In-store: Pink Mountaintops

Pink Mountaintops

Sonic Boom. Sunday, June 14, 2009.

I recall when I was visiting Vancouver, back in ought-and-four, I went to check out the famous Scratch Records, and while I was there, I asked the clerk if he could recommend something to me that I might not have heard yet in T.O. He suggested the first Pink Mountaintops' album, which he pitched as a forward-looking fusion of The Velvet Underground and ZZ Top. Despite — or maybe because of — that description, the album never really worked for me. I couldn't decide if it was meant as a tinny-sounding wink at stoner-rock conventions, or just a celebration of them. Anyway, like so many things that don't quite click, the disc got filed away and more or less forgotten, and when Pink M. mainman Stephen McBean started to garner attention with Black Mountain, his other band, it didn't seem like a priority to check it out. It wasn't until last year's In the Future that I decided to get caught up and see what all the fuss was about, and I did manage to start to appreciate what he was up to a bit.

So it was in this context that I decided to check out the band down in the basement of Sonic Boom. This far down the line, and in what I'm guessing is a bit of a stripped-down sound, the band was utterly a bird of a different mountain from what I was expecting. Playing as a drumless four-piece with McBean on acoustic guit, backed by electric, violin and the deal-clinching vox of Sar Friedman who I am assuming is Amber Webber¹, the band's sound was gently rustic with a small hint of psychedelia, with McBean's slightly gruff tone giving that taste of a classic rock band caught at a gentle moment. The half-dozen songs were serviceable but really kicked up into something highly pleasant by those backing vox and the barefoot stylings of Sophie Trudeau.² So I guess I'm officially interested enough to keep the band in mind to check out further, the in-store magic having worked on me this time.

Listen to a track from this set here.

---

¹ Factcheck me here, Pink Mountaintop fans!

² Sophie Trudeau? Poking around through various sources, it looks like both of McBean's bands have overlapping and fluid memberships, and I'm not entirely sure who came out on tour.