BY IAN HRABE
Upon entering the Record Bar last night and discovering that Smith Westerns had been
added to the already airtight Los Campesinos!/Girls bill, not knowing how to
articulately express my enthusiasm, I just started saying "oh fuck yes" over and over again. I
knew the show was already going to be excellent, but with the Smith Westerns on the bill, it went from being the show of the summer to quite possibly the
show of the year. This constituted a perfect storm: three bands with
varying styles, all capable of headlining, all on the same bill. After each set, I
was ready to go home and had to remind myself that another excellent band was up
next.
debut LP (out on Hozac records) a listen a week ago and thought it was
fantastic. This young (literally, the dudes look like they're about 19 years
old) Chicago band is the latest in a long line of neo-garage rockers, and though
all of these groups tend to blend together, the SWs' biggest asset is that their
songs are catchy as hell. That, and instead of being influenced by what's going
on around them, they seem more indebted to the Nerves (which clicked only after
hearing the "give me some time" refrain in one of their tunes) moreso than to Jay Reatard.
Ok, that's a lie. They sound a lot like Jay Reatard, but structurally, there's
something classic about their ramshackle pop songs. However, they might be the
only band right now with youthful exuberance whose members are actually young.
San
Francisco's Girls are perhaps
THE buzz band on the cusp right now. Last year, they released their jawdroppingly
good debut single "Hellhole Ratrace" and somehow, they've managed to keep their
debut LP (titled, appropriately, Debut) from leaking. Thus, I went in knowing
one song and was absolutely blown away by the rest.
grandeur in their music that I haven't seen on a stage since the Arcade Fire
five years ago. It's epic and familiar. The lyrics are incredibly direct and
sung with a no-frills vocal line that proves brilliant given that
it repeats over and over again for seven minutes and only gets better. The
dreamy vocals are laid atop a soundtrack that falls somewhere between '60s pop,
laid back surf music and music from a David Lynch film (I kept thinking Twin
Peaks). I don't want to be presumptuous, but I'm pretty sure that once their
album lands next month all you're going to be hearing is "Girls, Girls, Girls"
(I know, that's pretty awful, but they named their fucking band Girls so they're
pretty much asking for it).
Oh yeah, and then there's the band I came to
see. By the time everyone in the Welsh septet Los Campesinos! Had set up and
soundchecked, I didn't know if I'd be able to handle their meticulously
arranged, frantic twee-pop (or "TweeXcore" in their own words) madness. However,
all it took was the opening synth melody from "This is How You Spell 'Ha Ha Ha
We Destroyed the Hopes and the Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics'" to get me jumping and singing along. Unlike at the group's Lawrence show earlier this year, the KC crowd was doing the same thing I was
doing -- and seemed to be even MORE into it.
When he wasn't screaming at the top of his lungs at least once per
song, frontman Gareth announced that they were "only playing the hits" on this
tour which is surely meant to be ironic given that (a) he said this multiple
times and (b) they have only released one LP, two EPs and a CD single. And
culling the "hits" from these records would be impossible because there are very
few, if any, duds on them. However, the one song I would have preferred they not
played, "It Started With a Mixx," from their debut EP, was reworked and sounded
as fresh as something from their latest EP, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed.
The two new songs worked were a little hit or miss. One,
which their producer apparently thought was about "defiling a nun" sounded like
a song about defiling a nun, but lacked the explosive burst of violins, synths
and trebly guitar riffs that I would expect from Los Campesinos! Every band should experiment with balladry, but in this
case it fell a little flat.
The second, possibly titled "Ribs" was better, but
still fell a little short of my expectations. The impromptu cover of
Pavement's "Box Elder," however, was pretty fantastic. Especially since it was
tacked onto the beginning of "You, Me, Dancing" (the songs have the same basic
chord pattern), creating an incredibly coordinated indie-rock freak out
culminating with a transition into "Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks" and Gareth and
guitarist Neil's excursion into the audience (where they were quickly pounced on
by sweaty kids).
By the end I was too exhausted to stand and
slightly more deaf than I was going in and foolishly regretted not bringing my
ear plugs because I was certain none of the bands would play loud enough to
require them. Wrong I was. Each band was progressively louder, and I found myself
worrying about that like I was old or something.
Really, this kind of felt like
the last show of my youth or something like that. It felt epic enough, like
something I was waiting for and now I can grow up and be a responsible adult who
wears earplugs to shows and gets to bed before 1:30 a.m. And I can trade in my
pop records for the new Bruce Springsteen... Basically, as I write this a couple hours after the fact, I'm still stupefied by the absolute
quality of this show.
Los Set List!
This Is How You Spell 'Ha Ha
Ha..."
Death to Los Campesinos!
Ways to Make it Through the Wall
Drop
it Doe Eyes
Miserabilia
Who Fell Asleep In (New Song)
My Year in
List
You'll Need Those Fingers for Crossing
New Song
The International
Tweecore Underground
We Exhale and Roll Our Eyes in Unison
All Your
Kayfabe Friends
In Started With a Mixx
Box Elder/You Me Dancing
We Are
Beautiful, We Are Doomed
Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks
Encore
We Throw
Parties, You Throw Knives
Broken Heartbeats Sound like Breakbeats
Showing 1-4 of 4
I agree with the above post. Personally I cannot see why you would not want to make an effort in this regard anyway. Only the other day, at work we had exactly the same conversation and came to a similar decision
1. We did not know Smith Western was on the bill until late yesterday.
2. I could use an intern. Anyone want to help w/ updating the rB website/myspace/facebook/twitter/flyer making/distributing/etc. email us.
cheers.
ST
P.S. Last night's show was quite stellar and fun. Thank Jacki Becker and the Up To Eleven crew for bringing it to us.
(at merch table)
ME: Why are there random Smith Westerns albums over there?
LC Violin Girl: Um, they opened for Girls
ME: AGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Coming in exactly for Girls' first song turned from the most perfect timing ever to the worst, thanks Record Bar website. Burned by not being up in Myspace again.
btw, FF just hanging out was pretty cool too
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