Fergus & Geronimo (Surf City / Bruised Knees)
The Garrison. Saturday, April 16, 2011.
After a full day of rock'n'roll, I entered a quiet-ish room at The Garrison, with maybe about 30-odd people on hand, mostly hugging the walls as locals Bruised Knees took the stage. I was most certainly glad to see the band again — they'd impressed every other time I'd seen 'em and now they were a little less rangy, the songs a little more lived-in. "Caesar", say, now really played up the tension between the druggy psychedelic loll in the guitar and the rolling drums.
And with more familiarity, "Badwater" with its warm Sonic Youth-y interplay of Chuck Skullz' guit and Graham Hancock's bass sounded like an old hit that you hadn't heard for a while. Natalie Logan (who was dropping humblebrag references about meeting Werner Herzog) was again an effective foil, with her contrastingly bright vocals and percussion adding the frisson that makes the band stand out. That was in display throughout but really hit home in the overlapping vocals in "Drums", which closed out the efficient seven song set. A plusgood table-setter for the next band up.
Listen to a track from this set here.
From the moment I heard of them, it seemed like Surf City were quite possibly a band designed to appeal directly to me, combining their stolen-from-the-JAMC name — originally "Kill Surf City" — with a sound that pays tribute to the NZ/Flying Nun guitar-pop tradition. You can safely say that this was the band I was here to see.
Originally slated for Parts & Labour, this could have fit comfortably there crowd-wise, but for the sonics, I was glad to be at The Garrison. That'd apply even in the case of a band whose preferred sound was rather mushy, with super-echo-y vocals low in the mix, and plenty sustain/delay guitar effects.
"We're Surf City — let's staht," said Davin Stoddard with his New Zealand twang. Not much for banter otherwise, the band launched into "In Times of Approach..." from their excellent 2010 debut full-length Kudos, that song stretching out live in a way that the album version does not. Given some of the zworping layers of texture, based on the sound alone one might have guessed that there was a distorted keyboard in the mix, but the band employed a straightahead two guit/bass/drums lineup, with lots of effects.
For a band playing Volume Rock, it was mildly amusing to see the teeny amps they were wrenching their sounds from — Stoddard just had a little Fender sitting on a chair that he would occasionally lean into to generate some shards of noise. Material from the album was mixed with a few songs from their initial self-titled EP. Most of that stuff, like "Headin' Inside" (with its "good night, good night" hook) had a more more succinct pop structure.
Not that the newer stuff (like the Clean-tastic "See How The Sun") was lacking for hooks, but it was more refracted through some sort of smoky lens. And live, there was room to explore inside the songs a little, as with the album's title track (which begins with the declaration, "west coast dreams are kept alive / by the hidden sunsets in your eyes") stretching out a bit to close things out. All told, a fantastic set. It's a long way over from the other side of the world, but I do hope the band makes it back here.
I'd originally posted a live track taken from their album here, and now you can also check out an older one here.
It didn't look like I was along in coming out to this primarily to check out Surf City, as there was a notably-thinner crowd on hand as headliners Fergus & Geronimo took the stage. I was a bit leery coming into this, having checked the Unlearn album out and finding it indulging in far more Zappa-esque whimsy than I prefer, mixing sloppy rock moves with doo-wop signifiers, all wrapped up with a smirk of vague contempt.1 "Taking the piss" seems to be one of the band's goals, so perhaps it's no surprise that they led off their set with a noodly blues jam.
That had me feeling increasingly dubious about the proceedings, but things did improve with "Girls with English Accents". As it would turn out, songs from the album were a little thin on the ground — perhaps a tacit admission that the slower, psychedelicized doo-wop material might not go over live. Instead, there was a bunch of more rockin' stuff, including several tracks from their pre-album singles.
Nominally a duo of Jason Kelly and Andrew Savage, they were rounded out to a four-piece for touring purposes, and it helped a lot that the band incarnation came off as louder & scrappier than what I was expecting, with rough edges that helped make them sound more like a garage band and less like musical pranksters. That said, their penchant for goofiness did rise to the surface from time to time, notably on a song about roman numerals that was, in fact, a list of things that employed them ("superbowl sweatshirts / Star Wars prequels / textbook diagrams / Rambo sequels").
Other ways of being smart-assed included "Powerful Lovin'", a totally straight-faced soul number that didn't wink at its over-the-topness, as well as the very Zappa-esque "Wanna Know What I Would Do If I Was You?", tweaking its nose at correct usage of the subjunctive mood.
That said, there was also a pleasingly abrasive lurch through "Girl U Want" ("a folk song from our homeland") — I would expect that the band might have appreciated Devo's conceptual side more than their mutant new wave sensibilities, but as parts of the drumkit started coming loose, it came off rather well. As as they finished off with the rockin romp of non-album single "Never Satisfied" and garage-y nugget "Baby Don't You Cry", it helped cement the impression they're not just the band they present on Unlearn. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was converted to the cause, but I left liking them more than when I came in.
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 For example: "You still buy CDs?" is printed across the face of the CD.
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