[San Francisco] An in-the-meantime band. Interesting. 80s flavored indie pop. Couldn’t help but notice the male bassist in a high bun and lipstick. Lots of reverb and echo-voice. Keyboard and tambourine. Some afro pop. They were definitely of The New Sound – with those high clanging guitars and the quiet and loud. I’d like to hear more.

[Chicago] The pretty blonde lead singer has that deep voice that somehow squeaks at the same time – reminded me of all those British soulsters that are so popular right now. She carried herself like a proper superstar too, which I mean as a compliment. The backing music (all sorts of people and instruments) was kind of tropical and had elements of ska sometimes. Rich, unusual, high quality. The whole band is also unusually attractive, not that that’s what’s important Listening to their online stuff – there’s a lot more dub than I realized – good band!

[New Jersey]: this band was more interesting –rollicking dance beat (dancepunk) with something of Bright Eyes, Mountain Goats, Hold Steady – three guys on key board & bass, drum, guitars – there was also a laptop on stage but I’m not sure what it was doing – the band’s girlfriends/sisters added a weird dimension to the show, incongruently twirling rave light gear, and singing along at the stage like a bunch of groupies – if I were in the band, I’d tell them to cut it out and stop biasing the audience with their antics – the band were very excited to be playing in CA for the first time, mentioning it first thing, and ending their first song with a reminder that that was the first time the song had been played in CA – it was cute – they told funny stories about their hotel bathroom with a toilet basically in the shower – I liked their music but his atonal plaintive voice got a little annoying

[Indianoplis, Indiana] girl in black with feathers on her head, jerking herself around the stage wailing and whining – backed by three guys, two guitars, and a drum – she expressed angst very well, and sometimes used a loudspeaker to do it – kind of reminded me of a singer/songwriter version of Babes in Toyland which is ridiculous – I liked them a lot actually – dark, pacing and dancey – her voice is great – she’s familiar to me somehow, hopefully because of the music and not the personal torturedness

[London, UK] clean funky guitars – verocious drums – slightly distorted female vocals, thought she was Siouxsie but she’s either happier or angrier – little bit of afro pop, little bit of Slits post-punk – good energy – quite liked them

[Austin, TX] slow earnest rock – lead singer was a dead ringer for Colin Firth as he appeared in Bridget Jones’ Diary – 2 guitars, 1 bass, keyboard, drums – their sound was hard to pin down from the live show, I thought they were moderate shoegaze with songs that were structured like pop rock from YouTube, they sound like really good post-punk with gothic undertones

[Austin, TX] we had both heard good things about this band but were mostly disappointed – first off the stage was dark just like the opening band (I started wondering if there was a malfunction), which made their fantastical costumes only bland outlines – secondly, they worked so hard on being odd art rock that they forgot to be themselves – they probably have potential (sounded like they have some genuine jazz background) but, in terms of both sound and visuals, they just seemed really far away from the audience in the most anti-climatic way

[Los Angeles, CA] we had never heard or heard of this band but were there because I’d won free tickets through an Emo’s contest for naming your favorite show you’d ever seen at Emo’s and describing why – pretty much the contest I’d been waiting for since the day I moved to Austin – I spotted the photographer for the Statesman’s A-list in the crowd early on which was a plus since it’s a sign that the event is at least minorly significant, but a negative because the bastard, once again, didn’t care to take my photo – on the other hand, though, the Chronicle had recommended the opening and local band, Pure Ecstasy, which was pretty much a slap in the face to Autolux – so they started off kind of average-sounding, which is dangerous for a band I don’t know – without a remarkable sound and with songs I don’t know, I’m at high risk of being bored – but I quickly became mesmerized – some of their songs had a 90s noise rock sound, which confirms my suspicion that the kids are on their way to reviving the 90s instead of the 80s, also confirmed by the number of NIN t-shirts I’ve been seeing around lately, and flannel shirts – anyway, there was also a shoegaze element, in the quiet repetitiveness – some suggestion of synth – it was all very simple, drum, bass, and guitar – there wasn’t a lot of to-do or hijinx – but their very calmness and seeming maturity suggested that they knew they didn’t need that extra fluff – I think they might be better live than recorded but, in general, this band pleases me greatly

this band is a longtime source of conflict between Rockboy and me – I came to them through the song Fashion Fight Pause which I really really liked but Rockboy would play the album he had by them and it was so disappointingly different that I would insist it wasn’t the same band – 2-3 years later, they’re coming to Waterloo and we did a little more research – I’m still not totally straight on how it happened but through various line-ups and odd EP releases, they began as a synth punk band compared to The Screamers (only!!! the inspirations for my favorite band since 2005: Lost Sounds) but then became a indie rock/post-punk: booooorrring – so that’s what their show was – I cannot deny that they are talented and high-quality but the “new” sound is not for me – when I called out my song, they looked surprised, bemused, and said “it wasn’t programmed into the keyboard” ba duh dum

lead singer’s voice is some mix of Peter Murphy and David Bowie which sounds amazing but they’re not – they never particularly struck me in the 1990s and I figured out why once I saw them live some 20 years later – he’s just too happy – lead singer Richard Butler, looking either very old or wasted from years of drugs, wore a little scarf and danced with little glad-hands on the stage – this is not the sort of behavior I want from Peter-Murphy-voiced musicians – I’m being too hard on them though – lots of their songs are evocative of old times – I don’t know their body of work well enough to be critical (been together since the 1970s!) but they also don’t motivate me to find out more – there’s something one toned/bland about their music

I hear mention of this band a lot but didn’t know their material or even their sound – I can’t stand Interpol and they’re definitely in that vein but I could stand them – sleek, dark and shiny – I always imagined them as a bunch of polished young rock stars but they were 2 pleasingly unaverage looking guys – they ought to be ashamed for ripping off Joy Division but I guess that’s the way of the world

[New York, NY] queer culture band – I kind of loved them – so odd looking I thought they were clueless foreigners but I think that’s their intention – crazy lyrics like how it’s really expensive to buy babies so s/he’s just going to “fuck all her friends” until she has a little baby – it sounds crass but s/he made it cute – electronic disco punk

[Lafayette, LA] they made me smile big when I saw them open for The Dirty Projectors with WomanInCharge and they were as delightful this go around – Afro pop hyped up into an organized dance frenzy – talented musicians and so happy and in love with their music – they might be faking it but I\”m a believer

[France] her song “I’ll Kill Her” is indescribably cute and hilarious but she didn’t play it and mocked it when I asked her to – despite that, I enjoyed her show – her little-girl voice bends and curls and then she’s screaming – the one consistency in her sound is a sort of hippie ethic but otherwise it was something of a spoken performance with a backing band – Rockboy only saw the tail end of her show and immediately declared her pretentious, disingenuous and annoying all of which are true as well – for example, there was a long period of time when her MySpace tagline was “Soko is dead” which prompted cries of adoration form her fans and pleas to come back which she did of course

for some reason, I remembered this band as sounding like The Slits but they don’t and they didn’t so I can get over that disappointment – they’re pop punk at best and 90s pop alt-rock at their worst – they’re from Australia – they’re not bad but get tiresome, especially with the lead singer’s need to constantly promote her personal image of a life-embracing free-spirit hippie-punk – although I did enjoy her description of having to clench her vagina to hold on while sitting on the shoulders of one of the audience members – is Australia more sexually liberal than the US? – she rode the shoulders of this white Mr. T in order to swirl her ribbon in the middle of the crowd in burner fashion – the awkward Mr. T was forthwith smitten and the most engaged member of the audience and the first to the merch table after the show – otherwise she was all pretty smiles and engaging friendly banter – of the same school as all of the bands that have “clap” in their titles and the joyous-thrash neo-new-wave bands – her jumpy performance made it clear why they opened for The Go! Team the first time I saw them – the more moderately happy guitarist did an impressive and thorough job with the soundcheck, I thought – there was a bearded keyboardist – my favorite though is the drummer: she’s a little awkward curly haired school girl with round eyes and when she gets going on the drums, her eyes glaze over and she smiles vaguely at nothing like a bobblehead

complex and sophisticated music that was possibly based in Afro-pop or new wave but verged into prog rock – absolutely inventive – lead vocalist/guitarist communicated musical genius to me and I fancy he wrote the songs and what with his crazy guitar skills he couldn’t help but throw a little prog into the music – his voice was also very good something between Antony and the Johnsons and Elvis Costello and Paul Simon – he was usually accompanied by three female backing vocalists who created a fabric of sweet noises that went from an ethereal drone to a’cappella to screaming – sometimes they would juxtapose their harmonizing almost in a beat boxing fashion so that it created a synthy sound which was amazing – departures from the general sound included the beginning of the set in which the lead guy used an electric guitar in a singer/songwriter style, when he accompanied the black-haired female vocalist in a very pretty jazz vocal, when the entire band would bend over at the waist and incongruously thrash to finish a song (just made me giggle), when the bass guitarist brought out an upright bass which added a jazz feel again to the music, and when the blonde female vocalist took over the stage in a liltingly funky M.I.A.-like song – in other amusing sidenotes, the band generally engaged in anti-cool posturing with the lead guy wearing two massive cardigans, the bass guitarist in an old-school sweatshirt that had some witty saying on it that I forget now, the black-haired vocalist in a plain black t-shirt with a little necklace, etc. etc. – there was also a drummer whom I’m sorry to say I could not see at all

Burnt Fur’s second show in a month was in the seedy underbelly of the Cantab Lounge, a place optimistically referred to as the Club Bohemia. Burnt Fur nailed an hour long set with their signature mix of electronic beats and industrial edge. The band was brilliant, tackling the jangly new wave track Redux and the sound effects-heavy Pixelated Black with the same aplomb. It took a couple of songs to find their groove, but once it clicked with the track Warm All Day from their first LP release Unfurl , the energy levels shot through the ceiling.

Fronted by Scott Harrison, he managed to channel his inner Siouxsie Sioux even on a minuscule stage at the Cantab. The foursome traded off guitar duties during their set and sole female Jean Kennedy even took a vocal turn on a sublime cover of The Cure rarity The Upstairs Room. Rounded out by Ian St. Germain and Patrik Tirda, the band pays homage to their pop sensibilities on tracks like Radiate. But the real highlight of the evening was the triumphant new track, Reverie, slated for their upcoming EP release later this summer.

Burnt Fur setlist
Strange Vacation
Radiate
Warm All Day
Redux
Reverie
The Upstairs Room
Cats
Homage
Vitriol
Pixelated Black

Burnt Fur were awesome. Why they were playing at Ramrod, a leather bar, I don’t know (on recommendation of a DJ that works there if the stories are true.) The band found a credible vibe between the Cure (which they credited as an influence) and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

The entire set was polished, high energy songs that walked the fine line between punk and new wave. Songs like Warm All Day were at one end of the spectrum while a track like Cats was at the vast other end. But it all worked.

The band traded off instruments and vocal duties and far surpassed expectations in the decidedly un-Ramrod crowd. A cover of The Glove’s Orgy sealed the deal. A magnificent performance.

SPECIAL FIND! They initially seemed to be Stray Cat rip-offs, but quickly emerged to be some psychobilly (the bass!) – new wave – pop punk fusion. Also a much better (and much harder) They Might Be Giants. They were freak nerds who took breaks to act out idiosyncratic scenario-jokes. The key here is: I thought the bassist (in his multi-colored layered socks) was playing guitar for a few songs because he was that fast, to the point that his bass started sounding like jazz, and then I realized he was superb. All of them were talented. Some of their own songs were silly I have to admit (the porn star one…). They covered Devo’s “Girl You Want” early on, revealed that they also have a Devo cover band, and then ended with a phenomenal cover of “Gates of Steel.” The sad point was… after the lead vocalist/guitarist had been rubbing his strings against poles (microphone, wall support, etc.) as his little trick, a girl in the crowd whipped out a slide and extended her finger for a rub, and he denied her… on Valentine’s Day. In the end, this band came off as nuanced, talented, wacky and intelligent – and, upon further research, the band members each have illustrious music histories, mostly punk.

I still don’t like this band – annoying pop punk with heavy new wave influences – Elvis Costello does not belong on the punk platter – it’s not that they’re poor musicians or lacking in professionalism or passion – and when they spoke with their little accents and used words like “geezer” without irony I almost really liked them

great: intense and interesting, jazz art rock, tangential rock with lead vocalist playing the sax at times, got a little more direct as they kept playing, Rockboy described as the real New Wave before it became pop

11PM band: was supposed to be Tia Carrera but was this horrid geek band, two on guitar, one screecher on keyboards and the worst: a silly jouncy girl singing (just as the lame girl ruined WT Special), they were like those bands with exclamation points in their name, harder than you expect but then all childish and punctuated with little yells

fantastic, lead vocalist antics were very reminiscent of The Grates but she was a little older and stranger, Slits influenced with a droning and sometimes thumping bass drum throughout

as fantastic as **** promised, Cocteau Twins or This Mortal Coil and then suddenly a female thrash band like Babes in Toyland, definitely retro as in from my times, female keyboardist/vocalist, male guitarists and drummer

sounded more Velvet Underground than Lou Reed, he was the force behind jumpy songs like “Waiting for My Man,” Lou fought with him and kicked him out out of jealousy, his solo work anticipated punk and new wave scenes, he wasn’t AS impressive as his bio made him out but definitely a #1 in-store

fantastic!, cutey girl in a retro dress-I was embarrassed at her leaping and little-girl antics but it proved infectious and punkish, happy guitarist but freakishly happy drummer staring and smiling broadly in her little boy hair cut with ear curls, great variety, beautiful voice, rocking guitar and drums, interesting and entertaining and captivating, different, new wave says Rockboy but then more, from Australia, fantastic!

Elkland played three songs including “Find Me,” and then left the stage abruptly. It was a fun twelve minutes, but disappointing after seeing a much longer set of theirs in New York. The chunky drummer, Jesse Pierce, looked like he lost weight, and his brother, lead singer Jon Pierce, was in pretty good form even through a short set.

Ah, Elkland. Despite the fact that we collectively laughed off this performance, we also ended up discussing it many times the rest of the weekend. Four boys barely out of their teens that resurrected 80′s synth pop straight from New Order’s doorstep. They wound down their set with the first single “Apart,” from the new album Golden. But to get there, you had to survive a number of catchy tunes that sounded mostly the same and seemed to be on the same topic, the make-up to break-up theme. Vocalist Jon Pierce does a back-bending dance that you have to see to believe, but it’s a combination of the Robot and marching band. They snuck in a cover of “Salvation” (released as a single by the Cranberries back in 1996) to close the show.

The video to “Apart” is hysterical.

finally got to see my favorite-named band, they were surprisingly mature and confident, relievingly so, nothing striking about the music, wish I could have been more attentive, some combination of previous two bands

druggie electrician talking my ear off (and I gave him and his roommate my number – that woke me up a few times last night in disgust/terror) so couldn’t listen properly, but really liked them, lush, full, keyboard, many members, druggie kept comparing them to Joy Division

Portland, Oregon, jingly indie white noise, shimmery strange pop, really liked by the end and huge relief from the country/bluegrass overkill, covered Hell\”s Bells, cool ones

hilarious in their restraint and politeness, straightforward nerds-black glasses etc, loosened up towards end and played with the audience and did little stunty moves, button-down shirts, music was eh very indie/emo-very blendable and indistinguishable, drummer was darling little prim and proper girl who could drum