The Bowery Presents

The Mercury Lounge upcoming shows

CMJ Music Marathon - Sub Pop / Hardly Art Showcase!

Male Bonding
2:00
Obits
1:00
Pissed Jeans
12:00
Golden Triangle
11:00
Dutchess & the Duke
10:00
Moondoggies
9:00
Dum Dum Girls
8:00
Unnatural Helpers
7:00

Venue:
The Mercury Lounge
Date:
Sat 10/24
Notes:
21+
Doors: 6:30 PM / Show: 6:30 PM
$12
Male Bonding
official website
myspace
Male Bonding a good-time concept held tightly by Robin Silas Christian (drums), John Arthur Webb (guitar & vocals) and Kevin Hendrick (bass and vocals), became a very real thing in May 2008. Their fate was sealed in a front room at their first show, an insane house party called ‘RAGE!’’ Male Bonding was born raging.

It’s been non-stop ever since. That party evolved in to a split 7” release with PENS on Male Bonding’s own label Paradise Vendors Inc. It sold out in one week. Paradise Vendors (PVI) itself became a very active concern, the band attempting to bridge the Atlantic releasing records by their contemporaries such as London’s Graffiti Island, Las Vegas’ ‘Old Blood’, and California’s ‘Rapid Youth’. To date every release on PVI has sold out and is testament to the band’s relentless work ethic: playing hot shows and releasing awesome records.

And hard work pays off as the NME, Vice magazine and countless blogs are running features on the subsequent “D.I.Y” scene flourishing around Male Bonding in their adopted home town of Dalston, London.

Male Bonding remain true to their grass roots, still releasing on whichever format they see fit and touring the UK with Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls and playing shows with Lovvers, HEALTH, Fucked Up, Graffiti Island, Mika Miko, These are Powers, NISENNENMONDAI , Magik Markers and Finally Punk among others.

And now new territories beckon.

Just over one year down the line Michael Jackson is dead and Male Bonding signs with Seattle’s finest: Sub Pop. A significant signing: the band being one of the only UK bands to sign a worldwide deal with the legendary label. At the time of signing the band will have have despatched seven releases including a Flipper tribute 7” (on Domino Records) alongside PPM Allstars, Lovvers and Ponytail.

Sure to be a busy year for Male Bonding with their debut album release for Sub Pop and a whole world to take it to.
Obits
official website
myspace
Every so often over the past few years you’d hear a whisper about this new Brooklyn band featuring a couple of indie rock veterans. Supposedly they’d been practicing since 2006, but weren’t ready to play live yet. Then they finally did play and immediately a bootleg recording of that first show spread all over the web. In lieu of having anything recorded for people to hear, the band even put some of the songs on its MySpace page.

But little did Obits know how much the listening public was clamoring to hear more. With only the bootleg to go on, bloggers tried to fill in the blanks with comparisons both apt and not. They don’t really sound that much like Creedence, maybe a little. Who knows what the people at Sub Pop were thinking, other than they wanted the band to join their roster post-haste–in July of 2008 they invited Obits to play their 20th anniversary bash in Seattle, months before the ink was even dry on any contract.

“Honestly, it was flattering, but it also seemed a little absurd,” says singer/guitarist Sohrab Habibion, formerly of Washington, D.C. indie greats Edsel. “I had a comical image of people sitting around a conference table listening to a crappy live recording and going, ‘Yeah! We’re totally into THIS!’ If that really is what happened, I wish we had a photograph of it.” Adds bassist Greg Simpson with a laugh, “I think the crappiness made us sound better.”

At first, Habibion, singer/guitarist Rick Froberg and drummer Scott Gursky were toying around with a three-guitar incarnation, which “was filling up the same tonal and melodic range,” Habibion says of the short-lived experiment. But once Simpson was brought into the fold on bass in the spring of 2007, Obits quickly found its footing.

“As soon as Greg joined, his style and the way the instrument functioned within the ideas we were working on made sense, and things moved pretty rapidly,” Habibion says. In December of 2008, they released their first single, One Cross Apiece b/w Put It in Writing on their own Stint Records label and did some touring with the Constantines and The Night Marchers.

All that brings us to I Blame You, Obits’ Sub Pop debut. You’ll know this on hearing it, but the truth is this: I Blame You is a rock’n’roll record. And like all the best rock’n’roll records, it’s a group synthesis of the band’s combined influences. On I Blame You Obits take apart and reassemble the genre’s traditions, raving up the ‘30s-era blues standard “Milk Cow Blues,” group vocalizing on a Motown-y mid-tempo ballad (“Back and Forth”), bopping through bass-driven rockers (“Two-Headed Coin”), taking surf-y riffs for a burning-rubber spin (“Pine On”). And it’s all done with a palpable, genuine sense of fun throughout.

“We’re not into innovation as a band,” says Froberg, who’s already done his fair share of innovating with Pitchfork, Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes. “I think innovation is an overestimated quality. Anything that’s going to be original is going to happen without your control. Things that make your band sound like you are things you wouldn’t be able to change anyway. We just go ahead and play the stuff we like, and we don’t worry about originality per se, because that should take care of itself.”

On I Blame You, Froberg is your guide to becoming emboldened by forged art (“Fake Kinkade”), setting your affairs in order before the world goes to hell (“Light Sweet Crude”) and trying to make sense of love in the age of political correctness (“SUD”). Habibion takes the mic on “Run,” his smooth-yet-spooky delivery providing a contrast to Froberg’s vein-bulging screeds.

Band members say being unafraid to revel in the kind of rock’n’roll they love has paid dividends with their own songs. “We’ll start out by referencing a Shangri-La’s song, but we come out with a twisted mess of a thing that doesn’t sound like it at all, which works for us,” Gursky says. “It’s reaching for a branch we’ll never get to, but we jump for it anyway. Hopefully we’ll get a leaf or something.”

Recorded at Seaside Lounge in Brooklyn and produced by Geoff Sanoff, Eli Janney and Obits, I Blame You is the band’s debut full-length album.

Rick Froberg—guitar, vocals
Sohrab Habibion—guitar, vocals
Greg Simpson—bass
Scott Gursky—drums
Pissed Jeans
official website
myspace
King of Jeans. The title of Pissed Jeans’ third album and second for Sub Pop conjures their essence perfectly—-masters of the mundane, beasts of the banal, high priests of the humdrum. These four, white, male high school graduates hardly look further than their own appendages for artistic inspiration, content to execute their own brand of brash and heavy punk music in the Joe Carducci-approved standard rock formation of guitar, bass, drums and vocals. From simple minds and simple fabrics comes this King of Jeans, perhaps also a slight nod to the variety of Pissed Jeans-inspired groups that have crawled up since 2007’s Hope for Men. After all, there can be only one.

If 2005’s Shallow was Pissed Jeans coping with moving out of their parents’ homes, and 2007’s Hope for Men their initial reaction to the mechanical lifestyle of a wage-earner, King of Jeans is their formal and uneasy acceptance of adulthood. The age gap between the members of Pissed Jeans and high school girls is no longer something to be overlooked—-they hoped for men, and sometimes you get what you wish for. Backs get sore easier and stay sore longer, record collections have reached their breaking point or have been sold entirely, and procreating is becoming a more pressing issue. What are you supposed to do when you are unable to break out of the standard, middle-class American life cycle that you never really wanted but don’t have the energy to subvert? When you are forced to understand that it’s all madness but know fully well that someone will have to take care of our aging parents? Well, Pissed Jeans went ahead and made one hell of a rock record. Working with renowned producer Alex Newport (who holds a Fudge Tunnel pedigree and has worked with such luminaries as At the Drive-In, The Locust and Sepultura), Pissed Jeans have pushed further into the raw, minimal core of heavy rock music with King of Jeans.

Less frequent are the extended noise passages that made Hope for Men so frightening, replaced with a buffet of riffs capable of feeding Tad for a month. Opener “False Jesii Part 2” (feel free to Google part 1) is classic Pissed Jeans with its circular, fuzz-soaked riff, pounding rhythm section and unwound vocals, a call to arms against the social lifestyle while admitting that yeah, they could still partake if they wanted. “Half Idiot” calls to mind vintage Birthday Party with its rumbling groove and splayed guitar. “Dream Smotherer,” “Lip Ring” and “Dominate Yourself” carry the same massive weight found in previous cuts like “Secret Admirer” and “I’m Sick,” pummeling the listener at a variety of speeds while tackling such issues as office life and the unrequited love of women steeped in ostensibly dumber subcultures. And then there’s the Sabbath-built self-defeat of “Spent” and simple plea of “Request for Masseuse,” played as if the loving hands of Blue Cheer’s Randy Holden were guiding the session. And this is coming from a band who, while writing this record, spent more time with the first three Danzig albums than most Fiend Club members.

It’s also worth noting that this is the first record that bassist Randy Huth has played on, he of both Drag City recording artists Pearls & Brass and Randall of Nazareth. A close friend of guitarist Bradley Fry and singer Matt Korvette since high school, his full-time Jeans status has helped to complete Pissed Jeans’ take on the cumulative efforts of all heavy guitar-based music of the past four decades. Drummer Sean McGuinness appreciates the random packets of opium he shares at band practice, too.

So here it is: King of Jeans. Expect to see these Jeans on the road for a good part of 2009 and 2010, as previous shows have paired them with acts as oddly fitting as Om, Black Dice, Flipper, Boris, Harvey Milk, Mudhoney, and hell, they even played with Sage Francis once. When that long hairy arm starts for your face, I recommend you take a good bite.

—Brian Duane, 2009
Golden Triangle
official website
myspace
Hailing from Brooklyn/Atlanta/Austin/Memphis, Golden Triangle has toured with the likes of The Black Lips, Deerhunter, Jay Reatard, King Khan, and Quintron & Miss Pussycat. They play damaged psyched out garage rock with dual female vocals.
Dutchess & the Duke
myspace
'This record was written for the studio. This record was written for Greg Ashley to record. In that sense, it was really good because we had a line to measure by: we know what we can do here.'

Dutchess and the Duke leader Jesse Lortz is discussing the genesis and execution of his band's sophomore record, Sunset / Sunrise, a slump-dodging opus that takes the dark, raw beauty of the band's debut and scales it up to distinctly luminescent heights, thanks to a graceful synthesis of painfully earned creative maturity and thoughtful production under Ashley's adroitly tuned ears. The Gris Gris frontman's analog-equipped, Bay Area studio was the ideal space for Lortz and fellow vocalist and guitarist Kimberly Morrison to arch their intimate musical dialog into the larger shape they had envisioned. Much of what colors Sunset / Sunrise's ten tracks is the confidence the duo acquired during extensive touring throughout 2008 in support of their debut, She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke.

'We'd both been in bands and toured a bunch and sang a bunch, but we'd never had to do it so nakedly or honestly,' explains Morrison. Such emotional vulnerability only became more challenging when they had to learn how to deliver it on the road. 'We did this whole tour where our percussionist couldn't come with us,' continues Lortz. 'We just figured we'd save money and get some acoustic guitars and just rent a little car.' Unfamiliar at the time with the necessity of pickups to properly mic their guitars, they had to shift their approach to performing on the fly. 'At the first club we went to, our guitars fed back to badly that we just sat on the floor to play and then did 30 shows like that,' says Lortz. 'It was great because we didn't have to worry about sound check or what our mics sounded like,' Morrison laughs. 'Sometimes we'd lay down. Sometimes we'd walk around and sing really loud in peoples' faces if they were talking too loud.' An extensive tour with the Fleet Foxes further refined their performances, and by the time the duo connected with Ashley in late March of 2009, Lortz's vision of where he wanted the next album to go was lucid and his focus even sharper with the news that his first child was on its way.

Though minor chords and romantically morose lyrical yarns about misplaced affections and spiritual inertia remain touchstones, there's a refreshing undercurrent of optimistic light running through songs like 'The River' and 'New Shadow,' a bewildered and beautiful reflection on Lortz's impending parenthood. The presence of Lortz's innate grasp of classic '60s pop structures is still audible, but so is growth beyond an obvious affection for early Rolling Stones, with songs like 'Let It Die' pulsing with a sly warmth and subtle twang all their own. Morrison also comes more sharply into the foreground, particularly on the (nearly) title track, when Lortz relegates himself to mournful howls behind her distinct and dramatic alto.

His partner's increased presence notwithstanding, it's still Lortz's baby, figuratively and literally. Morrison likens it to a rebirth 'On the last record he was so miserable, and now he's got a kid coming and is trying to figure out what kind of person he's gonna be and wants to be for his kid. It's definitely more hopeful than the last record.'
Moondoggies
myspace
There is a popular chapter of American mythology that pertains to The Highway. It tells of a two-way ribbon of blacktop running endlessly through our past to our future, linking city to country, offering escape and motion and freedom to travel anywhere the imagination might wander. In this chapter, The Highway is both means and end, metaphor and reality.

And down that mythical Highway there is a Bar. Inside that Bar is a Stage. On that Stage is a Band. That Band is the Moondoggies.

The Moondoggies are a four-piece band from Seattle that plays timeless American music. Warm three-part harmonies, gothic Rhodes organ, and wanderlust guitar mark a sound rooted in boogie blues and cosmic country; whip-smart songwriting leads to hook-heavy tunes that bristle with originality. Led by 22-year-old singer/guitarist Kevin Murphy, the Moondoggies are intent on artistic balance. They're a serious band with a silly name. They play music that speaks of travel but is strongly connected to its place of origin. They're young musicians continuing a legacy that goes back generations. Songs that unravel over seven sinuous minutes are somehow catchy and compact.

Murphy and his band mates—Robert Terreberry on bass, Carl Dahlen on drums, and Caleb Quick on keys—started making music together as teenagers (all but Quick graduated from Cascade High in Everett, a Seattle suburb). The Familiars, their first band, was a noisy, garage-rocking outfit that gained minor notoriety locally, but the boys soon realized their passion lied in vocal harmonies, not power chords. Seeking the inspiration of new surroundings, Murphy lit out for Ketchikan, Alaska in the summer of 2005. It was there, in a dusty attic with an acoustic guitar and four-track recorder, that he zeroed in on the Moondoggies' sound. Upon his return to Seattle, the band took up residence at the Blue Moon Tavern, a notorious University District dive that for over 70 years has boozed up a rogue's gallery of writers, poets, artists, student radicals, and other drunks. The Moondoggies and the Blue Moon were made for each other. Before long they accrued a dedicated following drawn to the band's woozy, spirited live shows and a new Northwest phenomenon was born.

That same spirit shows up on Don't Be A Stranger, the Moondoggies' debut. Shades of gospel, blues, rock, and country commingle; wall-of-sound harmonies radiate joy and passion; songs remain in the mind long after the record ends. The influence of the Band, the Byrds, and especially early Grateful Dead is evident, though the Moondoggies’ lyrical economy and compositional sensibility render these 13 tracks fresh and unique. From the hard-charging garage boogie of "’ol Blackbird" to the mournful, hand-clapped spiritual "Jesus on the Mainline" to the anthemic rock 'n' soul of "Changing" to the rollicking, bar-room singalong "Bogachiel Rain Blues," each of these songs earns a slot in the great American jukebox.

"I don’t think sitting down and playing guitar is an old-time thing," Murphy recently told TheSeattle Times. "Our sound is what seems to happen when we sit around and sing and play. It's never going to get old. People will always do that."
There will always be a Band that sings the song of The Highway. For us, for now, that band is the Moondoggies.
Dum Dum Girls
myspace
Led by Dee Dee, Dum Dum Girls churn out pop music that adheres to her self-proclaimed M.O.: “blissed-out buzz saw.” Dee Dee formed DDG in late 2008 as a solo project—the name a nod to both The Vaselines’ album, Dum-Dum, and the Iggy Pop song “Dum Dum Boys”— and released a home-recorded CDR on her label Zoo Music followed by a 7" on HoZac and a 12" EP on Captured Tracks.

When Dee Dee needed a band to take her songs out of the bedroom, she looked to her friends: Jules, a San Diego-based furniture designer; Bambi, a non-profit worker in Austin; and Brooklynite Frankie Rose, a former Vivian Girl and Crystal Stilt, currently starting her own project as well. When the other three met for the first time a week before CMJ 2009, it was an instant girl gang.

Dee Dee wrote and recorded the songs that became I Will Be over the first eight months of 2009, and she asked a few others to contribute. Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner plays on “Yours Alone.” Crocodiles’ Brandon Welchez sings and plays guitar on the duet “Blank Girl.” And Los Angeles musician Andrew Miller contributes guitars to a number of tracks.

When it came time to choose someone to gently finesse I Will Be, the name Richard Gottehrer came up on Dee Dee’s wish list. Responsible for writing such seminal songs as “My Boyfriend’s Back,” and “I Want Candy,” he also produced his own short-lived band The Strangeloves, as well as The Voidoids, Blondie, The Go-Gos, and more recently, The Raveonettes. Marvels Dee Dee, “I gave him all the rough tracks and he produced them, as I had a lot of digital effects acting as sort of placeholders. I’m not exactly sure what he did, but it’s a world of difference. The songs sound warm, and they kind of sparkle.”

I Will Be runs just under thirty minutes with eleven songs; a short tribute to love, loss, fear, fun, and the classic pop form of the ‘60s girl groups and early punk rockers. Explaining the album’s dark-and-sunny feel, Dee Dee says, “There’s an overdramatic tone, much like a teenager’s world, but applied to the experience of getting older.” No track better exemplifies that sentiment than the somnolent “Rest of Our Lives,” a lullaby about marriage that captures, she says, “that feeling when you’re 16 and you think you’re going to be with your boyfriend forever. And that you’d just die if you weren’t. Except it’s about my husband.”

On the other end of the spectrum, “Bhang Bhang, I’m a Burnout” (the curious spelling being slang for marijuana) spends roughly two-and-a-half minutes musing on the virtues of psychedelics. And “Lines Her Eyes” touches on petty girl-on-girl competition, while “Jail La La” updates the Bobby Fuller Four’s “I Fought the Law” with a reverb-laden sing-along.

What’s with the bipolar songs? “I tend to be an introvert. So there’s a lot of time for weird thoughts to develop in my head before I put them down on paper,” says Dee Dee. “And it’s really bizarre living in Southern California. It’s that total stereotype of being super-laidback, this ‘everything’s perfect’ vibe. But you’re miserable in the sun because you’re stuck. Like, it’s so perfect that it’s overwhelming and depressing. That’s sorta inspiring.”
Unnatural Helpers
myspace
Unnatural Helpers are usually:
Dean Whitmore
Kimberly Morrison
Brian Standeford
Charles Leo Gebhardt IV
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