Friday, March 28, 2008

3/27/08 - Swirve, The Felons, Enormous Magic Verb

ran down to dada on thursday night to catch The Felons, after having to wait waaay too long to catch them a second time (see my first review here). and ok, it's official - The Felons are now my Favorite Local Band. I completely fell for this band last night. Fell hard. Like how i fell for radiohead. Like how i fell for rufus, and arcade fire. It's hard to explain - their music just resonates with me, takes me to a place where everything's ok, brings me peace. A rare thing, i can tell you. Dave's amazing, soaring vocals, the way the guitars and keys blend and complement each other, every song so well written, so well performed. 'twas a beautiful thing. i did not want their set to end, and i can't wait 'til i can catch them again. it was amazing.

it also amazes me that these guys don't have an EP out yet (they're killin me) - hell, they don't even have a music player on their myspace page to help tie me over 'til the next show. talking to dave afterwards, he told me they wanted to take things slowly, make sure they were ready before they put anything out there. i can understand not wanting to rush things and hell, they know way more about the business than i do, but damn, they are eons ahead of 90% of the local bands out there, and i can't help but think that if they just put something out, if it's even half as good as what i've heard live, word would spread like wildfire. but what the hell do i know, eh?

first up last night was enormous magic verb, and they was perty good. 4-man band - keys, bass, cello (not a typo), drums. some nice piano pop. lead vox maybe not the strongest, but serviceable. dude can certainly tickle the ivories. didn't really hear the whole set, as i was makin the rounds, beatin down the likes of dave, fred, josh, brian and bill with plenty of incoherent babbling. really enjoyed hangin with them. and many thanks to josh for turnin off the goddam 'cinema dada' projector during the felons' set (that thing drives me nuts when bands are playin).

last up was swirve, who i've seen before. really cool avant-garde jazz tunes. trumpet with filters, loopers, etc., plus drummer and vocalist. maybe a bit more experimental than the last time i saw them. not as many groove-filled tunes as last time, but still damn good. didn't hear one song from their CD - it was all new material. at least, that is, during the part of the set i heard - twas gettin late and i was about to fall asleep on my feet, so i took off about half-way thru their set.

all in all, another great night at dada.

see you out there...

2 comments:

bill h said...

Man, thanks for the good word. We hear you about the ep, for sure. In part these guys have just spend all their time between playing lots of gigs; writing new music and practice. They have developed a ton in the past 2 or 3 months especially. They played their first gig at dada november of 2006 and had been together for about 2 weeks then. Basically, they hardly ever turn down a chance to play, so they work really hard at it. January Studios has been doing a wonderful job on their cd, so we'll have something out this spring.

Spread the word. They have a bunch of dada shows coming up. 4/4 at deep ellum art fest, early show at 5, 4.19 with a cool cleveland band, Mr. Gnome, 4-26 with Lovie, 5-10 with somebody's darling, and a Doublewide show in the works for 5-24.

Steve M said...

wow, i guess i didn't realize they were such a young band - they sound to me like they've been at it for years.

holy cow - four saturday shows - awesome. can't wait...