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Apples in Stereo The
Holmes Brothers |
Brant Bjork & The
Bros
So Brant Bjork is one of the early pioneers of “desert rock.” An early collaborator with Josh Homme (Queens of The Stone Age) in Kyuss, he took a break and played drums and guitar in various bands, returning years later to record on the first few of the many “Desert Session” disks with Homme. Later he joined up with some surf buddies and became the drummer for Fu Manchu. In the last five years he has recorded a number of solo albums and is currently on tour supported by a three piece billed as The Bros. Being a Friday night, Wifey came with, and on the short walk from the car to Club Café I thought I’d take just two little hits in the spirit of the stoner rock genre. Ready to pay Jon at the door, upon hearing the $10 charge Wifey was like, “Do we want to pay that much?” I was confused and didn’t want to look cheap since Jon hooked me up at the sold-out Andrew Bird show weeks ago. Later I discovered that she thought these were just some local dudes. “No baby. These guys are from California.” I didn’t realize how messed up I was until we got in there and sat down. In the twenty minutes before the band started Wifey was talking to me but I couldn’t focus on anything she was saying. I just couldn’t wait for the band to start and seeing their setup I knew it was gonna be loud considering all the additional speakers piled up on the stage. When Brant and The Bros finally come out Brant was juggling a few beers in one hand and what looked like a cup of straight whiskey in the other. Now I’m not going to know any of the song names here so it’ll be another shitty review. They started out very loud and, still being quite fucked up, I was starting to worry that this was going to do some sort of damage to the little one growing only three months now in Wifey’s belly but she didn’t seem concerned. The wonders of pot. It took me a few songs to come down a bit and I think I mentioned to her that up until this point I was having a hard time dealing. On stage this is a motley band of dudes. Brant, with his long, black, curly mane topped off with a bandana presented an imposing image as he was lit from below by some funky red lights while a strong white backlight outlined his figure. The drummer, Mike Peffer, was set up towards the front and his wildly exaggerated antics became a focal point throughout the show. Then there was the bassist Dylan Roche. Wearing some sort of derby hat, he hid behind his sunglasses and rarely faced the stage but just oozed coolness all night. A respectable crowd filled the joint. Initially I was thinking this band would be better in some back room, stand-up, sweaty bar but their mix of instrumentals and long form jams fit in quite nicely within the confines of Club Café. After almost two hours of mind blowing, ear-splitting stoner rock Wifey was hungry and we decided to bail a little early. When talking to someone on our way out the band started up another song and I said, “Let’s wait till after this one, it sounds pretty rocking.” Said Wifey, “Every song was rocking.” So right, Wifey, so right.
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