LET'S GET SOME INDIE-ROCK UP IN THIS BITCH

A great band to get drunk to

Air Traffic, "Charlotte" - So I suppose I should disclose this right up front: I accidentally got kinda drunk at the show. You know how sometimes you roll up to the club reasonably late and without any cash, and so you head to the bar and order something, and the bartender makes it right there in front of you and hands it to you and says "six bucks" and so you hand him your credit card and he says "Uh, we have a twenty-dollar minimum for cards here"? And so you think to yourself well fuck it, I can handle four drinks and start plugging away at your chosen task with an eye towards closing out your tab right before Air Traffic go on, and so you start making your way towards the bar when you see a bunch of ostensibly roadie-esque persons taking the stage, figuring that you've missed the opening act and that these people are setting up for the main event? Except then, right as the same goddamned bartender brings you your credit card slip, they introduce themselves as some other traitorous band entirely, and so you look up at the setlist posted over by where they keep the fancy beers and get that sinking feeling when you realize that it's going to be like an hour and fifteen minutes until the headliners go on? And so you think to yourself No! I'm going to be responsible this time and just nurse this last drink until the ice melts, except then the band in question turns out to be one of the most elegantly prototypical example of navel-gazing Silverlakery, the likes of which inspire the kind of howling banshees of ennui in yr boy which can only be effectively drowned by a monsoon of Seagram's 7, and so you're standing there, and you're standing there, and you're standing there, and you're standing there, and you're standing there, and you finished that last drink, and you look at your cell phone, and oh fucking hell there's still like an hour left how have they only played two songs OH FUCK IT.? Yeah, I got that drunk last Saturday night. Hoo boy. I don't even want to think about how much I must have tipped the cab driver; that's going to be a fun little present when my bank statement rolls in.

BUT! All was sort of not lost, because (and I swear this is true) it actually somehow occurred to me to take "notes"! I use quote-marks, of course, because to call the preposterous scribblings I somehow managed to drunkenly eke into a notebook "informative" would be a remarkable feat of liberal interpretation; apparently my shorthand trails off even more precipitously than my speech when I'm annihilated. Funnily enough, however, damn near all of those nigh-unto-illegible scrawlings confirmed my most fervent hopes about the show...sorta; apparently their drums were "relentles" and "banging the shit out of", two eminently reliable indicators that no matter how air-tight and Keane-y a band may threaten to sound on record, their live show proves conclusively that they fucking rock. Better yet, it appears that "lead singer sings REAL good!!!!!!", a fact I can actually remember well enough to corroborate; hearing someone absolutely belt out songs like "Never Even Told Me Her Name" exactly as well as you'd hoped tends to be the kind of thing that sticks in your memory. Besides, thinking back on it now, Chris Wall was more or less born with a voice made for Spaceland; the soundsystem is just deafeningly loud in there, the kind of setup that captures every little ounce of effort you throw into your performance - and make no doubt about it, Wall threw down on stage.

And in that same spirit, I remember "Charlotte", a word pregnant with so much importance that it demanded no less than four attempts to underline it. Can you blame me? The simple fact that "Charlotte" isn't married to a prohibitively-difficult-to-transport musical instrument almost guarantees that it's going to be a more potent weapon in their set, but YIKES was I ever not prepared for it; these kids know how to milk that song for all it's worth, and given the fact that "Charlotte" may be the hookiest confection since Blink 182 got tricked into thinking they meant something, the kids in attendance knew just how to eat it up. Needless to say I've had a hard time keeping "Charlotte" off my iPod lately. "Chasing the dragon", as the kids call it.

I should point out that, as a guest of the band enjoined into reviewing the show, it was probably pretty irresponsible of me to get as truly and completely obliterated as I did; hopefully everyone involved realizes that nobody in their right mind goes to a site called "Green Pea-Ness dot org" expecting anything even approaching responsible journalism (and if that doesn't work, seriously). And it wasn't a total loss; I did come away from the whole sordid affair with conclusive proof that there are at least two ways to enjoy Air Traffic's music: on record (feel free to scale the doses to your tolerance for piano-driven power-pop) and completely and utterly trashed at their concerts. And I unequivocally do not mean that as a pull-quote. (Click here to pre-order Fractured Life from Amazon)

Eagle*Seagull, "Photograph" - While I may have been completely and utterly incapacitated with drink by the time Air Traffic went on, I was most emphatically still among us for openers Eagle*Seagull - and thank God for that, because they ended up impressing the everliving hell out of me. Granted, it was touch and go for a minute there - as long as Conor Oberst continues to draw breath, I pledge to hold every band from Nebraska in the utmost of suspicion - but once they started playing it was over; their set was forty-five minutes of tense, nervy post-Clap Your Hands Say Yeah indie-pop of the finest caliber. Unfortunately, I doubt that it's going to come across too well in this studio recording of "Photograph" from their debut album (at the show, they were selling a new EP [cleverly titled We Hate EPs {BAW HAW HAW HAW GEDDIT}] but since I was cashless at the time and they're only selling it on DRM'd-assed iTunes, I have no way of comparing the two), but hopefully you can at least hear the elements that made their set such a rousing success. At the very least, take notice of that violin - live, the band wisely pushes it right to the front of the mix, putting it to work like New Wave bands used synthesizers. It is AWESOME; it makes the songs practically fling themselves out of the speakers and into your ears, and it really is a shame that the studio doesn't do them any favors - or at least hasn't done them any so far. Check back with in a few years and I doubt I'll be saying the same thing. (Click here to buy I Hate EPs from iTunes - personally, I'm waiting for it to show up on Amazon MP3, but if you can stomach DRM, they're worth checking out nowish.)

White Lies, "Death" (demo) - For a band who only released two singles in their all-too-short lifetime, Fear of Flying certainly managed to inspire a hell of a lot of loyalty in me; when I heard they split up it was all I could do to keep myself from getting a tribute mural spraypainted on the hood of my car (which should indicate just how long ago they apparently split up). Then along comes Derek with a demo of White Lies, the band that rose from Fear of Flying's ashes, and oh my god. This song is absolutely magical; it's like someone toned down every single characteristic of Bloc Party's "I Still Remember" (a song I am only begrudgingly willing to admit to liking, and even then only with the help of the amazing remixes it wrenched out of people) and the result is a modern indie-pop song comprised of seemingly every two-word virtue ever stuffed into an email blast - sweepingly cinematic, compulsively danceable, elegantly structured, all that stuff rolled into one wickedly tense little package. I keep having to remind myself that it's only a demo since all the ideas are so flawlessly realized; I'm honestly a little scared that they're going to fuck it up in the process of perfecting it in the studio. Needless to say, I'll keep you posted on that. (Click here to visit White Lies' MySpace, where you can sign up with the band's mailing list and receive another MP3)

Fyfe Dangerfield, "Well, Love Does Furnish A Life" - You probably don't need to be told that Fyfe Dangerfield's solo works tend to be rather hit-or-miss - I mean, I love the Guillemots more than I'll probably love any of my own children (a fact of which I plan to make my children painfully aware) but even I haven't been able to go all-in on them since the release of Through The Windowpane. Fortunately, Dangerfield's latest project includes this shimmering little slice of heaven, a cover of Larrikin Love's "Well, Love Does Furnish A Life". In the hands of the original band, the song is shall we say somewhat less than a moral imperative, but Dangerfield turns it into one of those records that's so slight and airy that you struggle to distinguish between intentional atmosphere and surface noise. And, like all of Dangerfield's best songs, it is spectacularly pretty, especially on a compositional level (I'm thinking of the melody to all those little flute flutters in particular). God only knows why Dangerfield's been celestially tapped to act as a conduit for overpoweringly beautiful music so frequently, but you sure can't argue with the results - I mean, this song's so pretty that I can't even make fun of how Grey's Anatomy-y it is, and that's not a strawman I pass by idly. (Click here to buy the A Day In The Life EP from Amazon)

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