Rockness Recommends
Spend New Year's Eve with Lemonade, Surfer Blood and Beach Fossils.
December 21, 2009
So it's New Year's Eve, you know. And while there are many options surely at your disposal (like eating lobster on your couch and watching Iron Eagle II!), we recommend you go see three of our current favorite bands; Lemonade, Surfer Blood and Beach Fossils. They're all playing The Cameo Gallery (with Frankie & the Outs and We Are Country Mice). Ring it in, guys. Ring. It. In.
Surfer Blood - Florida's Surfer Blood have written a hit song. I know this much to be true. When I first heard their song "Swim (To Reach The End)," I thought there was no way I heard it right. So I had to listen to those three-minutes and nineteen-seconds a half-dozen more times just to make sure. And, wouldn't you know, I heard it right the first time. That's a pop song as good as I've heard all year.
Not only does it have big time power-pop choruses sung so perfectly and harmoniously (a la Weezer), but it even manages to pack in a sick little noodling guitar solo that reminds me of Chicago indie rock right around 1994 (the circa I'm a sucker for). I'm also feeling a serious Cheap Trick vibe going on. And everyone knows that Cheap Trick kind of rules.
Oh, and about those harmonious vocals -- they're perhaps similar to Animal Collective in sound, but less "enigmatic" and way more "happy." Surfer Blood definitely aren't lo-fi (which is often a gracious term for people who can't play their instruments all that well). These dudes are pros. Boy, that song is good.
But anyway, these little musings of mine aren't meant to be song profiles. They're meant to be band profiles. Thankfully, self-ascribed arbitrary rules are made to be broken. That Surfer Blood song is a straight-up JAM. (P.S. Surfer Blood's other songs are pretty good too...). Oh and they list Flannery O'Connor as one of their influences . How good is that book "Wise Blood?" I'll answer; really good.
Lemonade - When life hands you lemons with a continuous barrage of big beat downs, what do you do? You make some of the best dance grooves around. And Brooklyn's Lemonade do just that. They are one of those instantly entrancing bands.
Sure, as a virgin listener you may passively push play the first time around and yawn "Ok, let's see what goods you got, Lemonade," but before you know it, you're not only bopping your head, you're also starting to get that aching feeling you always get in your thighs when you really like a song (or is the thigh thing just me?).
Lemonade is just all about good ol' new fashioned electro-dance-rock. Just to be clear, they make the cool kind of dance, not the C & C Music Factory kind of dance that they played at the skating rink in middle school. Wiggle and shake while keeping your cred, my cool friends.
Lemonade will soon conquer that little corner of your heart that aches to let it all out at the crowded dance club. If you like sounds like these - BOOM-THUMP-BOOM-CLINK-CLINK-BOOM-THUMP-CRASH - you will love Lemonade.
Beach Fossils - There are lots of new lo-fi bands out there that are obsessed with sand. By their sound, it seems all these groups really just want to be selling seashells by the seashore. There's Real Estate and Best Coast and Ducktails (maybe Small Black), not to mention the whole Underwater Peoples label roster, and now Beach Fossils.
Beach Fossils is the work of Brooklyn's Dustin Payseur and I tell you, his songs make us feel happy; so happy we want to chase Annette Funicello around with crazy Frankie Avalon. So happy we'd start a beach campfire, roast some dogs, and not even care if Johnny and his rough crew showed up and started bullying people with their bikes. Beach Fossils is great guitar jingle-jangle with that lo-fi pop distortion we've all come to know and distinguish by now.
If you like the beach, any of the above mentioned bands (and Blank Dogs too), or have a special place in your heart for itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikinis, you'll like Beach Fossils.
BUY TICKETS TO SEE LEMONADE, SURFER BLOOD, AND BEACH FOSSILS AT THE CAMEO GALLERY!
Lemonade, Surfer Blood, and Beach Fossils (with Frankie & The Outs and We Are Country Mice) play The Cameo Gallery, on Thursday, December 31st.
Surfer Blood - Florida's Surfer Blood have written a hit song. I know this much to be true. When I first heard their song "Swim (To Reach The End)," I thought there was no way I heard it right. So I had to listen to those three-minutes and nineteen-seconds a half-dozen more times just to make sure. And, wouldn't you know, I heard it right the first time. That's a pop song as good as I've heard all year.
Not only does it have big time power-pop choruses sung so perfectly and harmoniously (a la Weezer), but it even manages to pack in a sick little noodling guitar solo that reminds me of Chicago indie rock right around 1994 (the circa I'm a sucker for). I'm also feeling a serious Cheap Trick vibe going on. And everyone knows that Cheap Trick kind of rules.
Oh, and about those harmonious vocals -- they're perhaps similar to Animal Collective in sound, but less "enigmatic" and way more "happy." Surfer Blood definitely aren't lo-fi (which is often a gracious term for people who can't play their instruments all that well). These dudes are pros. Boy, that song is good.
But anyway, these little musings of mine aren't meant to be song profiles. They're meant to be band profiles. Thankfully, self-ascribed arbitrary rules are made to be broken. That Surfer Blood song is a straight-up JAM. (P.S. Surfer Blood's other songs are pretty good too...). Oh and they list Flannery O'Connor as one of their influences . How good is that book "Wise Blood?" I'll answer; really good.
Lemonade - When life hands you lemons with a continuous barrage of big beat downs, what do you do? You make some of the best dance grooves around. And Brooklyn's Lemonade do just that. They are one of those instantly entrancing bands.
Sure, as a virgin listener you may passively push play the first time around and yawn "Ok, let's see what goods you got, Lemonade," but before you know it, you're not only bopping your head, you're also starting to get that aching feeling you always get in your thighs when you really like a song (or is the thigh thing just me?).
Lemonade is just all about good ol' new fashioned electro-dance-rock. Just to be clear, they make the cool kind of dance, not the C & C Music Factory kind of dance that they played at the skating rink in middle school. Wiggle and shake while keeping your cred, my cool friends.
Lemonade will soon conquer that little corner of your heart that aches to let it all out at the crowded dance club. If you like sounds like these - BOOM-THUMP-BOOM-CLINK-CLINK-BOOM-THUMP-CRASH - you will love Lemonade.
Beach Fossils - There are lots of new lo-fi bands out there that are obsessed with sand. By their sound, it seems all these groups really just want to be selling seashells by the seashore. There's Real Estate and Best Coast and Ducktails (maybe Small Black), not to mention the whole Underwater Peoples label roster, and now Beach Fossils.
Beach Fossils is the work of Brooklyn's Dustin Payseur and I tell you, his songs make us feel happy; so happy we want to chase Annette Funicello around with crazy Frankie Avalon. So happy we'd start a beach campfire, roast some dogs, and not even care if Johnny and his rough crew showed up and started bullying people with their bikes. Beach Fossils is great guitar jingle-jangle with that lo-fi pop distortion we've all come to know and distinguish by now.
If you like the beach, any of the above mentioned bands (and Blank Dogs too), or have a special place in your heart for itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikinis, you'll like Beach Fossils.
Lemonade, Surfer Blood, and Beach Fossils (with Frankie & The Outs and We Are Country Mice) play The Cameo Gallery, on Thursday, December 31st.
