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Foundry Field Recordings
Wednesday · The Comet
Ten years ago, Foundry Field Recordings could have masqueraded as the only Elephant 6 band that didn’t dig The Beach Boys. Instead, the cheerless Indie group is a spoke in a new band collective, Columbia, Mo.-based Emergency Umbrella Records. Billy Schuh, a singer/guitarist and the founder of the label, began FFR in 2002 with drummer Benjamin Hook. The membership doubled when Schuh recruited guitarist Daniel Stegall and bassist Becky Baxter, who had just left The Kingdom Flying Club, another Emergency Umbrella artist. In 2003 the band (then known as Billy Schuh and the Foundry) released their debut EP, Fathers as Robots. It was a quick but resonating introduction to the band’s straightforward melodic sojourns that infiltrate your brain like a gorgeous musical sedative. The songs ranged from building, atmospheric Slowcore to more moderate tempo Shoegaze, tied together with a touch of twang and homespun charm. Today, the smartly dressed quartet continues to straddle the space between Dream Pop and Indie Rock with Battle Brigades, their new 7-inch single. The lush sound of the title track documents their growth as musicians and writers, coming off as more methodical than experimental and paying closer attention to the needs of the song. Schuh’s soft Brit Pop vocals are captured perfectly, sometimes reminding you of Badly Drawn Boy or an older crooner like Morrissey.
The rest of the band adds harmonies and “ooohs,” Stegall layers the jangly guitar with e-bow and other adornments and Baxter’s throbbing bass floats on the sharp drumming of Hook. It’s a tastefully integrated sound that compels you to focus on the entirety of their pieces and the emotions they convey. Foundry Field Recordings is currently on a club tour in support of Battle Brigades, and a new full-length album is due this fall. (Ezra Waller)
The Rolling Blackouts with The Sun and 7 Inch Wave
Thursday · alchemize
Hailing from Torrance, Calif., the Rolling Blackouts stack up improbabilities like so much cordwood with their amazing debut album, Black is Beautiful. The quartet (guitarist/vocalist Daniel Holden, guitarist Jared Stiles, bassist Mike Peralta, drummer Gabe Furnica) has only been together in this form since last year (they’ve known each other since childhood and Holden and Peralta were in the band Gymicrae together), but they make a righteous, raucous noise that gives the impression they’ve been together forever. Holden named the band as an homage to the Stones and to California’s looming energy crisis, and the band’s sound spans that same broad timeline, from the visceral Rock of the ’60s to the Punk fury of today. On Black is Beautiful, released last summer, the Blackouts concoct a sonic brew that simmers in plenty of lean Rock classicism like The Who and The Stones and spices the mixture with Iggy Pop’s frenetic madness, the White Stripes’ raw simplicity and Rocket from the Crypt’s pure Punk abandon. The Blackouts have worked tirelessly in Southern California over the past year, turning their month-long residency at the 3 of Clubs into a contract with the label, Record Collection, recording their first album with producer Dave Cooley and headlining last year’s Fuel TV/Skateboard Magazine tour, all of which led Alternative Press to declare the Blackouts one of the “100 Bands You Need to Know About in 2004.” This year is proving every bit as momentous for the Blackouts; their relentless road ethic continues apace and their recent slot on the Record Collection showcase at South by Southwest was picked by many as one of the festival’s highlights. At the industry fest, Peralta apparently spent an evening in an Austin jail for tossing furniture from their posh hotel’s balcony. How old-school Rock is that? (Brian Baker)
Femme Fatality with Diet Audio and The Smittys
Friday · Northside Tavern
With all the Electroclash/New Wave/Post-Punk revival-mania going around today, it’s easy to forget that a lot of that music was cheesy as hell. The gawdy album covers, the bad hair, the cheap synths, the plastic production work. It’s why contemporary bands name-check “cooler” acts like Gang of Four and New Order and not Men Without Hats and Human League. St. Louis duo Femme Fatality embrace many of those less-hip ’80s elements on their full-length debut, Never Had a Daddy, a playful, dark-toned Synth Pop romp that befits a band known for their boisterous live show (which incorporates costumes, a light show and video projections). Monanani Palermo and Octavia Leito formed Femme Fatality in 2003; by 2004, St. Louis weekly paper The Riverfront Times had named them one of the area’s Top 10 “Must-See Bands.” On Daddy, Palermo and Leito revel in a frigid, robotic sound that is made less chilly by the sweltering dance beats that stampede underneath. Elements of House and Hip Hop sneak in occasionally, but overall the album is entrenched in vintage blips-and-bleeps, ropey synth riffs and creepy, low-register vocal croaks that recall Sisters of Mercy. While many of the artists who ride the new New Wave make some modern concessions in their work, if someone slipped you a dog-eared cassette copy of Never Had A Daddy and told you it was their favorite band in 1982, you wouldn’t think twice. There’s a much-needed thread of humor that runs throughout Daddy — if there was a “campy” camp, these guys would be the house band. Though the giddiness gets a little too goofy at times (an awkward “rap” section in “Baby Girl” ruins the track), Femme Fatality gets credit for never coming out of character, letting the shtick stand on its own without giving the obligatory, “Wink, wink — we’re just kidding” disclaimer. Superceding all of this is the high danceability factor — the beats on Daddy are irresistible. Judging from the band’s propaganda, the twosome has taken it as their mission to make the hipsters lighten up a little, dust off their old ’80s dance moves and get their groove back on the dance floor. Their bio says they’ve brought out the best from fans who are in on what they’re doing and the worst from detractors “who happen to be dancing-impaired.” Either way, they are provoking reaction. (Mike Breen)
This article appears in May 18-24, 2005.