Jets To Brazil
Pilot To Gunner
Bowery Ballroom
Having been a long time Blake-ophile and a fairly obsessed new fan of Pilot To Gunner, I was pretty stoked to see them play together. After arriving late and being pretty pissed to find that the set times were totally wrong, I heard the last two songs of the Pilot To Gunner set, two songs that were better than most of the sets I’ve seen in town this year. I found out afterward that they played an extremely short set, but it was pretty obvious that they’d been on the road for a couple weeks, as they were tight as a steel trap.

Go see these boys and buy their records. Jets to Brazil are kind of a slippery slope for me. I end up wanting to like their records a lot more than I actually do. Now that lead guitarist Bryan Maryansky has been in the band for a while, JTB have finally coalesced into a band that is equal to the sum of its parts. There was a pretty decent mix of stuff of the first two records. Most of the new stuff is what Blake calls "last" songs, the brooding anthemic ones that end the best records. He ain’t lying, the new songs rock pretty damn hard. In fact, the new record could be Jets To Brazil’s The Bends. Blake’s singing great and the rest of the band are firing on all cylinders. It’s great to say a band like the Jets are from New York.

Slobberbone
Damnwells
Tandy
7/18/02 @ Southpaw

Slobberbone
Bob Log III
7/19/02 @ Mercury Lounge

While Austin gets most of the notoriety in this day in age, don’t sleep on Dallas as a hotbed of good Texas rock. The Old 97s may be more popular, but Slobberbone are one of the best rock bands that you’ll see today. They season their Texas rock with a big dollop of Minneapolis and you’ll eat it up with a spoon. They played two nights around own as a sort of teaser for the new record that’ll be coming out on New West in the Fall.

Night one was out at Southpaw, a fairly new place out in the wilds of Park Slope. Not my favorite part of the city, but then again I hate to leave Manhattan. What I hate even more is when you list two bands and add another on to the bill, then lie about the time that they’re going on, so you end up waiting til after midnight to see the headliner. Band number one was Tandy. They are pretty much NYC’s version of Son Volt: decent songs, competent band, but not the most exciting thing in the world to watch. Believe me, three songs into the Damnwells, I was begging for Tandy to come back out. Yes, that’s harsh and yes, I’m a prick, but it basically boils down to the fact that I can stay at home and listen to Stranger’s Almanac if I wanted to hear Whiskeytown. The Damnwells are no Whiskeytown, but the singer really has a hard on for Ryan Adams. And not old, good Ryan Adams either. They seem to be on every decent bill that comes through town, so someone likes them, but it ain’t this guy.

When Slobberbone finally went on , it was a pretty subdued set. They opened with a simmering version of Lumberlung and smouldered for the rest of the set, only occasionally catching fire. Don’t get me wrong, they were pretty damn great, but it wasn’t until the second night at the Mercury that things really started to happen. After Bob Log IIIs Hasil Adkins Explosion set, a well-lubed Slobberbone hit the stage. Much like the Bottle Rockers, these boys are an alcohol powered funny car. Not too much stuff off the first record, but some pretty great versions of the Steven King favorite Gimme Back My Dog and Barrelchested. Brent Best is a hell of a great songwriter and a pretty damn engaging frontman, sort of a Texas Paul Westerberg. Combine him with the rest of Denton’s finest and you won’t find too many bands in their league. The crowd was egging them on and they fed off it for the better part of an hour, ending with a romp through Keep On Rocking In The Free World. I would have preferred a reprise of their cover of Soul Asylum’s Cartoon, but I can’t complain too much. They’ll be back in the Fall, so get off your ass and check them out.

The Get Up Kids
Superchunk
Hot Rod Circuit
Ritz Theater, Raleigh, NC
Roseland Ballroom, NYC

The Get Up Kids are at a crossroads. They built a devoted following early on with what could safely be described as an emo/post-hardcore sound but retained enough of a poppy edge to appeal to the ladies too. Then they got a little older and tried to keep it interesting for themselves while still keeping the kids coming out. Trouble is that when they try to step up with the big boys in the "serious" rock genre, they come up more than a little short. Superchunk took a lot of flack when they moved away from a thrashy bombast towards a more refined sound but persevered to become the poster children for the indie-rock success story. Makes sense that the Get Up Kids would get them on their bill, as it’s a huge credibility booster. While their intentions are honorable, they were mistaken in thinking that their twelve-year old fanbase had any musical depth or knowledge of any music recorded earlier than Nevermind.

Both nights were pretty much the same. Hot Rod Circuit opened the proceedings with the indie rock stylings that keep them on the road constantly. You’ve got to give them credit, as that time on the road has gelled them into a hell of a band. Their new record Sorry About Tomorrow is definitely the best record of their career. Andy Jackson has a gift with a hook that had the kids jumping to oldies like Irish Car Bomb and leaping like salmon to new barnburner Lets Go Home. Granted Casey, the lead guitarist, jumps around far too much in far too unconvincing a display of rocking out, but he’s a pretty damn good player and the rest of HRC are no slouches either. However, when the Get Up Kids attracted such a moronic fanbase, I’ll never know. Earlier in the tour Casey had been hit with a bottle in the face courtesy of Florida’s finest and this proved to be indicative of the level of class the crowds Carolina and New York displayed. It was absolutely amazing to see the universal disregard Superchunk were met with each night. I’ve seen some pretty crappy Chunk shows, but none that warranted such disinterest. "You really don’t like us at all!" a half-shocked guitarist Jim Wilbur commented to the mass of kids packed up front at Roseland. And it was true. The Chunk were pretty much on both nights and even a spirited cover of Destiny Child’s "Say My Name" failed to reach farther than the same forty or so fans who go to all their shows. It’s a damn sad reflection on the youth of today. We are truly reaching a new low. At the end of it all, it’s not like I’m ever going to stop seeing the Chunk, but it would be so much easier to take if the new Get Up Kids stuff was all that special. I left halfway through both Get Up Kids sets, something I’ve never done in 20-some Get Up Kids shows. Too much plodding new "serious" material and not enough vitality. The kids ate it up, but save for bottle-worthy keyboardist James DeWees, no one on stage seemed to be having all that good of a time. The Get Up Kids should get kudos for asking Superchunk to go out with them in the first place, and by all accounts they treated Carolina’s finest like royalty, but I hope they are comfortable with their new fanbase, as they are in real danger of becoming stuck with them.