Playing in Traffic

Spoon

Waterloo Records, 1/25

I had mixed feelings about going to see Spoon's free parking lot appearance, for one logistical reason and one aesthetic concern. Mostly I was worried about the scene being a total mess and becoming entangled in traffic and humanity to the degree that the entire exercise ended up being more headache than it was worth. Perhaps a lot of others felt the same way, because as it ended up the audience for the performance was just the right size. The security guys were laid back, the sound was way better than could have been expected, and parking wasn't a hassle at all. I don't know if a lot of other cities would have been mellow enough to let all of this come off without a hitch, so I feel grateful again for having moved here.

The other element of my reluctance is more controversial. As much as I admire Spoon's albums -- and they have practically no competition among current indie rock bands as far as the consistency of their recorded output is concerned -- I'm equally convinced of their ultimate incapability as a live band. There's a lot of different reasons for why they just can't get things ignited on stage. The bass players and keyboard players, as often as they rotate in and out, usually appear as if they are terrified of playing one note different from the way the song was originally recorded and being fired on the spot. Jim Eno's role is safer because he's required to provide nominal continuity, but also problematic because he's a lousy drummer who messes up the tempo kind of a lot. I rather suspect that his limitations in a peculiar way preserve his longevity in the group, since he wouldn't be able to try and improvise crazy stuff even if he wanted to do so. Because of Eno's unreliability, the band always follows the guitar rather than the drums, and that's kind of backwards unless you're Keith Richards and Charlie Watts.

Britt Daniel is such a marvelous and thorough songwriter that every last part of his songs is planned down to the precise timing of his trademark amplifier hums. That's what makes their records reliably wonderful, the way that each piece is tweaked for perfection from the tiniest details on up, and at the same time each album has distinct overall goals and production hallmarks. But it also renders the band kind of an anachronism on stage. Daniel doesn't view his songs as eternal works in progress, ripe for reinvention each night. Once the record is finished, they're done, and that's how they're to be played forevermore. That's too bad, because it means there's a lot of songs that the band simply can't play well on stage because they can't replicate the instrumentation or the studio sound. It means there's a bunch of fantastic older songs that are just kind of gathering dust because the current incarnation hasn't considered the idea of drastically rearranging them to bring them in line with the way the band sounds now. (Bring back "No You're Not!")

Daniel also extends the idea of each song having a single definitive "correct" incarnation to the way he moves on stage -- he does the guitar raise at the same time every time out, moves around only when he feels he's supposed to do so, allows the backup players to interact only when the studio version has backing vocals, makes eye contact with the other guys only when they screw up. I can relate -- I feel a spiritual kinship to the man. I'm an introverted intellectual who's too tall and too skinny and whose head and neck jut out in front of the rest of my body too. For people who aren't natural performers, sticking rigidly to a proven template is a natural coping mechanism. But maniacal adherence to precedent is not very rock and roll. It also utterly guarantees that there will never be any pleasant surprises at a Spoon show, only workmanlike performances of great songs and several instances where the band loses step slightly and their autocratic leader glares inscrutably.

This particular show this week was a bit of a new experience, though, since I haven't heard any of Transference yet and I was able to hear the bulk of its songs for the first time when the band was playing them on stage. As many arguments as there are against Spoon's live approach, it can't be argued that the signal element in their greatness is their songs. "Got Nuffin'" and "Written in Reverse" and "Nobody Gets Me But You" and "Mystery Zone" all were immediately memorable and confirmed in my mind that Transference must indeed be another winner in an unbroken decade-long streak. And they played "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb," which has the best second verse of any song written in at least the last twenty years.

Nothing about what made me ambivalent about Spoon in concert before doesn't still apply. But given the price, the beautiful weather, the high concentration of smoking hot Austin hipster girls, and the generosity in the length of the band's set (they played for just about as long as they would have at a club gig) it's hard to say it wasn't worth having to wait in traffic for a couple of red lights. Recalling the crowd now, it seemed like people were more watching impassively than really feeling and moving to the music. The best rock band in Austin, whoever they are, would have had people dancing on the sidewalks and the medians. I'll always feel a little bittersweet about Spoon because as great as their songs are I don't think they're ever going to be capable of overcoming their big weakness. Maybe the same element that guarantees the quality of the songs prohibits the live sets from ever exploding. It doesn't really threaten their place in history. The Beatles quit playing live; XTC didn't tour at all for 20 years.

On the Table

I don't have a tremendous amount to say about the disorganized and barely rehearsed "Velvet Underground tribute" we left early on Friday night, and I'm still absorbing a stack of local CD's. I would like to share my thoughts on the new Spoon record, but I'm holding out until my girlfriend buys the vinyl. I did hear most of the new Vampire Weekend! Here's what I've been listening to this week.

Contra, Vampire Weekend A few songs in their new dance-club style register ("Giving Up the Gun"), but changing the instrumentation doesn't really mask the fact that all of their songs have exactly two parts. I like the songs that sound the most like the first record ("White Sky," also the name of a wonderful Archer Prewitt album of which Vampire Weekend are probably not aware) and I'm unclear as to why they would deliberately mute their bassist and their drummer in favor of clicking loops since by a wide margin those are the two best musicians in the band. It seems as if they were trying quite self-consciously to "expand" just enough to appease critics while maintaining their following. As far as post-millennial hype bands go, the model to follow is the Strokes' Room on Fire. The band sounds the same as on the first record, but brawnier and more polished; the songs are much stronger. To a certain extent Vampire Weekend went through a similar process before their proper debut, since their early online recordings were so widely scrutinized. I get why they were ready to move on, but listening to them try too hard is not fun. Contra resembles First Impressions of Earth a lot more than Room on Fire: low on energy, fussy, rather antiseptic.

Yessongs, Yes My relationship with Yes dates to a very specific and memorable weekend in Wyoming, of all places, when a van accident stranded me overnight with Missouri's So Many Dynamos. Their keyboard player was not at all interested in hearing me fulminate about the greatness of Genesis when my experience with Yes was so limited. There's a comparable 80's iceberg effect with both bands. Their most famous pop singles are not even remotely related to their artfully long-winded 70's album statements. I still favor Genesis's pop side, but after I found my way back to Colorado I acquired Close to the Edge and Fragile and The Yes Album and I've been listening to all of those pretty regularly for a few years now. One of the wonderful things about 70's progressive music is that it's never at all difficult to walk into a used record store, spend less than $10, and come out with the entire significant release history of a major band. And usually in pristine condition, as if they'd never been played! I wonder why. Were Steely Dan the 70's equivalent of the Buena Vista Social Club? Were their records accessories to be left around to be seen rather than listened to? One wonders. In any event there's no excuse not to have all of Yes's 70's studio albums since they populate dollar bins like no artist this side of Streisand. The ludicrously overblown triple-LP live Yessongs, though, is not for the uninitiated. In theory extended versions of the best material from the best three Yes records performed by their two best lineups should be thrilling, but Yessongs is just too much. Not every song needs multiple additional keyboard solos, and drum showcases are almost never interesting on record. The poor recording quality isn't that big of a problem (it kind of helps to underline how well the band gives each instrument its own space, especially Chris Squire's proto-Petersson muscle bass) but the meticulous layered vocal production style that became their signature isn't really possible on stage. As a result Yessongs to someone very familiar with the studio records sounds like a really technically skilled tribute band more so than the genuine article. The "Starship Trooper" jam (skip to the third record) is worth a dollar, though.

Communication Breaks, Track Star A San Francisco band that I went to see obsessively (at least 10 times) when I was in college, I was overjoyed to find Track Star's first LP waiting unassumingly in the "miscellaneous T" section at Backspin. Listening to Communication Breaks ten years on, it's easy to see why I went so crazy about these guys. They cross the Feelies with (really early) Tool! How great is that? The album shows additional dimension that their live shows didn't, with a number of shorter songs that try different rhythms and styles, and several that defy expectations by starting soft and then not getting incredibly loud. With two downtuned guitars and a clockwork marvel of a drummer (he never plays fills, ever) the band doesn't lose sight of their chief strength, which is songs like "Revenge Fantasy" that begin with delicate strumming and whispered vocals then explode into enraged, barely coherent volume abuse. Important detail that might be missed if you never saw them live: They have two lead singers who swap songs. They sound a lot alike in terms of their singing styles but turn out to have distinctive songwriting approaches. Communication Breaks is worth listening to enough to pick apart the differences.

Heaven Only Knows, Teddy Pendergrass I've been carting this album around for years without ever having listened to it -- one of my mom's students bought it for me at a garage sale. As an eighth grader during the 90's, I suppose he figured that as a record collector I would be happy to receive vinyl of any kind. Well, belatedly, I am, as Pendergrass passed away last week and I was able to celebrate his memory without getting out of bed. I've been listening to Stevie Wonder's Innervisions a lot lately and it seemed a tad incongruous how the standout tracks of this 1983 Pendergrass record ("Heaven Only Knows" and the splendidly titled "You and Me for Right Now") are soaked in the mid-70's Wonder style, all warm analog synths and nuanced live rhythm section performances. It illustrates how much music changed (for the worse) between 1973 and 1983 that the presence of these elements on Heaven Only Knows immediately betrays the album's mongrel origins. Pendergrass was in a life-threatening auto accident in 1982; this is the second of two odds-and-sods collections Philadelphia International Records squeezed out while he was recuperating to fulfill demand. Frankly an album of rejected 70's Pendergrass is preferable to first-choice 80's stuff, as that was the time when the music industry curiously decided to begin delegating the creation of "soul" music to computers. What's more, if you're so inclined you can go through track by track and try and guess in exactly which year it was recorded on the basis of the synth tones.

Angus Beef

Southern Grilled

Steve Syx & Syxgun

Although not precisely in my wheelhouse stylewise, I spent a lot of time listening to Southern Grilled. I really wanted to have precise things to say about what I find that's good about it, and the weaknesses I hear too. As a package it's well put-together and shows thought everywhere. The production is simple but crisp and never stingy; there are many guitar overdubs and each time every part is unique, composed, and necessary. The running order and the bits of studio chatter all combine to make it feel more album-like than is the standard for self-released CD's.

As for the music itself, there's a lot to like. Steve Syx & Syxgun are operating in an obvious blues-inspired territory that's well-represented in the region. But their songwriting is much sharper and more original than the rank and file. The lyrics are independent-minded and tackle different topics. The tunes are anchored in blues and southern rock, but the band has the good sense to let the guitar riffs direct the arrangements rather than following a standard 12-bar groove. Troy Frizzell's bass takes an involved supporting role and boosts Syx's riffs and songs with parts that supplement and diversify. These can be melodic and busy ("Best for Me"), upright-style walking ("Before I Go"), or driving and subliminal ("Like Tides"). In a power-trio lineup, it's common to hear the bass take a prominent role, but seldom do players mix up their tone and style so much. The drums, which seem to react to the guitars more than beating out their own path, would be more exciting if they were as assertive as the bass.

Although the record peters out at its close with a few numbers that show Syxgun low on ammunition -- the sluggish chords and melody of the outlaw ballad "Lightning in Vein" would draw my ridicule were it submitted for my demo column -- a solid first half presents the band's chief strengths well while shifting in styles sufficiently. "Best for Me" is a solid musical statement of purpose with a surprisingly moving theme. "Blue Beamer Blues," with words written by Ted Ollier, gives Syx the opportunity to sing as a very different sort of character. Syx sounds sly and road-tested on all his songs but chooses to inhabit this white-collar narrator with a thicker accent and more stylized delivery rhythm. The interesting, counterintuitive choice makes for Southern Grilled's best song. "What Happened" is an unexpected stab at English folk. The sudden acoustic side shows good instincts for surprise, but as the song sounds rather suspiciously like "Blackbird," hard to give full credit.

With too few exceptions (the rip-snorting outro to "Like Tides" comes to mind), the guitar solos on Southern Grilled aren't as rousing as they could be. His precise riffing, and the very tighly constructed solos on most of the songs, indicate that Syx is a guitarist with no lack for chops. It's not a bad idea that they're kept very short and contained on an album wisely limited to three- and four-minute songs, but a lot of the solos are rather predictable and circumspect. The rhythm section is doing enough to carry the shape, it'd be nice to hear the guitar venture outwards a bit more and incorporate some of the slightly bent timing that makes Syx's written riffing so effective.

Not an end-to-end winner, then, but a band name worth remembering.

Unknown Pleasures

Real Book Fake Book

Plush, 1/18

Truly polished, original bands with superior talent don't play free Monday night shows in most other cities. Loving Austin's oversupplied, cutthroat music market takes something of a leap in perspective -- it's certainly an environment where each band has to work for every listener it wins. New arrivals who feel particularly starved for immediate attention are doing themselves a disservice twice over by not drinking deep of the "competition." They can first benefit from gaining better intelligence about the clubs worth playing and how bands that are successful market and merchandise themselves. And perhaps more importantly, every musician needs to be inspired and challenged by other players constantly.

So there were several cool community elements to this show at Plush on Monday. It was cool to see Jason from Squidbucket out supporting a band that despite a very different sound has a similar appeal to anyone fascinated by musicians of genius technical ability. Giant Steps Productions, who book Mondays at Plush and other nights all over, are doing a fine job of creating a brand name that doubles as a seal of quality. I've been to several of their shows now and each time I've seen a lineup of bands constructed with foresight and marketing savvy. The bands seem genuinely excited to be playing together, as opposed to struggling to remember each others' names. And decent crowds seem to come early and stay late for these shows. With many of the clubs in the neighborhood putting less than full effort into their scheduling, it's good to be aware as a musician and as a music fan which bookers go the extra mile.

But then how about the band? I wish I could think of more ornate things to say about Real Book Fake Book since they had me utterly hooked even from across the street as we approached the club. But their music is so original and so commendably out of time (by which I mean that more so than nearly any other Austin original group, they sound like they could be from any place or any time after the mid-70's) that it's hard to find useful comparisons. Here is a band that presents absolutely nothing more than the essentials to get their point across, because any frills would simply obscure their main idea. Most bands need some external trappings to get audiences onto their wavelength. Sometimes it's just as important for the self-conception of the band to write lyrics, or wear costumes, or to employ smoke machines that make them feel more original and more powerful than they really are as it is to play well.

Real Book Fake Book are in the minority of bands in Austin and bands everywhere because they simply don't need any packaging of any kind. They're cool because they can play, beautifully, as a duo sounding more melodically and harmonically full than many acts with three times the personnel. Eric Reyes' keyboard playing is so fluent and assured that you don't have to be any kind of prog-rocker to simply bask in the sheer skill of the man. Many good Austin musicians of all kinds of genres incorporate elements of jazz, classical, and world into their rock and roll, but Reyes separates himself with the level of clarity of his playing. It's not easy to allude to Joe Zawinul, Bach, Kraftwerk, and Sergio Mendes all in a single original piece, but Reyes does so, one-handed, usually while playing a totally rhythmically independent bassline equally perfectly with the other hand. Yet the music isn't schizophrenic or introverted or inscrutable, it's something you can (and absolutely should) dance to frenetically.

You don't have to be a scholar to recognize all of the different threads with which Eric and drummer brother Mike are playing. One of the most fun things about the band is the way they make their inspirations plain. They play so well that they're clearly never copying. They hear different music and interpret it confidently. Their songs take in elements like spy movie soundtracks, surf rock, and a very particular vintage of 70's synthesizer instrumentals, but with a constant element of rapid development and efficiency (the drumming plays a major role here) that's part purist hardcore and part postmodern. Their name is misleading, in that they don't play jazz standards of the kind usually featured in Real Book products. But it does have a certain resonance with their style. Here are musicians of vast talent sharpening their approach by using only the bare essentials to make each song memorable and distinctive. Their songs require a little bit too much pure skill to ever make the rounds as standards -- no pickup band could ever do these themes justice. But what they do have going for them is a near-universal appeal. If you like to see good music played in varying but accessible styles by people who are exceptional at it, this is a band to see.

Gigantism

A Giant Dog

Emo's, 1/10

My bandmate and life-mate Anna C. is usually a silent partner in this undertaking, but as she always pays for gas, I figure she deserves a word in edgewise from time to time. A Giant Dog were a band we both really loved during Free Week but I think for different reasons. Rather than listing our differences at length I'll let Anna speak for herself:

I’ve been Westy’s sidekick throughout Free Week. Every other night or so, we’ve walked through the January-cold Red River district see these bands with extremely weird names play at the dives. Squidbucket impressed me, Amplified Heat made me want to dance, The Midgetmen made me fall asleep in my beer cup. Since I get off work at 9 and usually have to get to bed by 1:30 for work in the morning, I expect good, energizing music when I go out. A night spent on my feet listening to frat boys rip off the Pixies just makes me feel tired.

I was recovering from this live-music overload when Westy suggested I accompany him to A Giant Dog on Sunday night. I looked them up on Myspace. “They’ve got a chick singer!” The 30-second samples revealed a not-entirely unique post-punk band, with brassy front-lady vocals uncommon to the genre. A photo of the singer in a hot purple bra sealed the deal. “I’ll go!”

A Giant Dog played the outdoor stage at Emo’s. I immediately recognized the band’s local following: enthusiastic, beery young scenesters congregated before the stage and around the heat lamps. They hollered their approval as three young men shouldered their instruments, a fourth took his place at the drum stool, and the young woman left off carousing with audience members to take the mic. Waving a tall can of Pabst at us, she shimmied in a full-length black leotard and shook her red hair. She grinned and hollered, “I love being in my early to mid-twenties!” Man, those boys were kind of cute, but she was hot.

The band laid down their riffs. At first I had A Giant Dog’s style pegged as standard pop-punk/post-punk, the kind of stuff one hears on modern rock radio (and MTV, before they gave up music and started specializing in reality shows.) The two guitarists played blocky riffs in unison a lot of the time, and did not seem particularly skilled. The drummer, although he demonstrated a variety of rhythmic patterns capable of rallying a crowd, was not exceptional. However, the crowd at Emo’s loved them. Girls and guys in the front row shook gleefully, and even typically stoic types tapped their Converses in time.

Westy and I agree that variety within the bounds of pop-punk style is part of the band’s success as a live act. One song had a rollicking gospel beat (shades of early Gossip) and a “Hallelujah!” refrain. Others used a bar or two of syncopation in the beat. The last song was a slow steamy blues number, which at first I thought was a cover of “Venus in Furs” by the Velvet Underground. The singer brought girls up from the audience to gyrate onstage. A few boys joined them, and by the end of the show the stage reseambled a wild dance party.

A Giant Dog demonstrate that bands need not be extremely talented at their instruments to rock out and rally an audience. All one really needs is musical competence to play songs that don’t all sound exactly alike, and enough charisma to win the audience’s attention (and possibly libido.)

I couldn't have said it better myself, at least not with as few words. I will say that I think Anna underestimates the skill of the band's bassist, who is quite active and clever, and when their songs have two distinct guitar parts (too few of them do) they're trickier than they may at first appear. A Giant Dog play at Beerland tonight with The Gospel Truth, Bad Lovers, and Shapes Have Fangs.

Demo Sweat #10

Short roster this time out, but a lot of good stuff. You're beautiful, Austin.

Everyday Destruction are one of the good punk bands, gifted with vocal charisma and smart songs about less than obvious subjects. "Passafisticuffs" discusses the decision to be a lover and not a fighter with balance and consideration, sort of a Fat Wreck Chords take on the Flaming Lips' "Fight Test." I like their catchy gang choruses and the way they employ all of the instruments including bass and lead guitar for separate functions rather than banging away in unison. They owe an obvious debt to Rancid and by extension the Clash but you could do worse as influences go. Something Called Nothing don't have as polished a setlist yet but their somewhat slower, shinier sound uses the rhythm section well and has a nice basis in rhythmic riffs rather than mere chord changes. The drums and bass on their recordings don't sound exactly right either in tone or in timing, which saps their energy somewhat. They could use some more distinctive lyrics, and an increase in dynamic changes, as they continue growing as a band.

Tonya Tyner and I don't have a lot of interests in common, it seems from listening to her songs and reading about her influences, but she's a gifted musical communicator. It makes her talent all the more impressive given that she's easy to relate to even for a listener with a very different perspective. When she writes about the difficulties of being a single woman in her 30's on "I Keep Trying" her appealingly honest vocals, which are full of strength for one moment then weak as a whisper the next, really make it easy to feel what she's feeling. "Do you always drink so heavily?" she asks despairingly. Her recordings are low-key and simple, but extremely original -- the guitar playing and the lyrics both have an obvious spark. Her songs make points and they get to them quickly. Her more raucous numbers (like "Uh Huh") could use the backing of a band but I hope she finds a producer with whom to work who will treat her songs with the respect they deserve. A very light touch only is needed given the quality of Tyner's material even in demo form. The Austin/L.A. retro-blues singer Debra Watson deserves praise for her strong vocal style, which is both stylistically appropriate and natural, unforced and idiosyncratic. Unfortunately her material is rather straitjacketed by a rigid adherence to genre convention, including clunky, formulaic lyrics. The band performances on her page sound squared-off and generic, too much Hollywood and not nearly enough Texas.

Patrick Boothe has a much more currently stylish approach, but despite the state-of-the-art electronic backgrounds his piano-based songwriting has a bit of old-fashioned sophistication to it that's most welcome. The close harmonies that dominate his tunes are lovely and well-suited to the dark, slightly schizophrenic narratives predominant in the lyrics. The songs have good changes and hooks but could stand to be trimmed down somewhat. I appreciate how Boothe has both dance and ballad sides and maintains his presence as an artist in each. "I Wish You'd Just Hate Me Like Everybody" adds rock guitar to the mix in an unforced way. Its title, and the rampant self-involvement of Boothe's lyrics in general, suggests his need for at least a little ironic distance from his music. A little wit and self-deprecation go a long way. Or at least one song about someone besides yourself.

I'm not quite sure what it is Biff Productions are trying to sell, but they sent me a link to two bands... the White Undertakers are sloppy (the drums and bass are all over the place) and from the foggy production it's difficult to even suss out what kind of music they're trying to make. Is it country? That might be a pedal steel, but it also might be really crummy-sounding keyboard. Maybe it's Top 40. I don't know. Call North have a tighter band sound with clearer division between lead and backing vocals, but there doesn't seem to be any connection between the singers, the band, and the songs. These just sound like demos, and not particularly well-made ones. None of the songs are in the least memorable.

Finally, Ken Metcalf is a local steel player whose online recordings give a good overview of the different roles the instrument can play. On his collaborations with bands and songwriters Metcalf uses the pedal steel's traditional-sounding weepy sliding chords as color and mood enhancement. On the instrumental "Steel Guitar Rag," you can hear him stepping out and showing his range, playing single-line figures in addition to chords and varying from phrases with almost no vibrato to tons of it. The man knows his business.

The Surface of Things

Bright Light Social Hour, Frontier Brothers

Parish Room, 1/9

For the most part I'm a person who is attracted to the new and the different, someone who seeks out the company and the tutelage of those who are unlike myself. But I have limits. The Parish Room is simply not my scene. It's the kind of place where people make sure their pants are clean before heading out to see bands. It's the kind of club frequented by folks who get their hair cut more often than once every six months. Where patrons assure that their drink selections match their outfits. It's the kind of place that touring bands whose publicity people promise me review tickets then recant after I've already written and published a preview appear. In short, don't be at all surprised if you hear nothing about the place from these parts from now until Free Week 2011.

At least the bands selected for Saturday night's Free Week event aesthetically matched the venue's emphasis on style over all else. The Frontier Brothers dress like Adam and the Ants and sound like the album tracks from Bowie's Let's Dance. Bright Light Social Hour have lovingly formed a marketable image around first impressions while investing little to no effort in minor details. Both bands were more crafted towards being briefly glanced at while walking to and from the bar than being carefully listened to from first song to last.

The Frontier Brothers are closer to evolving into a real band. Their combination of polished synth-rock and drawling Texas vocals is distinctive if not totally original and their songs tend towards having too many weird rhythmic twists and changes -- which is far, far better than none at all. They remind me of the Killers in the sense that they're slightly too far removed from the key-driven 80's music they love to realize which elements of it are worthwhile (1984 Van Halen, superstar Springsteen, Duran Duran) and which aren't (Van Hagar, Foreigner, all UK synth/haircut bands besides Duran Duran but especially Echo and the Bunnymen). I admire their keyboard player's musicality, incorporating chords and inversions that are more sophisticated than you normally hear from the vast majority of current bands that use keys. But his parts frequently don't mesh with the far more direct approaches of the bassist, drummer, and guitarist/singer, and there's a vast disconnect between their not-at-all stupid music and their hugely stupid lyrics ("I'm in love with a robot/I don't care if you're not"). If they stay together and find a way to elevate the intelligence level of their lyrics while blending the keyboards in more naturally (tip: try not to sound like "Love Walks In" at all costs) they'll be worth a second look. They have a lot of confidence and move well on stage.

Bright Light Social Hour have a similarly extroverted approach, but their stuff is 70's to the bone -- basically southern rock crossbred with disco. If their songwriting was of higher quality they'd pull it off, but what you have here is essentially warmed-over Zeppelin riffing mixed with lyrics of the "oh baby I need your love/need your love oh baby" variety. They're musically skilled, but everything about their performance seems calculated to distract from the root qualities of the songs that aren't there. They have three singers -- well, great, but not one of them has anything to say. They have very long intros and outros -- nifty, and I like the varied guitar styles, but what's the point of stretching everything out when the tunes are hollow at the center? They'd completely lost me after three songs, after which I tuned them out and started reflecting on the age-old question as to whether Led Zeppelin's unabashed thievery of Willie Dixon songs during their developmental years somehow justifies the enthusiasm with which musicians since have ripped off Jimmy Page. (How you doing, Jack White? Got any new ideas for your next side project? No? Didn't think so.)