"Awesome Band" (from MySpace.com, 4 April 2007)

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Desperately Obvious at the Capital District Federation of Ideas

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April 2nd was another wonderful night to be a local hipster; my confidence in the people of the Albany area to be creative and entertaining has been gaining strength all throughout 2007 so far and Monday was another testament to that. The Capital District Federation of Ideas (CDFI) hosted their first ever full blown show at Point 5, their house/gallery at 383.5 Madison Ave. This included Sgt Dunbar, Desperately Obvious (as far as I believe, mostly local) and Dust From 1000 Years, on day 4 of their 16 day tour out of Bloomington, Indiana.

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Desperately Obvious kicked off the show and continued to impress me song after song as the small space began to fill up and heat up with students, graduates, bosses and random passers-by. I was finding some very good influences in their tunes, starting with vocalist/guitarist Richard Nolan's wailing voice's similarity to that of Willy Mason. Add the rest of the band: a stripped down drum kit played with brushes, a very pretty bass, slide guitar and keys and you end up with an alt-emo-country pop-bluegrass band entering your head. If you're as big an Okkervil River fan as me then these guys are right up your alley, and their cover of "Westfall" was true enough to the original to see the bands respect for their influences, but also creative enough to be what is somewhat rare, a good cover song, and well adapted to their lack of a mandolin player.

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CDs were swapped and I ended up with a copy of their press kit, the album art of which was done in my favorite meidum: pen on lined paper, along with Dust From 1000 Years full length called "Buzzard" (check out next Wednesdays post) also done in one of my favorite mediums: crayon on construction paper. I enjoy when bands post their lyrics, and when I read along with the songs on their impressivly available myspace, www.myspace.com/awesomeband where their lyrics are posted,I really began to appreciate the lyricism that's there when you can get past the excellent instrumentation and composition.

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The disc starts with "New Flower", a very humbly poetic love song to a flower that evokes deep and honest longing. Then slows right down into "Cheatin' Heart", a mellow sort of Pink Floyd-ish bob your head bluesy kind of song, leaning towards more of a dramatic, fictional lyrical subject... at least I hope he didn't dump a mans body in a river. (these are the two mp3s i will post, so i suppose i should have described some of the other songs, but...tan tan tan).

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You can see them in Utica, at the Resonance Center with Sgt Dunbar and Fig Mints (of your Imagination) on April 28th at 8pm.

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They have at least one album out on Make Your Fate Records (comprised of them and the Mathmaticians), possibly two at this point. You can buy it from the MYF website (synonomous with the Desperately Obvious site) or probably just by sending them a message on myspace. For their presumably newer radio/press kit, you'll probably have to just go out and see them, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

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mp3: A New Flower

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mp3: Cheatin' Heart

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Desperately Obvious

www.myspace.com/awesomeband

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Pink font, stars, smiley faces, cleavage:

www.myspace.com/desperatelyobvious

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Make Your Fate Records/Desperately Obvious

www.desperatelyobvious.net

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Capital District Federation of Ideas:

www.federationofideas.org

Evolution Revolution and the International Women’s Art Show.

The fluorescent lights of the front lobby at 51 3^rd Street were blinding, but I welcomed them because fluorescence is good, unless it’s employed by Skidz pants, but these were light bulbs, and it was warm inside so I took off the mittens my mom made out of old sweaters and shoved them inside my winter coat pockets wondering where the music was. It would be the first time I saw Evolution Revolution.

Art exhibits of mainly the video variety were scattered about the space, but the sound of an accordion swept my attention away from the loop of human flesh being tattooed, purple ink oozing from its pores. We found that the fluorescent lights were reserved only for the entryway, as we were soon enveloped into darkness. I was actually startled at the clarity of the air in such a dense and people packed space, I half expected to pull out my fins and swim through clouds of gray cigarette smoke, funny the things your brain associates with basement concerts. But cigarette smokers shivered in the snowy courtyard while a baby and a child, straight from a karate lesson from the looks of it, stared in awe at the pretty lady with antlers who played the accordion on stage. We caught only the last song of Ryder’s set, which was unfortunate because her tattered tutu told me it had been fantastique.

Having never witnessed Evolution Revolution I incorrectly assumed that the two folks dressed as bugs (a spider and a butterfly to be exact, or maybe it was a fly and a butterfly, humans in bug costumes can so easily be misconstrued) were members of Evo Revo just waiting to take the stage, but apparently there was more than one set of humans posing as creatures at the International Women’s Art Show on March 8^th, and before the music kicked off we would witness what was either: a.) a poorly rehearsed skit where the two actors berated each other on stage for having not practiced their skit, or b.) a very well rehearsed skit, in which the actors pretended to be angry and berate one another for having not practiced their skit. Either way I was thoroughly fooled into believing their rage (as was the baby who squirmed off of its dad’s shoulders, frightened by the alarming, although meaningful, bit where the butterfly’s wings are torn off as the butterfly writhes and screams in agony. The baby seemed to take it better than I did).

There was then the routine art-show-live-head-shaving-act and a reading about Britney Spears. I spotted a wolf in the crowd and I knew the music was coming. Well, sort of.

It’s incredibly unfortunate that there aren’t as many aspiring sound-gals and guys out there as there are musicians. I know more than a few bands that would really love to have one on board. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from performing it’s that I hate turning knobs and pressing buttons while also trying to remember to smile as I sing lyrics and play chords. That and never piss off your sound operator if upon you one is befallen.

So partly due to the fact that the crux of live-head-shaving-act came from the shock value of audience participated silence while the sound of the electric razor echoed off the brick walls, Evolution Revolution had to wait for their sound check. Therefore the sound check was a bit long, but that’s what happens when you’re trying to play the music and adjust the levels at the same time. In the mean time, the audience had a whole lot of costumes to grin at. A praying mantis mask? Come on, who doesn’t love that? And (by now you know I’m not very good at animal costume identification, so I’m not sure if it was a rooster or a chicken, but either way…) the rooster/chicken was totally styling, and that foxy lioness… Grrrr. I’m also a sucker for mopey-dog percussionists with glasses. I looked around for the kids to see if they were loving it as much as I was, but by that time they’d gone home to bed.

Maybe it was the free red wine I was drinking (man I hope it was free, because I didn’t pay nobody) but I appear only to remember them playing three or four songs, which does not include their dance party jam at set’s end, featuring Salt ‘n’ Peppa’s Push It. I was really impressed with the Rooster’s uncanny ability to sing the bit that goes “S-S-S-Salt and Peppa’s here.” But I do know that a large majority of the show was spent with the wolf on a wrestling mat, occasionally picking up the mic to croon out a freestyle while the rest of the band jammed along.

When the band did play their songs they were tight, obviously well rehearsed, and fit into concentric circles of both danceable toe tapping music as well as singalongalbe melodic tunes. My only complaint was that there wasn’t more. But that’s a good thing. Their music was high-class, and that made me want seconds. Instead I saw what Evolution Revolution’s regular show goers consider a priceless wrestling match, all accompanied by six talented musicians dressed in animal costumes. I guess that’s what the infamous Evolution Revolution is all about. You never know if you’re going to get a show chock full of well-written, meticulously rehearsed songs, or if you’re going to get a different type of adventure altogether. Hey, I’ve paid $40 a show to follow bands who night after night haven’t been as entertaining.

International Women’s Day Art Show, microrevolt: http://microrevolt.org/reblog/archives/2007/02/-the-8th-of-mar.html
Evolution Revolution: www.myspace.com/evolutionrevolution

The Press Rock Albany

Its easy to underestimate Albany, sometimes it seems like there isn't really much going on, but the more you look the more you find. Like last weekend I found out about the Ironweed Collective house in downtown Albany which apparently regularly hosts awesome house shows (I will do my best to post any of their future shows here). I was fortunate enough to catch the The Press play there last saturday night with Oddy Gato, and Zahnarzt.

After a slow start on the first song these guys put on the best live show that I have seen in months, and had everyone in the house dancing about . According to their myspace page The Press sounds like this:















I think its a pretty accurate description, their influences seem to include at least Q and not U, Modest Mouse, CYHSY and maybe the Wolf Parade but they are anything but derivative. Their live show is a high energy group effort that has each band member singing at some point. If you ask me these guys are destined for greatness and if you live in the north east you should definetly try to catch them this month

eb 13 2007 8:00P	The Dover Brickhouse	Dover, New Hampshire
Feb 16 2007 8:00P	Manchester American Legion Post 102	Manchester, Connecticut
Feb 24 2007 8:00P	Matchless Bar	Brooklyn, New York
Feb 25 2007 8:00P	Spark Art Space	Syracuse, New York
Mar 2 2007 8:00P	Cousin Larry's	Danbury, Connecticut

before they head around the world for a bunch of dates in Australia.

mp3:Three point Three

You can also get a few more songs at their myspace.