The New Wave Dirt's "The Apple"

this 19 track disc (62 minutes) is the second album put out by guitarist/vocalist jon fink (of jon of the atom, see next wednesdays post) and drummer megan geiss. it takes you all over the musical spectrum, with about half of the tracks being instrumentals. there's chaotic and scratchy guitars, happy ukuleles, sad clarinets, jazzy 2 minute drum solos, pulsating synth parts, and jon's droning baritone voice (think thom yorke, but comprehendable).

in february, NWD travelled down to Binghamton, NY to play a house party with Snow Cave and the ol' Sgt. Dunbar. tucked in the middle of the bill, they absolutely stole the show. for the first time ever i was bracing myself to go crashing through the throbbing wood panel floor down into the basement below. during their opening song my freshly opened beer tumbled off the amp it was sitting on as the packed living room began to shake the house in time with the music. the mic was on a stand that wouldn't stay upright and plugged into a small crate amplifier, drastically underpowered, but luckily i was about a 6 inches away from jon in the hot, crowded, smokey living room; so at least i could hear him.

i remember them playing 'keep it moving' quite well. i paused the pathetic jittering that i call dancing to watch the crowd as megan led them from a little jazzy shuffle into an all-out-rock body spasm, and back again, and back to spasms, and then back down,....and yes, then back to chaos once more. the pauses they put between each section of the song left us wondering what was coming next, and i remember being kind of disappointed when i began clapping, knowing that the song was officially over. megan's drumming is impressive and entertaining and when you see jon (sometimes clad in a dress) violently smashing his pick on the strings its enough for you to lose control of your apendages and shake violently as we all did that snowy february night in upstate NY. i couldn't stop myself from thinking about their set for probably 3 days after the show. it'd been a long time since i had that much fun at a show and saw that kind of positive reaction from an audience towards a band that they had heard nothing of before that night.

"the apple" is put out by cozy home records, a fake record label/music collective similar to that of b3nson based out of utica, new york. NWD isn't actually signed to them, but cozy home has their cd's available on their fancy website and promotes their music to a larger audience then the two of them could do theirselves. CD's are only $4 on the website, and you can figure that at least 3 of that goes towards the shipping/production, done by some kid in front of his out of date PC. so i'd say it's a worthwhile investment.

they will be at The Warehouse in Syracuse at 8pm on April 20th and hopefully somewhere in Albany before then, but if not, then definitely sometime after that. if afterwards you want to tell jon how much you dug the set dont take it personally if he backs himself into a corner, he's just a little shy.

The New Wave Dirt's Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/thenewwavedirt)

Cozy Home Records (http://www.cozyhomerecords.com)

mp3: Ghost In A Photograph

mp3: Keep Things Moving

mp3: Solvanian Worker Bee