voxtrot w/ tapes 'n' tapes and new sense at the entry

caught this pretty great lineup at the entry on monday night. i was pleasantly surprised with new sense (milwaukee, wisc.), who played a solid set of drum machine-and-acoustic-guitar-flecked rock. the singer had a solid set of pipes reminiscent of bono. i spoke with guitarist kristian riley after their set and discovered that the group includes former members of citizen king, the promise ring, camden and paris texas and that two of the guys are also in decibully. as if this weren't enough, kristian himself did the last maritime record as well as the one that's about to drop like a ton of pop bricks on your head in the near future. he hooked me up with a copy of their disc, which boasts at least two near-great songs and overall is a very solid ep-sized taste of their sound. i think they come off a little better on the disc than live since it allows them to really push the dancier elements and dabble a little more with studio stuff. their website is here.

tapes 'n' tapes were pretty fantastic, and you can see why they've been earning great reviews across the web, including this gem from pitchfork. i hadn't seen them for around two years, during which time their fourth member had returned, i think, from the west coast. they're not so much revolutionary as very, very good at picking out aspects of different genres you wouldn't think would mesh well and making it work. very down-to-earth on stage and refreshingly absent of any kind of rock and roll posturing. the nearest touchstone to my mind was modest mouse in terms of the song structures, although pitchfork thinks pavement, apparently. given the buzz building around this band, it seems like little can stop them. nor should it.

voxtrot write some great muhphuckin' songs, yo. i find myself humming "the start of something" quite often, and one problem with a band that's so staggeringly good at constructing tight and catchy tunes is that live, they can't really better their albums. singer ramesh srivastava (i think i butchered that) comes off a bit aerobics instructor on stage with his slightly too short and quite tight jeans. not tight in a rock and roll codpiece way, but more a tj maxx kind of way, and generally the band has a definitely nonchalant air as they breeze through songs that a lot of bands would kill to have penned. highlights include the aforementioned "the start..." and the set closer, which is apparently going to be featured on their next ep, the former for ramesh's guitar-less frontman antics and the latter for his turn on the piano. again, they're a band with the kind of buzz that means they just have to stay on the train long enough to get off somewhere famous, and that's largely down to their manager james minor, who's done some work for new sense apparently. both of their myspace pages have more hits than grains of sand on any given beach and it seems like minor's got a great eye for solid bands and a solid grip on how to get their stuff to the right people.

all good stuff really. kind of makes me weak in the knees for the future of independent music.