Grizzly Bear, Yeasayer, Animal Collective, and TV on the Radio, not to mention Fleet Floxes, Bon Iver, and their ilk.
Not to say that that still isn't going on--everyone is of course eagerly anticipating Yeasayer's second album due February--but there now seems to be a slew of r&b-leaning bands who like to throw in some blues flourishes along with their indie rock. There's much-buzzed-about English bands like The xx and The Big Pink (both of which have upcoming shows at Neumo's over the next few weeks). And then tonight there's Dirty Projectors, who still have one of the best-reviewed albums of the year.
Dave Longstreth's Brooklyn band is here touring behind Bitte Orca, which is an odd duck of a record, in the best possible way. First single "Stillness is the Move" is clearly the album's jam. And yet, despite the stutter-step beats and the girl harmonies, Bitte Orca is still a rock album with quirkily accessible art-pop sensibilities. Tickets are somehow still available, so check 'em out tonight. Little Wings opens.
- Dirty Projectors play Neumo's tonight. Doors 8pm. $15; 21+.
The Portland band played a too-brief (blame lead singer Eric Earley's thrashed vocal cords) but enthusiastic show at Neumo's Sunday night to a capacity audience, and I haven't heard so many people sing along at a show in a long, long time. Tracks like "Furr," with its memorable lyrics about a boy raised by wolves and an instantly-adhesive folky melody, turned the jaded cluster of humanity jamming the house into happy grade-schoolers.
Earley and co-singer Marty Marquis made a great team, the former's effusive energy contrasting amusingly with the latter's deadpan between-song patter (incidentally, Earley sounded great despite--or perhaps because of--the wear on his voice). And the entire band played tight, offering a good mix of material from all three of their full lengths. The audience...
The Bouncing Souls used to be terrible. Take a listen to their b-side collection, The Bad, the Worse, and the Out of Print, and you will hear what I mean. The demo songs collected there are pretty much unlistenable. It's not a mystery why they waited for five years before releasing their first full-length record in 1994.
Yet, the phrase "used to be" is the important one in that description. There's a reason why they are not terrible anymore. Judging by their recent performance at Neumo's to celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band, the reason is pretty simple: they don't care what you think, they're going to do what they want to do and have fun doing it.
I saw The Bouncing Souls for the first time in 1996. At a small venue with red lights and stucco walls in my sleepy, oceanside college town, they won me over. At that time, the singer, Greg, had a penchant for pointing his finger straight up in the air while singing, as if to say, "and one more thing...." His lyrical delivery was, and always will be, best described as lackadaisical. Often just a little off-time and a little off-key, it was somehow inspirational in a way that perfect singers aren't. His vocals tell us that we can do the same if we wanted to, whereas the pitch-perfect singers remind us just how bad at singing we are.
At that phase in the band's life, they were still making silly songs and doing great covers. Their version of "Born to Lose," the amazing Ray Charles song, is by far their best cover. My dad always gets a kick out of the off-key "blue" in the song that is corrected with a "blue, that is" in the right key. Their sets included songs about girls at the Quik Check, about their favorite 80s movies, about your mom, and sing-along anthems with lyrics like "Here we go, here we go, here we go."
As the band got older, they added more serious material to their records. How I Spent My Summer Vacation, their fifth full-length, is almost completely devoid of silliness. Yet, by growing up, they had also become better musicians. They crafted catchy songs with poignant lyrics for those of us who were just starting to face up to our responsibilities and find some meaning and reason to life.
Their 20th Anniversary Tour stopped in at Neumo's this week and featured a wide variety of songs. However, they would not, no matter how many times people yelled it out, play "Quik Check Girl" or "These Are the Quotes From Our Favorite 80s Movies." We did get "Here We Go" and "Born to Lose" from their second record and "Hopeless Romantic" from their fourth record, but it was clear that the NJ quartet was going to play what they wanted, just like they have from the beginning. They included new songs ("It's alright guys, this is a good song") as well as many favorites, showing they have no intention of stopping soon.
This dedication and persistence make the Bouncing Souls an inspiration to all aspiring musicians and their sheer love of music and joy for what they do is inspiring to every audience they play for. It's easy to get sucked in by their fast-paced and fun songs. And if you can hook onto that "I don't care what you think, I'm going to do what I want" attitude, you might even end up dancing around in the mosh pit, even though your age starts with a 3 and not a 1, until your leg cramps up. You'll be singing along and pointing your finger straight up, "...a song played on the radio/it went straight to my heart/I carried it with me/until the darkness was gone...."
It's Wednesday and you already wish it was Friday. You're tired of your "at least I have a job" or your stack of unemployment pay stubs and you need a way to get through one more day. BOAT is glad to oblige with their CD release show at Neumo's on Thursday night. Doors are at 8 p.m. and tickets are a cheap $7. Their silly and quirky pop music will get you smiling and maybe even get your jaded Seattle rear end to shake around a little bit. Opening are The Pale Pacific, Sirens Sister and The Special Places.
What? More motivation, you say? Okay, here is a fantastic conversation with drummer/vocalist/recordist J. Long and bassist/guitarist/dancer M. McKenzie they've allowed me to share with you.
Please provide a short history of the band, using a plethora of SAT words but avoiding run-on sentences.
MM: SAT words?! Balls. You asked the half of the band that doesn't teach an English class (seriously). I took Latin, but that makes me feel like I should have taken a prep class (or at least a Xanax). I'll try to...
One of the best choices I've made this year was to head to New York in May to see Japan's Mono perform on their 10th anniversary tour. In honor of that occasion and their latest album, Hymn to the Immortal Wind, the performance featured not only the band in the beautiful New York Society For Ethical Culture concert hall, but collaboration with a full orchestra as well. It was a truly transcendent experience, with superb acoustics and the band's already powerful intrumentals pushed to new heights.
Tonight's show isn't in a church-like setting, isn't slated to feature an orchestra, and is part of Mono's usual tireless touring, but I'm no less excited about the performance. Neumos isn't fancy, but the setting is ideal for letting the music wash over you. As cool as the orchestra was, Mono doesn't need anything but the core members to fully execute on their quiet-LOUD-quiet template, so there's no other place we'd rather be tonight. If somehow you've managed to miss out on Mono's live performance, you'll...
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