Matt & Kim Tonight @ Grog Shop

Matt & Kim are two Brooklyn pals — Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino — who also happen to be the happiest and most carefree dance-punk duo touring the country right now. Whenever they’re onstage, they break out huge smiles and get real goofy — a perfect complement to their ecstatic music. Matt & Kim write giddy and assertive songs for kids who just want to let loose and dance their guts out. “Gardens and trashcans/Hoodies and Chuck Ts/Arms, fingers, and hands/Don’t slow down,” goes one tune. Drummer Schifino crafts hooky beat patterns and sings backup; Johnson takes lead vocals and adds spastic synth and keyboard riffs to his arsenal. They make a lot of noise, pounding and jumping on their instruments, and engaging audiences in singalong dance parties. You’ve probably heard “Daylight” in commercials for candy bars, Bacardi, and the Xbox over the past few months. Matt & Kim’s new single, “Cameras,” previews their upcoming album, Sidewalks. You can hear the whole record a couple of months before it comes out if you show up to the show early. They’re hosting pre-concert listening parties at each stop on their current tour.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin @ Grog Shop Tonight

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin released Let it Sway, their third album, a few weeks ago. Despite the laid-back, reggae-implying album title, the Springfield, Missouri foursome is sticking to the same playful, exuberant indie pop they introduced us to on their 2005 debut, Broom. Now they are swaying in addition to sweeping, twisting their bedroom pop beginnings into songs that are full, melodic, and beautiful. “Stuart Gets Lost Dans Le Metro” slowly explores gently crafted acoustic guitar and impassioned memory-filled lyrics, while “Sink/Let it Sway” kicks with as much as energy as early SSLYBY favorites like “Oregon Girl.” The band gets away with its saccharine harmonies and overall peppiness with a little sense of humor. “Dead Right” taunts us with warnings like, “You’re gonna lose it/If you don’t choose it,” playing off the old saying “if you don’t use it, you…” – you get the point. The band named itself after a favorite Russian president, and continues to jest us with tracks like “All Hail Dracula” (“All Hail Dracula/I really think we could be friends/I’ll let you suck my blood/If you wanna know how I taste”). They have the kind of relationship with fans that recently helped them raise enough money to buy a new tour bus, and the new donation brings them back to Ohio.

Rogue Wave @ Grog Shop Tonight

Rogue Wave have had to overcome some pretty tough obstacles over the past few years: the tragic death of a former bandmate, a kidney transplant, and a spinal-cord problem that numbed one of the members’ hands. So it’s all the more surprising that they craft such peaceful pop songs that feature the sound of chirping birds. Out of the Shadow, their 2004 debut, is full of happy tunes like “Nourishment Nation,” which gleefully declares “one more bite until we go” on top of chiming bells and simple guitar strumming. On the new Permalight, Rogue Wave step away from their sweet acoustic music toward a more danceable set of songs. Frontman Zach Rogue incorporates electronic beats and plenty of vivacious synths that blast in several different directions. He was confined to playing his lightest instrument, a Sears Silvertone guitar, after slipping two disks in his neck a couple years ago. The Oakland-based band recorded Permalight while Rogue’s right hand was still numb. But Rogue Wave sound more alive than ever. Get ready for handclaps and smiles — onstage and off — when the band comes to town tonight.

Sleigh Bells @ Grog Shop Tonight

Rock bands and hip-hop artists alike often tout themselves as being beat-driven and hip shake-inducing. But listening to Brooklyn’s Sleigh Bells thrusts your body into a rhythmic shuffle so strong that every measure feels like a kick to the gut. The male-female duo’s debut album, Treats, is more tricky than it is sweet, with distortion cranked up to ear-shattering levels. Songs like “Crown on the Ground” combine the fiery, fuzzed-out blasts of Derek Miller’s guitar with Alexis Krauss’ lax half-spoken, half-sung vocals and intense, lashing beats. Their resemblance to M.I.A. is no surprise – they are getting support from her N.E.E.T. label. “Got my a machines on the table, got my b machines in the drawer,” Krauss repeats throughout the throbbing “A/B Machines,” which recalls the punchy refrain of “World Town,” where M.I.A. raps, “hands up, guns out, represent the world town.” Just two months ago, Sleigh Bells opened for Yeasayer at the Grog Shop; this time, they’re headlining. If they continue touring at this rate, you’ll see them again in September – but just in case, see them now before this buzz band starts selling out much larger venues. Nerve City and Po-Po open at 9 p.m. at the Grog Shop (2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., 216.321.5588). Tickets: $10 advance, $12 day of show.

Your 33 Black Angels @ Grog Shop tonight

I got an email, based on my meanie post, and I had to share it with you. The title was "Totally UNpretentious, non epic or shrinelike Brooklyn Psych band." Good to know bands are taking my criticisms so seriously in their image construction. (ok, ha ha ha. i'm joking.)

The band is Your 33 Black Angels. They are from Brooklyn. They consider themselves psych-rockers. But they also have a sense of humor.

And their songs are pretty swell. It's a little lo-fi, it's a little trippy, and it's a little bit rock and roll.

They play the Grog Shop tonight with Craig Ramsey, who is pretty much one of my favorite Cleveland musicians. So cheers to that! See you guys there?

Your 33 Black Angels - If Loving You is Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Wrong
Your 33 Black Angels - I Want Something I Can Hold in my Hand
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By the way, here's an interview I did with Dan Rosato. He's, y'know, in the band.

* How did Your 33 Black Angels form?

Seems like we're still in the process of forming...adding new members all the time.

* I always imagine that the Brooklyn music scene is so ridiculously competitive and cutthroat, but maybe that's just my misconception of the city in general. What is it like being part of that scene?

Sure there are tons of bands, but there are tons of clubs and plenty of people who want to go out and see shows. We're playing music, not football, you know?

* What can we look forward to when you perform live in Cleveland?

Besides the show at the Grog Shop, we're trying to set up a game of HORSE with the Cavs. W's been working on his 360 dunk and JR has perfected the half court backwards granny shot.

* Can you share the story of when you decided on the song title "If Loving You is Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Wrong"?

Oh shit then I'd end up like that guy who reveals the magician's secrets on those TV specials. You know the guy with that freaky mask? Yeah you haven't seen him in a while, have you?


Down to business:

* Has anyone ever told you that Y33BA looks like an airline confirmation code?

We haven't flown commercial in a long time...

* Why 33 Black Angels? Why not 34 Purple Angels?

No 34 purple on a roulette wheel.

* Please share the most embarrassing thing you've ever done onstage.

I ended up in an old bumper car once in Texas. It wasn't embarrassing, but maybe it should have been.

* What's your favorite knock-knock joke?

Ok.

Me: Knock Knock
You: Who's there?
Me: September 11th
You: September 11th who?
Me: I thought you said you'd never forget...

* If you had to play a show after only eating one specific food for an entire week, which food would you choose?

Shrimp. And white wine.

* What's your best dance move?


I call this one "What? Another night alone? After that sweet ass dance shit?!"

The Apples in Stereo - Grog Shop - Live Review

Last night’s smug Grog Shop crowd did the time warp, and we’re not talking Rocky Horror Picture Show. The seven members of the Apples in Stereo’s touring posse arrived onstage dressed in customized silver space suits ready to take fellow humans back and forward in time, fueled their seventh album, Travellers in Space and Time.

Their goofy futuristic apparel – blinking sunglasses and all – planted smiles on our faces, but it was the gooey pop goodness that kept feet tapping through the night. The extent of our literal time travel only reached back to 1992, when the Apples played the first song they ever wrote and recorded (“Tidal Wave”). Yet the synth-flavored grooves that litter the new album go back a little further, to the days of Electric Light Orchestra’s prime.

“Dream About the Future” and “Told You Once” put fans in a frenzy of ‘80s dance paradise, while “Dignified Dignitary” played up what bassist Eric Allen refers to as the “scrappy punk band” side of things. After playing much of the new material, the Apples reached back to 2007’s New Magnetic Wonder for crowd pleasers like “Energy,” “Same Old Drag,” and “Sun is Out.”

Frontman Robert Schneider playfully transitioned between songs with proclamations like, “this is what music will sound like in the future.” This was after an opening set by the Generationals, who took us back to the organ-happy ‘60s.

Last night was an exercise in understanding musical influences of the past. But more than that, it was about getting excited that some of our favorite music is still being created today.

Avi Buffalo & Japandroids @ Grog Shop

Avi Buffalo were on the Grog Shop stage before Japandroids last night, looking young and meek at first. The members of the four-piece Long Beach group are barely out of high school. Yet as soon as their fingers touched their instruments, age was just a number.

The structures of Buffalo’s songs resemble a spider with nine and a half legs. As strange as it seems, the extra appendages accentuate the spider’s greatest strengths. Frontman Buffalo’s (real name: Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg) extra legs are the mini guitar breakdowns he inserts between verse and chorus. When Buffalo starts soloing in odd places, it messes with typical pop structures, but it’s a welcome change and an interesting new direction.


Japandroids' second dead-on Cleveland performance of the past half-year blew minds and eardrums alike. Drummer David Prowse and guitarist Brian King created the same energy they did in October at Now That’s Class. This time, the audience was three times the size. Ringing power chords and cymbal-heavy percussion radiated back and forth between the two Vancouver buddies as they played every song off their debut album, Post-Nothing.

If it wasn’t already, “Young Hearts Spark Fire” became the anthem for youth angst. Thrusting their bodies toward the stage, Cleveland fans made it loud and clear. The entire crowd screamed fervently, “I don’t wanna worry about dying/I just wanna worry about those sunshine girls.”

A few new tracks also made their way into the set. “Darkness on the Edge of Gastown” and “Art Czars” are quintessentially “Japandroidsian.” In other words, they’re low-fi garage rock that sounds scummy as hell.

“Heart Sweats” was a show highlight, if only for the interplay between King and Prowse. King stopped to tune his guitar in the middle of the song, joking with the audience that his talent lies in making us believe the screw-up was part of the plan.

When King nudged Prowse to start back-up, the two took turns jesting each other, until King gleefully shouted that he was going to need a countdown.

That kinship is what makes Japandroids' live shows so compelling. That, and, uh, the sheer number of amps they use. And the way the two of them are always completely attuned to each other’s movements. And… do I really need to go on?

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P.S. You can find this review and most of my others at the Cleveland Scene. Check out other things on the site, too - there's snarky blogs, melodramatic commenters, some pretty good writing, and most importantly, a bunch of cuss words.