I've been Indoctrinated

Just last month I was told about a band called Religious Girls from the East Bay in California. I checked out their MySpace page & thought they were pretty good, forgot about them for one reason or another but later learned they would be playing a dirt cheap show here in the city. I had to check it out.

After one show I had to check out another. They are like Noise done right or like Animal Collective on Peyote & PCP. I went to the first show last Thursday; it was hosted by The Tower 102.5 FM an up & coming college radio station here in SF--who did a great job by the way--@ Sub-Mission. The second was Friday--yes, the very next night--@ El Rincon.

They start off sound checking just like any other band--w/ the addition of one member providing grease paint to the others--& slowly it starts to come together. Even after seeing these guys two nights in a row I'm still unsure how much is actually sound check versus a planned transition from chaos to harmony to harmonious chaos. Soon enough the legion of floor toms sets off the inductees in convulsive dance & as quickly as it starts it stops, & so to do the fans. Religious Girls control the crowd like a skilled puppeteer. It's clear many of the inductees are only paying attention to massive noise of so much percussion & chants, oblivious to the the well weaved textures & atmosphere this band creates. It's easy to get lost in so much adrenaline; it's easy to lose your sight & speak in tongues. But for me seeing a band live is so much about getting a better understanding of the nuances of their music & never has any band made me enjoy the turning of knobs & the pushing of buttons like this; never have two players of the same simple arpeggiation back & forth put me in such a frenzy; never has affected voices surprised me so & made me think "that sound isn't a sample, but that guy right there." The followers are so devoted they seem to become part of the show, from the knocking over instruments to catching them before they hit the ground, to make-shift mic-stands, to the visuals of crowd surfing--which I generally find more annoying than entertaining--to the lifting of Dylan into the crowd as he plays his who-knows-what. It could be argued that these fans are part of Religious Girls. The shows are indoctrination & baptism comes by paint. During the end of the second to the last song Nick passes out paint and dishes a fair amount on to his drum set. By this time Guy has already moved into the audience & Dylan has come back to solid ground. As paint is laid down on a floor tom in the middle of the audience, a small young lady--maybe even a 16 year old w/ a fake--says, you might wanna move or you'll ruin your suit. I position her in front of me which seems well received. Band members take paint from their instruments & smudge the faces of the crowd. The girl in front of me reaches in herself, turns to me & marks my left cheek. I remember falling in love w/ Ester on a train, two marks on her cheek, looking like a pale stick indian. (I'll do something for the first one to call that reference, I'm not sure what, but something.) She turns back around just before high-hats quite everyone down. Drums come in & the room is rocking again waiting for what's to come. The music breaks & the band howls a chant to the heavens, the roof disappears & it's not long before everyone is involved in this call & response between floor toms & chanting. Nick has also moved into the crowed favoring an arched back posture as he holds his mic to the followers. Howling, slamming, paint splattering, we are taken to another plain, a new kind of high, this sort of peace from momentum; we are all Religious Girls.

When it's over you are happy, you are connected to everyone & everything, faith in humanity is restored, & you can't help but smile @ everyone you see & they can't help but smile back because you know something that they know & you both know that not everyone knows what you now share.

After both shows I made contact w/ members--both very nice--& hopefully I will be doing a proper review of their EP in the near future. Religious Girls' next show is on the 26th of September @ The Plea for Peace Center in Stockton, California.

Photo Credit: © Collin Sensesenbaugh

Don't Call them Foolish, They Know the Ghosts in this Town.

A few weeks ago I got my hands on a copy of Eep!, the latest EP by Los Angeles two-piece Lazy Loons. Lazy Loons is made up of Phil Freedman & Dane Rivera, both sing, play guitar, autoharp & drums. Phil also plays bass & banjo on Eep! while Dane plays thumb piano & handled producing & mixing. The EP was recorded in Dane's home in "a suburb outside LA proper." When asked about the concepts behind Eep! Lazy Loons replied, "Spooky. A little bit scary, maybe. Haunted. Like an old house kinda thing."

Simply put, Eep! is music made by kids who love music--from Sinatra to Talking Heads, from Tom Waits to Grizzly Bear. It's schizophrenic, it's eerie, & it likes to taunt you. Eep! is a low-fi collection littered w/ voices, sighs, stereo-pans & other nuances. The songs are strong, well written, & have a lot of replay value, w/ undertones of distrust, depression, disappointment & the inevitable. As well as the above mentioned Lazy Loons sites inspiration from The Beatles, Sly & the Family Stone, & Édith Piaf for this EP.

It opens w/ Aligator Waltz (yes, 1 L) a two part song that sounds like a hazy dream hosted by a drunk Frank Sinatra only to wake up in a gondola on the Missisipi piloted by an adolescent Tom Waits. (I seem to like music that makes me feel like I'm on water these days.) Dane uses two distinctly different voices here, while Phil changes from lone member of an angelic choir--harp & all--to a ghost trying to remember a tune stuck in his head. It's all weaved together w/ layers of thumb piano & guitars.

When you reach shore you find Alice; a song which I have decided is the wooing of a poltergeist. Phil & Dane share vocals w/ friend Richard Najar of Richard and His Boyishly Handsome Band. It's mixed in a way that transitions between the three vocalists w/ Phil in stereo, Richard in the right, and Dane in the left--sometimes finishing each other's sentences, other times others becoming a chorus. Throughout the song is a childish giggling--which verges on the sound of crying @ times--and Grizzly Bear-like harmonies.

On Jay Em Berry they are joined by Victor, another friend who may or may not have a last name, on accordion. Where Alice plays w/ voices that move left & right Jay Em Berry has vocals which seem to come forward and move back. I imagine a cold & sad Hook in his captain's quarters rocking in a stationary chair while mumbling out this song. It's guitar has a jewelry box sound about it, while the accordion is sparse & dreary. My favorite part is a toss up between the the loud exhale in the beginning, the panning snare drum in the middle, & the strange bass-like guitar @ the end.

Foolish Boa blows me away--catchy whinny lyrics & acoustic guitar over beautiful autoharp, harmonies, & panning tambourine versus screeching guitar that verges on nails on a chalkboard. It's like a battle between chaos & harmony or the two making love, I'm not sure.

Pastel may be the quintessential song of Eep! It's haunted sound taunts you, it's changes tease you, & it's beat makes you sway. It builds a tension in you and tells you it will melt it all away, but it never does. It's good but makes you feel as if you missed something so you want to listen again. It's mood could be described as the disappointment of content.

A.M. Ghosts is a three part song that goes from meshing perfectly w/in the EP to a becoming almost too rhythmic for it, to what I can only assume is where they are going next. It starts off w/ what sounds like some sort of alien bird call; then comes in these hopeless vocals accompanied by distant harmonies & upfront guitar--the essential sound of Eep! The final strum leads to a more rhythmic groove. Dane's vocal delivery is reminiscent of Pastel & two tracks of overlaying self backed vocals--each have there own speaker & play like call & response. The rhythm guitar is like string piece from something by Curtis Mayfield. When the drumming stops & the beat boxing comes in we're not in that old haunted house anymore. Phil takes over vocals & that crazy Foolish Boa guitar is back w/ a more bubbly shape. Soon backing vocals & guitar fight for attention while Phil testifies that he deserves to be heard. A final guitar flourish then it's just the beat boxing & Dane comes back in w/ vocals similar to the beginning of the song: I never feel quite alright, perfectly summing up the mood of the EP.

My Favorite Track

A.M. Ghosts

Most accessible Track

Foolish Boa

You can listen to more Lazy Loons (or more smoothly) on their Last.fm or MySpace pages. Lazy Loons is working on new material & reworking old material.

P.S. I just got permission to provide download for this EP. Download Eep!

Construction Paper Rainforests

I've been listening to a two piece band out of Cincinnati, Ohio called The Sleeping Sea. The Sleeping Sea consists of Jarrod Welling-Cann who sings and plays the keyboard, guitar, & vibraphones, as well as Michael Abitz who plays percussion & vibraphones as well. Both are studying to become audio/visual engineers, but I'd rather someone sign them & keep them making music. I got my hands on their Sun Drips EP about a week ago. The self produced EP was put together in a basement in Cincinnati using a variety of instruments including a little bell piano and rice inside plastic easter eggs.

Simply put, the Sun Drips EP could be described as Unicorns meets CocoNot, on sedatives, in a boat, drifting through a rainforest. Or maybe, the prettiest soundtrack to a Disney toon that hasn't been made.

The EP is put together very well using fifties guitars, multiple vocal tracks, smashing drums and very pleasant repetition. The Sleeping Sea manages to use repetition & simplicity reminiscent of rocksteady, do-wop, & early rock 'n' roll, in an ingenious way--switching it up before one can become annoyed, & before you know it they have switched again or gone back. Another reason it works so well is a complex backdrop of nuances which include, what I can only guess, are animal sounds, hand claps, & whistling. What amazes me more is they managed to do this w/o their music sounding formulaic. The EP is recorded clearly w/ perfect transitions; each song fits perfectly. Sun Drips EP is filled w/ short dreamy tracks that make one think of animated forests & singing animals. It's like playing, cuddling, and dozing off into blue, green, & violet night.

My Favorite Track

"Mars Is A Pretty Red Dress"

Most Accessible Track

"Oh, Zebra, Come Swim!" or "Fall Eyes On Africa"

You can listen to more (or more smoothly) of The Sleeping Sea on their Last.fm or Myspace.com pages. They also have a blog. The Sleeping Sea is currently working on their next project and has added Trombonist Andrew Walker of A Pinecone to their rooster. They will be playing @ the MidPoint Music Festival 24 September.

The Sleeping Sea also has a band called Ghost in the Piano Room & both Jarrod & Michael have solo projects. Jarrod uses the moniker Sailboats and Bubbles while Michael makes music under the name Quince Vetivert.

Photo credit: © Jarrod Welling-Cann