Good show on Monday if you're into The Smiths, The Go-Betweens, The Wedding Present, The Field Mice, and all things literary, jangly, and pop.
Monday, August 22
$7, all ages
doors at 8:30, show at 9
Jim Yoshii Pile-Up (Oakland, Absolutely Kosher)
The Fake Accents (DC)
Get Him Eat Him (Providence, Absolutely Kosher)
Jim Yohii Pile-Up http://www.jypu.net/index.htm Oakland, CA's Jim Yoshii Pile-Up began in 1997, when Paul Gonzenbach (vocals/guitar), Frankie Koeller (bass), and Ryan Craven (drums) began performing as a trio. The addition of guitarist Sikwaya Condon added much-needed new blood later that year, and the band took off, performing their unique brand of textured indie rock, including tender and harsh tones, along the West Coast. Named in honor of Jim Yoshii, a high school friend of the band, the group released a self-titled EP on Yoshii's own Old Prospector Records in 1999. Guitarist Ian Connelly joined in 2000, and the band's first full-length,
It's Winter Here, was released the following year on San Francisco's Absolutely Kosher Records. Condon soon stepped down as a full-time member of the band, opting only to contribute occasionally to the group. His full-time replacement was guitarist Noah Blumberg, who was first featured on 2002's
Homemade Drugs CD, again on Absolutely Kosher. The album marked a definite transition in the band's
history, as the members experienced dramatic changes during the album's assembly. (Stephen Cramer, All Music Guide)
Emotional torment living in the slums. Brutality at the hands of homophobic police. Blatant thoughts of suicide. Paul Gonzenbach doesn't hold back in his lyrics, probably because he thinks people don't pay attention. "It's easier to lie to an audience when nobody's listening," the melancholic Jim Yoshii Pile-Up songwriter moans in "Jailhouse Rock." He's actually using a crafted image of a performer playing to a crowd in a prison ("You will spend the next 10 years/ working out the last six months"), but one can't help but draw parallels to the singer and his actual audience. After all, the San Francisco indie quintet drapes its despair in gently beautiful arrangements and, on the new
Picks Us Apart (Absolutely Kosher), driving dance rhythms; it's easy to just bob your head and ignore the dark side. Those who do pay attention will find Gonzenbach writes some of the most burningly confessional words this side of Morrissey, but not in such a sardonic, self-parodying way. Rather, he draws empathy moreso than mockery. On "Thanksgiving Grey," he muses, "There's so many more of us than there are of them/ an easy target when I inevitably miss the mark." It's dark and heavy stuff, but presents a touching, honest picture of human despondency, one that could only be told by somebody who's lived through it. Gonzenbach obviously has, and
Picks is a work that will offer comfort to those who can relate. (Philadelphia City Paper)
The Fake Accents http://www.thefakeaccents.com The Fake Accents: An enigma wrapped in a mystery, shrouded in a dream. A Candle in the Wind ('97). A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar. Yes, all of those things - and yet still more. And yet still less. And yet...and yet...fuck, dude, I dunno.
Anyway, the whole mess started when Zack and Dave, both of the late, not much lamented Morimotos, decided that since they still had all that damn equipment and were on the verge of actually learning how to play their guitars, they should really try and get another band together. Said band came together with the introduction of Pete, a fellow WMUC-FM DJ and rock aficionado who also happened to own a drum kit (score!) and was open to playing with them (double score!). Practices were arranged, songs were composed, and after a truly torturous set of brainstorming sessions (The Paper Spores, anyone?), they agreed upon a name. Thenceforth, they would be known not as "who are those losers?" but as The Fake Accents - something they all agreed was a lot better.
They played as a guitar-guitar-drums trio through the summer of 2003, crankin through early hitsville tracks like "Hipness Unto Death," "Japanese B-Side," and "32 Times." This was all well and good, but upon the return of their pal/also DJ Mai Nguyen from self-imposed exile in Colorado, she entered the fold as a bassist (and now songwriter!), thus completing the stereotypical indie rock lineup that's kept 'em chugging along to this very day.
Anyway, there've been a few recording sessions along the way. You can find a few tracks up on this site that'll give you an idea of what the FAs have been up to the last two years, and sometime whithin the next few months they'll record a complete set of songs. Until then you should check out one of their shows to get the full experience, as they say.
Get Him Eat Him http://www.gethimeathim.com/ Remember The Stranglers? Magazine? Bands that happily embraced punk rock primitivism and new wave noodling, that leapt nimbly between lizard-brained sleaze and nerdy angst without a backward glance? Get Him Eat Him does, or at least these Brown University students have done the back science on their new wave ethos in order to produce an album that distills both the catchy and the jarring elements of their forebears' work into an odd yet potent liquor, suitable for refined (if slightly warped) palates. Matt Lemay's almost-folksy voice is frequently in danger of drowning in a seething mixture of baroque synths, sludgy guitars and pounding beats, but it works. Lyrics like "you know you're so pretty / and you make me feel pretty when Iâ??m with you" (from "Bad Thoughts") are propelled by instrumental bombast into a place that's at once amusing and disorienting. In fact, that seems to be Lemay's general take on relationships, whether he's singing about nearly failed pick-up attempts ("Not
Not Nervous") or faltering relationships ("Separate States"), he's always that little bit alien -- always outside it all, looking in. And even if the album's overall feel isn't exactly "deep," it is strangely entertaining.
Our only point of contention is the cover art, which depicts what we fervently hope are two lumpy brown seals lifting their voices in song. Please, god, let them be seals... (Splendid)
