Japandroids at Headliners Louisville

I wrote this for LEO Weekly to preview Japandroids' June 15th show at Headliners.

We’ve heard all the clichés. Two heads are better than one. Great minds think a like. Two is company, three’s a crowd. We get it. Two can be a magical number. So what is one to do if not born with an Olsen twin?

You find one, of course.

Brian King and David Prowse may not be related by blood, but the two powerhouse players of Japandroids move together like two sides of a beating heart. When one slows down, the other follows. When one screws up, the other compensates.

“Dave and I are not actually very good musicians. We’re not actually good at playing each one of our instruments. But we are very good at playing together,” explains King, who handles the guitar and lead vocals for the duo while Prowse keeps the songs racing with unrepentant percussion. “Our timing, the way we interact, and understanding what the other person is going to do before they do it… all those sorts of things, they’re all integral to us performing the way we do.”

Japandroids aren’t known for their subtleties, musically or otherwise. They’re going for loud and unsteady, the kind of anthemic music that sounds even better when its magnified by 20 different amps crowded onto the stage, ripping away at eardrums without mercy.

And the band’s three-ish albums (they count No Singles, an album that compiles singles and tracks from their EPs, as their sophomore release, between 2009’s thunderous Post-Nothing and 2012’s Celebration Rock) are full of the kind of half-shouted, half-sung garage rock that all but forces heads to shake and bodies to vibrate.

What makes the band something to watch is the way Prowse and King follow each other’s leads almost instinctively. It comes from hours and hours of practice, and is constantly solidified with the more than 200 shows they play supporting each album.

“It’s just second nature,” says King, “That’s the foundation for our live show. We can play really hard, and what seems to be totally wild and out of control, but we never really lose control, actually. We both kinda know what we’re doing all the time inherently. Even if we’re not looking at each other, we just know.”

With hundreds of shows in their belt over the last five years, Japandroids have grown from a small Vancouver twosome to one recognized around the world. It started with “Young Hearts Spark Fire,” the incredibly raw single off Post-Nothing that blitzes by so fast and strong that you don’t have time to figure out why that chorus is so catchy. They built audiences around the addictive quality of their songs, and stage banter like, “Don’t worry, our lyrics are really fucking easy. You can sing along after 30 seconds.”

Now, they’re putting much more consideration into the songs they write, knowing that they’ll be playing them hundreds of times on multiple continents. They’re planning more, reaching for larger ideas and finding new ways to enhance their performance.

Japandroids’ most recent and only show in Louisville was opening for the Walkmen a couple years ago at Zanzabar. King says the crowd seemed to want them to get their set over with so they could see the main band. Now that they’re coming back to play the headlining slot at Headliners, the situation is different. They will be playing for people who are at the show specifically to see them, a privilege that is not lost on them.

But if there is any concern that their heads are getting big as their fanbase grows, King is quashing that fear.

“We’re Canadian. There’s like a natural sense of humility involved in life in general. You can’t really help it, I don’t think.”

King brings up the modesty of Arcade Fire, one of the most successful Canadian bands in recent history, as proof that there’s something fundamentally down to Earth about people raised up North.

“Who the hell knows what would happen if we achieved any kind of monstrous fame or success or wealth or something? Maybe we’d both turn into two Kanye Wests or something, I don’t know. But I do think there’s an inherently Canadian thing about most bands that are from Canada that keeps them relatively modest, no matter how successful they are.”

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

I wrote the following for LEO Weekly.

“Young Hearts Spark Fire,” the burning anthem that catapulted David Prowse and Brian King into the hearts of thousands, maybe millions, of young punks on debut album Post-Nothing has been reincarnated. The relentless drum fills, scorching guitar, and shout-along choruses fill “The House That Heaven Built” with an unspeakable passion that offers listeners just one more reason to feel alive. The guys behind Japandroids aren’t subtle – they literally begin and end the album with the sound of fireworks. And the music in between is the breed that makes the heart pound with the same excitement a young kid feels running through the yard with a sparkler. Reckless abandon fills all eight songs on Celebration Rock, Japandroids’ second full-length excuse to melt the world under the power of their amplifiers. Hold on to your seat, they’re on fire. 

Thoughts

The last time I listened to Japandroids full time is when I was working part time and interning for free. The world was hostile, I couldn’t find my way out of my post-college slump, and I needed music to scream along to. I would run circles around the cul-de-sac where I grew up, where I was living, miserably with my parents. Stuck in what seemed like an endless cycle of unsuccess, I was young and I was mad. Japandroids made me long for the endless college nights of reckless behavior and unpredictable friendships. Instead, I was stuck in suburbia.

I still love Post-Nothing, but I don’t listen to it on a typical day. I found a new job and a new home, and for the most part, I found happiness. I don’t long for a different life anymore. So the purpose, the crutch that I used Japandroids for has been filled.

Celebration Rock doesn’t hold a significance for me like their debut album did. It’s not that I don’t love it. After all, these are still the sort of raging rock and roll songs that move the body and spirit. But I find myself longing instead for folksy, sunny songs that I can blast while I’m basking in sunshine in my backyard. It’s been a difficult process reviewing this new record because it doesn’t touch me like the last one did. Not for lack of quality, but because I’ve changed. The line between panning an album because you “don’t feel it” and because it’s a shitty album is stark. So how do I stay true to myself and also true to the band?

Looking back at Post Post-Nothing

I wrote a preview article of the upcoming Japandroids album, Celebration Rock, for Under the Radar more than a year ago. The much anticipated album comes out June 5th. Let's review what David Prowse told me about it back then.

When David Prowse gets behind a drum kit and Brian King straps on a guitar, and they are in a room full of amplifiers, the energy level automatically multiplies. The two Vancouver natives behind Japandroids aren’t so much in the game to geek out with music gear or mess around with production—they play to make hearts race and crowds shout along.

    

Japandroids were unknowns when their debut album ­Post-Nothing came out in early 2009. Prowse and King wanted to put out a record that they could give to friends and play live around their hometown. After a couple hundred shows and insanely enthusiastic reviews of Post-Nothing, the pair is finally coming to terms with the fact that they are a real band.

     

On their first hiatus from touring in a year and a half, the two are piecing together riffs and ideas for their sophomore album, which they will begin recording in March. With the new material, they have more time to think about the content and decide just how “weird” they want it to be.

       

“Now we’re slightly older, slightly wiser. Barely wiser,” Prowse cracks, “and hopefully we can add a bit more complexity to the way the record sounds.”

      

Post-Nothing was heavy on songs that captured the ecstatic joy of being young. Hazy, lo-fi fuzz takes over, the guitar blares like a siren, and the lyrics—about girls, long nights with friends—are shouted messily. It’s easy to get lost in the sensation of recklessness. Think nights of no sleep, drinking and puking and just not caring. Think spontaneity. Think ringing ears.

     

“I think we’ve learned that kind of model of songwriting, even from a lyrical standpoint, so well that it’s easy to write songs like that to a large extent,” Prowse says. “At the same time, I think we are different from the guys who wrote those songs and put out that record. It was a good couple years ago. I think we need to strike some sort of a balance between the things that we still feel are true to us about the songwriting and lyrical content of Post-Nothing and how we feel now. I wouldn’t expect another ‘Wet Hair.’”

      

They want to remain true to their recording style, which Prowse says “sounds like you basically just came to one of our shows and just threw a microphone up in the back of the room,” so they are sticking with The Hive, a studio in Vancouver where they recorded Post-Nothing and a collection of singles they released last year. Instead of keeping a consistent vocal pattern and drum sound throughout a whole album, like they did on Post-Nothing, they want each song to sound unique.

      

“On Post-Nothing, we’re trying to play as fast and hard as possible,” Prowse explains. “I’m trying to do as many drum fills as I can in a four-minute period. It’s really fun, and obviously, I think we both love playing those songs, but I think we both want to explore writing great songs and not necessarily just like spazzing for four minutes straight.”

Music Quote of the Day

I love this because it's incredibly surprising given the huge difference in genre between the two bands, but also because I respect and love both of these guys' most recent albums so, so much. I love that people can have such wide-ranging taste in music.

"Another really great drumming record, even though it’s not incredibly complex, is... I really love the way the drums sound on the new National record, even though that’s a totally different kind of music from what we do. I just really like the sound of the drums technically, and just the way that the drums are played and the way that the drumbeats fit with the songs. But I don’t think we’re going to make a record that sounds like The National. No offense to The National – [Brian and I] really love that band.” -David Prowse of Japandroids in an interview I did with him last week

A Year in Sum

I'm listening to Japandroids, and I'm reading things about them on the internet. I'm letting the simplicity seep into me, remembering the rash anger I felt a year and a half ago when I was listening to it for the first time. I was going through a transition from college back home, searching for a job and a future. More than anything, I was angry. I think I felt entitled. I felt like I deserved to get a job I wanted in my field. I thought all my hard work over the past four years should automatically yield to immediate results. I thought things were going to be easier, and I thought I'd have places to go and friends to live with. Instead, I was lonely and lost and really unlucky. The economy was bottoming out, and I was one of millions of casualties. A fresh graduate with nowhere to go.

So much has changed in the past year. I went through so many uncertainties and made choices I wasn't sure about. I spent a lot of time with my parents and my dog. And I made some friends. Some really great ones. I got pretty darn good at my job. I did my best to keep up with music, even though college radio was no longer keeping me hip. I bordered on depression, I had some amazing victories, but mostly I changed my entire outlook.

Instead of entitlement, I got appreciative. I'm not always going to understand the purpose of what life throws at me. I'll probably sob to Elliott Smith and sing really loudly to The Joshua Tree. I'll probably jump around my room to M.I.A and Matt & Kim, and I'll cry to Deerhunter. (I'm really freakin emotional, ok? Just accept me!) Life is just what you make it. And I'm totally about the small accomplishments and the small joys.

I'm moving again. Starting a new job, starting a new life. Starting from scratch. This time, Japandroids' Post-Nothing doesn't resonate with me. I'm not angry. I don't miss a reckless life or insane late-night adventures. I don't care about hot musicians with shaggy hair (k that might be a lie). I'm growing up a little. I love this album still. But I love it for different reasons. It brings back memories for a very specific time in my life. I don't have this same sense of rebellion.

I don't have a soundtrack for this transition yet. (Although, with a move to Louisville, I'm thinking about getting back on the My Morning Jacket train really quickly.) I'm ready for the journey.

New Japandroids Song!

I hate everything in life at this specific moment (i.e. a publicist screwed me over, my great aunt hit my car tonight), but I'm pretty stoked about this new Japandroids song!

So let's say it together, "I. LOVE. JAPANDROIDS. I. LOVE. JAPANDROIDS."

They make the bad go away. This is the best therapy you can get without paying a psychiatrist, trust me.

Japandroids - Heavenward Grand Prix

Buy lots of their stuff here, and I mean it.

I've ranted so much on this blog about how I love these two guys, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I don't know what kind of people they are - they could be horrible people - but I don't really care because I will blatently ignore all their bad characteristics in favor of embracing my love for them as a collective group. Their bromance interaction is just about the best thing I've seen on stage in a crappy punk club, and their careless enthusiasm (GUSTO, I tell you, GUSTO) has won me over twice now.

I would stand on my roof for 20 hours in the middle of an awful winter day to get tickets to their concert, if I had to.

I'd probably jump of somebody's balcony onto a trampoline (if the conditions were right and I wasn't going to die) to see their faces.

I would listen to their music for a week straight, without stopping, if that was what I needed to do to prove my love.

That said, this new song is probably not their best song ever. So don't listen to this one first and be like, 'that blogger is totally unreliable and reckless and she's a complete moron for jumping off balconies,' you know? Like, give them more of a chance than this song.

And then when you fall in love with them too, maybe we can start a fan club. We won't do geeky fan club things like make buttons (ok maybe we'll make buttons) or send out postcards with their pictures. We'll just, like, sit on my carpet and play their music really loud, and then we'll bring it to the living room and just jump around a little bit (but we won't mosh because I hate moshing), and then we'll just have a good meal and talk about the merit of being a member of Japandroids, and then we can toast to Brian King and David Prowse, and talk about how much fun it is to eat an entire bag of twizzlers in one sitting, because that is irrelevant to the subject of Japandroids, and by that time I think we'll probably need to mix things up a little bit. And then we can buy bags of twizzlers....

Ok, you get the point.

Just have a good night. Don't let your family members back into your car. Don't let publicists push you into a 3-month long waiting game and then give you an interview with the wrong band member and make you do it 12 hours later when your deadline is next week. Don't do those things!

Just listen to this song, ok?

If you read this whole post, which I might later subtitle 'Rant of a Crazy Girl,' I feel bad for you. You obviously have nothing better to do than read a bunch of chicken scratch on the internet.

If you made it this far in the post, I love you always forever near and far closer together (that was a bad phrasing of The Cardigans' "Lovefool." I also want to mention their great song "For What It's Worth," which might be better than "Lovefool," and I think I want to write my next blog post about this.)

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?

-----

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.

My Wishes...

have been granted.

Just found an email from the Grog Shop. Japandroids are coming back to the Cleve land!

Tuesday April 6th | Japandroids

Heaven!!

Yo Japandroids...

You're the hottest live band of my entire life right now (fast forward to 37:00):



Can you please come back to Now That's Class, so I can awkwardly stand by myself for three hours while anticipating your performance? Then proceed to cover the stage with amps bigger than my entire bedroom? Then blow my mind? Then make me fantasize about you?

Ok, thanks. Thanks dudes.

#2

Japandroids – Post-Nothing
Polyvinyl

My love for this album is as vapid and shallow as its lyrics, which are passionate odes to lust and reckless young behavior. The loud, lo-fi debut, a messy mastery by two dudes from Vancouver, is ferociously alive with rollicking drum fills, biting guitar licks, and unison shouting.

Japandroids - Live Review

When you see a group of twenty-somethings walking around together in hoodies and hearing aids, it’s a tip off. They probably spent the night watching Japandroids’ brand of vicious, loud garage rock. Amps bigger than human bodies took up more of the majority of the stage, backing Vancouver’s tightest new rock band.

Though Japandroids only has two members – guitarist Brian King and drummer David Prowse – it still blew the crowd away with a raw, unrelentless energy. Prowse was the Energizer bunny, and King had no trouble keeping up. The two musicians move like one well-oiled machine, intimately sensitive to each other's every move. With a small nod from King, Prowse picked up his sticks, moving between time signatures with ease.

A seamless transition between “Crazy/Forever” and “Sovereignty” showed the crowd that the pair could bring their debut album, Post-Nothing, to life with the same sense of immediacy as the recording. As King spastically whipped his head around and ripped away on his bright red guitar, it took serious control keep from convulsively jerking your own body back and forth.

The band played a majority of the songs off Post-Nothing, including crowd favorites “Young Hearts Spark Fire” and “Heart Sweats,” a propulsive song about a girl whose “heart is cold as ice… I should know I’ve been to the North Pole.” But King explained a few songs into the set that they were incorporating new songs to keep the show interesting. “Don’t worry,” he assured the crowd, “our lyrics are really fucking easy. You can sing along after 30 seconds.”

Japandroids are smart, despite vapid lyrics and the occasional shallow desire. They combine melodic, movable guitar lines with heavy drums full of cymbals and sudden blasts. The vocals always repeat, not only the same words, but the same notes. Read as: great for shouting along, even if you can't sing. And boy did the crowd shout.

POST 100

In honor of my 100th post to No Mistake in Mixtape, I invite you to join me.

In the next month or so, I will be at all of these shows, in Cleveland.

white rabbits.
ten out of tenn.
japandroids.
langhorne slim.
st. vincent.
loney, dear.
matthew perryman jones.
drummer.
nicole atkins.
dan auerbach/justin townes earle.

Celebrate with me! See a good show!

Japandroids - Post-Nothing

Woaaaaah, we used to dream... now we worry about dyin'...

The ecstatic joy I feel when I listen to this album is comparable to a very parallel pit of misery and dread. When the fuzz takes over, and the guitars are blaring like sirens, and all the lyrics are shouted messily, I lose myself to a sense of recklessness. Something about the quality of the recording (shit, in a good way) and the energy (imagine pulsing strobe lights and sweaty young 20-somethings in some rank, dingy dive bar) is perfection. I usually reserve that particular descriptor to shiny powerpop or shimmering vocal harmonies. But this is perfection in a new way - the kind that grows from its own flaws.

"Young Hearts Spark Fire" plays on my iPod on repeat. Deep within myself, desires for a simpler time crawl out of my ears. Nights of no sleep, drinking and puking and just not caring. Oblivion. Spontaneity. Ears ringing. Thirst.

"Wet Hair" is a pure ode to selfish, lusty adventure.

She had wet hair
Say what you will
I don't care
I couldn't resist it

These girls are raw
Bikini girl
We need a ride to Bikini Island

We want them common
Let's get to France
So we can French kiss some French girls

Japandroids are smart, despite vapid lyrics and the occasional shallow desire. They combine in a unique way. First, there are movable guitar lines, melodic and sweet and edgy. The vocals always repeat, not only the same words, but the same notes. Great for shouting along, even if you can't sing. Heavy drums, thump-a-thump, cymbals everywhere, like a circus.

What's more, everything is done in like-i-give-a-shit style. Messy. Lo-fi. Cool enough for the too-cool kids. Musical enough for the rest of us. A mistake? Maybe. Brilliant? Probably.