Monday, September 26, 2011

Unexpected pleasures abound!

Photo of The Stepkids by by Jesse Mann and Matthew Bologna

Twice this weekend I was reminded why it's important to get to shows early; it's one of the best ways to discover new music! On Friday I discovered I really liked this group call The Noise FM (think DFA1979 but catchier) and immediately bought both their CDs. They're local so I'll write about them further at a later point.

Last night I went to Lincoln Hall to catch The Horrors (who ended up being kind of hollow and disappointing despite just releasing one of the better albums of this year) and was shocked by how good the opening band The Stepkids was. They were simple guitar / bass / drums and all three shared vocal duties. The music was super classic rock psych with a healthy dose of soul thrown in there. It's kind of hard to describe without it coming off a cliche, an even more so when I tell you the band wore all white and performed with trippy visuals and light show projected over them, but believe me when I say it was vibrant and fresh and new despite sounding like the '60s exploded onto the stage. I wish The Horrors had opened for them because then I would have left the show in a much better mood.

The Stepkids debut album is out tomorrow but you can buy it today. It seems well worth it!

Here are two tunes from the band to whet your appetite. Dig it and tell me what you think!

MP3: The Stepkids "Shadows On Behalf"
MP3: The Stepkids “Legend In My Own Mind”

4 comments:

Mich said...

You forgot to mention the falsetto.

Tankboy said...

Oh yeah, what was the dream bill we were considering for them?

Bill V said...

I like that Horrors album sorry to hear the show was not great. And I thought you might be commenting about Stepdad, Noise FM was the best band on Friday without a doubt.

Tankboy said...

I liked Stepdad, but then again they were the whole reason I went to the Friday show so it wasn't such a surprise. I would've even happier had they used a live drummer but they put so much heart into their tunes i was willing to forgive that.