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Apples in Stereo The
Holmes Brothers |
Akron/Family, Great
Lake Swimmers
So I headed out on my bike and 20 minutes later was making the slow crawl up Penn Ave. with a sixer of Strohs in the backpack, sweating my ass off. A good crowd of about 35 folks was in Garfield Artworks as I saw my man Hugh up front and grabbed a seat. I should mention that Hugh was probably responsible for this evening but read about that here. The Great Lake Swimmers were up and this was Hugh’s band so I tossed him a beer and tried to get into it but it was obvious that this was one of those things that can be much better when you’re familiar with the songs. The band was good but somewhat subdued. I will say that the singer’s voice was quite impressive, with traces of Jeff Buckley. Give me a couple of listens of their CD and I’ll probably be lining up to buy tickets to their next show. It was obvious that I was probably the only dude partying as I heard no other beer cans pop open. But that’s the problem with these damn indy-folk rockers. What, everybody’s too cool to be downing beers on a school night? At halftime I was out on Penn Ave. loading up the one-hitter. By the time I walked back into the building I realized that I was way too high, and seeing that the band was still setting up, decided to go for a bike ride. Well, I didn’t make it far as I rode up to Del’s and saw none other than Bob Smith, off his shift, sitting at the bar. And what I discovered there will haunt me for the next few months. Turns out that some drunk-talk resulted in my participation in a 20 game Penguins ticket scheme. Great. Never mind the baby due in November or the couple hundred bucks I don’t have. I’m good for it. Damn you Bob Smith. Back at Garfield, Akron/Family had already started and I stood back for the first two songs but was starting to realize that something special was happening. These guys were beyond good. Their four-man harmony, booming through the skinny Artworks hall, was accompanied by some of the most obscure psychedelic instrumentation I’ve heard in a while. Actually, I’ve heard it before but this was listenable. There’s a reason why weed and music go hand in hand. And from here on out, this band, live, should be everyone’s number one reason. I think I told Hugh afterward that I could envision these guys as a new Phish-type deal. What I saw was four unique personalities, each confident within their roles in the band, putting out some of the most infectious and unique music heard in awhile. Manny put this in his top five for the year for fuck’s sake! The kicker is that, after spending $22 bucks on two CDs, I’m not sure I would have went if I had initially listened to their music. Without repeated plays it’s had to grasp and I’m sure I would have stayed home but, hell, as far as I’m concerned I saw the new Grateful Dead. Details are gonna be hard to come by but they played one song, a chant really, that at first sounded somewhat kooky and religious, but they kept repeating it, over and over, until the whole room was overtaken. Another song began as a random exterior recorded clip that the audience didn’t seem sure belonged but then slowly worked into a crescendo of sound and harmonies. After the show, I think I said to the dude with the beard that my wife was pissed at me for leaving and I was going to smell like beer at work in the morning but that it was totally worth it. |
