Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears: 3/9 @ La Zona Rosa, Austin TX
Posted on March 10, 2008
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I listen to a lot of different styles of music; including old time soul, funk, motown, and blues. I’ve often marveled at how tight a lot of these acts were, and just how great the musicianship is on so many of the recordings. When you listen to new R&B and hip hop, it sometimes seems like something has been lost. Granted, something has been gained too. But I have wondered over the past few years why there just aren’t young bands that do that old school type of music. Seems like live shows with that setup would be an easy sell. Then I found there were a couple of acts that sort of do it… and then along came Amy Winehouse – who owes a lot to the Dap Kings for her sound. But her stuff is, err, well strangely unsatisfying; despite being album of the year.
Enter Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. They are a young band (all in their early to mid twenties), and somewhat unpolished, but that is part of their appeal. You could follow this band and watch them define themselves and grow. They are a traditional big blues ensemble, but don’t stick to just blues; they jump around from Texas country blues to soul, to funk, and even more bawdy, abstractly blues-based rambles. Elements of southern gospel show also show up. Black Joe can sing, for real. He sounds like a raw James Brown; and while not opting for big spotlight solos, he holds his own on guitar. Rounding out the act are a three part horn section, and a standard rhythm section with bass, guitar, and drums. This is definitely a band that translates better live; they work hard and keep the show (and the crowd, at least that night) moving.
Spoon has taken an interest in the band and has helped them out in various ways, including opening gigs for their tour last year. Which makes sense when you hear some of the R&B (via the Rolling Stones) that shows up in some of Spoon’s songs. I caught up with the drummer and bass player at the pureVolume after party that night and they were super nice guys. Very humble and open, and hopeful. The band is planning a summer tour. I know for a fact that in the Northeast (and probably other places as well) they could easily become media darlings due to the relative rarity of young acts like this. And their shows are just plain good.
Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears on MySpace.
Tokyo Police Club 3/9 @ Club Deville, Austin TX
Posted on March 10, 2008
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OK, I’m just going to come out and say it: this band sucks. The singing is truly godawful, it sounds like the lead singer’s and the keyboardist’s voices are changing; as in they are just hitting puberty. Like when Bobby Brady’s voice changed. Strangely enough, they look like they are that old also. The dorky keyboard guy’s voice takes it a step further, it also sounds like he is getting the shit kicked out of him buy a bully, while somebody else is strangling a cat and stepping on a shitty vintage casio keyboard. I honestly couldn’t tell if they were good instrumentally due to the distraction of these two godawful singers.
But who cares anyway: it’s as if a geek-ass MIT math club decided to form a Strokes cover band but forgot all the songs so they mad up shit based on equations. And on half their songs they are doing a bad version of the yells that Arcade Fire does so well on songs like “No Cars Go.” “HEY!” Hey right. These billy goat squeals really don’t sound good at all. Ouch. What a contrast to the bands we saw earlier in the evening. And it showed in the crowd’s reaction too; among these perfectly messy haired, extremo styled hipsters, NOBODY was dancing! Except for one jerk who must have been on pills or something and was ridiculously annoying, climbing on tables, bumping into people.
I will say one thing, there is high entertainment value (we literally laughed out loud) at how dorky that keyboard player was. What will he do next? Dance alone with the tamborine completely off rhythm? Yep, there it is! Strike a ridiculous pose that looks like Erkel on cat tranquilizers? There he goes! And there we went, right on out of that show, to the bar next door to get away from another copycat band that thinks they are cooler than they actually are. How the hell they are tricking the critics and getting fans is beyond me; it’s certainly not from their live shows. To be fair, I did listen to some stuff on iTunes afterwards; but the live show spoiled it for me. I couldn’t stop thinking about that keyboardist and can’t take the music seriously with the visuals of him haunting me.
White Denim: 3/8 @ Emo’s Austin
Posted on March 9, 2008
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Now this band fucking rocks hard. That’s the only way to describe it. Whether you like their style of music or not, there is no denying the energy of their hard driving, hard hitting live shows. But it just so happens they have the musical chops to back up all this drive. White Denim has a big sound reminiscent of ’70′s balls out rock bands, but with a perhaps more complex take on song structure, bridges, and rhythm breaks. And a little southern rock thrown in. Now for the dreaded ‘sounds like’ comparisons. They have a sound that might bring up comparisons to the White Stripes, DFA, the Black Keys, and maybe the Black Lips. (What’s with all this black-this white-that shit anyway?) Well, whatever. But of course they have their own sound, etc. etc. Fact is, they rock and deserve to make it, and judging by their national and international schedule coming up this spring and summer, they are on their way. Nice guys to boot, and one thing that is rare and attractive these days: they have no fucking lame ass ‘cooler than thou’ attitude. Very hard working and down to earth. We merely congratulated them on a good set, they were truly appreciative; the lead singer hooked us up with free passes to a show they were doing the next night at La Zona Rosa with Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. Which also kicked ass. That review is coming next.
Here is White Denim on Myspace. And their official homepage. They have some pretty cool videos, too. Download MP3′s here. Or better yet, buy the EP on iTunes and show some support.
Now to see if we can get one of their songs in a national commercial…
Bob Schneider: 3/7/08 @ Antone’s, Austin TX
Posted on March 8, 2008
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Caught this show at the famous Austin blues club Antone’s. I recalled Bob Schneider more for his very cool website designed by WeFail. What I didn’t remember is that his music now sounds a lot like Jack Johnson and that type of fucking annoying mellow ‘everything is gonna be alright’ brand of white guy soul. Rule #1: NO white people should do reggae unless it’s the Clash or Blondie… back in the 80′s. Everybody that tries to do this just tends to overplay… that type of music is all about the back beat and knowing when to hold back. OK, so Mr. Schneider didn’t do much reggae, to be fair. And some of the more riff driven, southern rock style stuff was pretty good. I wasn’t sure what to make of the weird comedy act about two-thirds of the way through about a cock sucking crack whore. Kinda funny, I guess. But not really. Then the rapping style stuff he did later… ouch. I think I’m all set, we left before the show was even over.