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By: Dennis Cook
The Entrance Band, Megapuss & Little Joy :: 09.28.08 :: The Independent :: San Francisco, CA
With the ting of tiny xylophone and a stumbling one-drop beat, an evening of softly incandescent, sometimes wrigglingly freaky, but always fun, fun, fun music embarked. Simple pleasure, the pound of nifty sounds against one's earhole is often lost in the shuffle towards significance or merely immediate, blunt sensation today. Not so with a trio of bands that seemed collectively determined to bring about a sweet fog inside The Independent, something that seeped into our pores and made one smile ear-to-ear, singing "ooh, ooh, ooh" and swaying like one didn't have a care in the world.
Little Joy is airy pop with much solid earth below their soaring. Comprised of the core trio of vocalist-multi instrumentalist Binki Shapiro, singer-guitarist Rodrigo Amarante (Los Hermanos) and drummer Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes), and aided by a few friends this night including just-can-do-no-wrong pinch hitter Noah Georgeson (guitar, keys, whatever), Little Joy had a great handle on delicacy that didn't float away, offering up catchy songs full of moisture but kept to succinct sharpness rather than allowed amorphous freedom. In short, they put together very appealing tunes and keep them reined in beautifully. From gentle surf guitar twisters to handclap driven '60s girl group echoes, Little Joy threw the equivalent of a swell pool party on a cloudy day – enjoyable yet accented by gray thoughts and gusts of cool wind. Their eponymous debut, produced by Georgeson, arrives on November 4 through Rough Trade Records. In the meantime, you can suckle their tastiness on their MySpace page.
If you crammed the Bonzo Dog Band and The Sonics in a small room with some decent gear and miles of recording tape it might come out sounding a lot like Megapuss. The brainchild of Devendra Banhart and Priestbird's Greg Rogove, this brachiates wildly between deep silliness and pleasantly barbed rockin', reveling in shock and humor in ways mostly lost after the '70s. That doesn't mean their sound is a throwback. Indeed, it's a bumpy beast that could only have shambled forth now after years of stimulus from myriad, seemingly incompatible sources, the willful child of vintage psych comps, children's records, stoned listening to the Holy Modal Rounders and many more unknowable influences. Call it a funky sausage, which befits the nude photos of Banhart and Rogove connected to this project, a literal hairy nakedness that goes well with the unkempt spirit of the music.
Dressed in a kimono and a blast visor like something from Star Wars, Dev addressed us, "I'm from Little Japan – San Diego. Hello, Peru! We're gonna go deep... to Point Reyes [laughs]." With most thoroughly baffled but already giggling, Megapuss threw down the fun slide and greased us up with quickness, inviting us to chuckle and stare in dumb amusement and rock out a little, too, if we felt so inspired. Joined by Georgeson, now dressed in tight, white tennis shorts with a matching white pimp hat, and Moretti behind the trap kit, Megapuss sang lines like "all my lovin' is for you" with rainbows in their eyes, threading silvery guitar and tickling keys into the splash and plop of things. Rogove and Banhart have really complimentary voices, and clearly there's a nice overlap in their creative sensibilities because even on first listen (only two cuts have seen airing on their MySpace page and give little indication of the full scope or feel of this band) this is very appealing stuff.
 The Entrance Band by David |
One tune had the refrain of "She's a lot like an Indian maiden," while a perfectly dreamy number about surfing conjured the copacetic gospel of Dennis Wilson and included a spoken word exchange where I think the boys saw the face of God. But, it's jocular ditties like "Chicken Titz" (introduced by Banhart, "I only notice tits. Sha-bam!") that will likely garner the most attention, especially with lyrics like, "Was it the gristle that falls from your bones or was it the kiss-el you gave me so long ago?" Their refusal to take themselves too seriously, without sacrificing craftsmanship in the music itself, is cool. It meant any stumbles or hiccups were merely part of a jittery, happy whole that reached a joy apex with "Jen From Hollywood," which brought Fab out from behind the drums to stir up the front ranks during a hard, simple groover about having too much fun, where they got most of us purring "meow, meow, meow" as their grinning chorus. Can't wait to hear the finished product when their debut arrives November 4 on Neil Young's Vapor Records.
I've been waiting for a conversion experience with The Entrance Band for a couple years. People whose musical instincts I bank on swear that Guy Blakeslee and his Hendrix/Funkadelic/Grunge fired upside-down guitar and hyper passionate singing are da bomb, diggity even, but I'd never felt the lightning hit my soil, so to speak. Well, consider me scorched after this gig. Blakeslee and his cohorts bassist Paz Lenchantin (Zwan, A Perfect Circle) and drummer Derek W. James (a dead ringer for Rose Hill Drive's Nathan Barnes in raw passion and pulverizing presence) put bluntly, cupped our balls and whispered, "Go on, baby, get them rocks off." And I'm certain they did something equally dexterous with their digits for the ladies, just based on the squirming enthusiasm of the women around me.
Starting with a satisfying howl, the six-string pyrotechnics never quit though almost always kept from being pure flash by the genuine melodic grace. I kept thinking how super delightful a co-headlining tour with TK Webb & The Visions would be; a modern answer to the Jeff Beck/Stevie Ray Vaughn tour of years past. There is a Gnostic, even bohemian spiritual bent to the lyrics and the guitar thrust is more Eddie Hazel than Jimi much of the time, keeping hips in motion and gnawing on the bone with pleasant sloppiness, though capable of Robin Trower (especially the Trower of Procol Harum) eloquence if the mood suited him. "Lookout" was like some lost soundtrack to a late '60s Peter Fonda road movie - trip out gold perfect for the go-go cage or just shaking on top of a king size bed. And the sheer viscosity of this one and many others kept me planted despite an early intention to amscray before they started. That's as ringing an endorsement for a band as one can get – the music MADE me and many others stick around AND eventually throw in like flushed savages by the end. Hail heavy music! Hail The Entrance Band!
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