Thursday, February 28, 2008 |
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Column 162: Beneath the Masks: Live Review: Honeybee, Thunder Cats!!!; XYZ Affair...
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I already know how most local indie bands will react when they read the following column. "Cover bands make more money on a given night than original bands? No shit, Sherlock!" But they also know that there's a perception by some people outside the industry that touring indie bands are rolling in cash when they get home from a tour. If that were only true. Bands frequently save up as much money as they can before they hit the road so that they don't run out of cash before they get home, especially with gas at $3 a gallon. On the other hand, cover bands can make good bank without leaving the city limits. The flipside, of course, is that you'll never see The Fishheads or High Heel and the Sneakers on Letterman...
* * * I apparently inaccurately described Honeybee yesterday in the blog as a 5-piece. Either that or one of their members was sick last night, because the band only featured two girls and two guys. Frontwoman Melissa Geary has a sweet, cute but cutting voice, not mewing and withdrawn, but out front, crisp and quite good. You'll scratch your head trying to figure out who she sounds like, but you'll never pin her down. Their music borders on twee, K Records girly soundz except that they can ride it into something much bigger when they want to. That said, their youth and youthful precociousness is always evident. Ultimately, I like them because they're cute, tuneful and unpretentious, which is the best trait of Slumber Party Record's best bands. I'm told they just completed recording a track with Darren Keen (The Show Is the Rainbow), which is slated for an upcoming comp CD. The evening's big surprise, however, was Thunder Power!!! Flash back to April 29, 2007 and O'Leaver's, where I described them this way: "Their sound is low-key, low-fi, indie acoustic music (guitars, keyboards, drums, clarinets) in the manner of, say, early Sebadoh. Whereas the clarinetists were talented, their toot-toot-tooting was out of place and too out front in the arrangements. A member of the band told me they only had a handful of practices before this gig, and are still searching for their sound." Well, judging by their performance last night, they've found it, and it doesn't resemble that early incarnation at all. The band now has six members, including a female vocalist whose voice is the spitting image if Chan Marshall's (though one patron said she sounded more like Hope Sandoval). Their music matches that Cat Power style, and wherein most six-piece bands seem to have two too many members, TP!!! uses every position to its fullest -- a keyboard player (who smokes a pipe on stage, very professorial!) two guitars (a rhythm and a lead), bass and drums, and that earthy front woman. For the final song, one of the guitarists took over lead vocals, sounding a lot like Cat Stevens, which made me think they may want to change their name to Thunder Cats!!! I'm told they just finished recording a track for a split with Alessi. Could be big things in their future for a band that I wrote off a year ago as just another indie janglepop band. Finally, the headliners, XYZ Affair, a four-piece that brought more than its share of hubris to the stage. As one guy said to me, this is what Weezer would sound like if they were a bunch of jocks. I didn't dislike them quite that much. I mean, who can dislike a band that starts its set with an a cappella version of the intro to Prince's "7"? Frontman Alex Feder doesn't really sound like Death Cab's Ben Gibbard as much as John Darnielle backed by a bar band. Flamboyant, yes, and with plenty of falsetto. Not bad, not terribly memorable. I have no doubt that their common-man pop sense will some day land this unsigned band on a major label. --Got comments? Post 'em here.-- |
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posted by Tim at 10:49 AM |
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