Mother’s Day, a day when most of us would be at home having family dinners, I spent the evening in Philadelphia with a few old friends. This was the first time I saw the Theatre of the Living Arts rather on the empty side. I strolled in at a quarter to eight to find only a handful of people gathered near the stage. While I was hoping more people would turn up by 8:00 for The Joggers’ set, I was secretly enjoying the intimacy of the small crowd.
The Joggers, a rock outfit from Portland, OR welcomed the crowd with mathy guitar stylings and jammy percussion. Songs like White Madam and Long Distance Runaround brought the crowd closer to the stage to get more of a feel for what they were all about. Neon Undercarriage was my favorite. Mixing harmonies, strong bass lines, and snappy vocals, The Joggers demonstrated their keen sense of the technical aspects of music. If you were to go on safari and desired a rock band to entertain your nightly campfire, The Joggers would be your best pick. The Joggers had a great way of bringing together indie rock with a southern feel and then giving it a swift kick of “native” sounds here and there. By native I mean jungle tribe. You think you know what The Joggers are all about and just as you’re all set to slap a tag on them, they surprise you. They acted like they were born on the stage by how cool and comfortable they were. The Joggers were also rather chatty with the crowd and even had everyone convinced their set would go on forever. The crowd seemed like they wouldn’t have minded that at all.
I had heard of the next band, browsed their Myspace page, and was quite impressed by their bio. As I waited for them to take the stage, questions lingered in my mind. Will they really live up to what they said? Will they meet my expectations? Giant Drag, the Los Angeles pop-indie-grunge duo of Annie and Micah, was written up in several national magazines including Spin, Billboard, NME, and CMJ as a “buzz band,” compared to PJ Harvey, The Pixies, David Lee Roth, and even Nirvana. Yet as they played I could not understand why they were put on such a pedestal. Did I miss something? Don’t get me wrong, the music was good. I was impressed by the musicianship of both Annie’s guitar and Micah’s ability to double on bass and drums. I loved the cover of Chris Issak’s Wicked Game, Annie’s vocals really shined. And the riffs are great in Kevin is Gay, a track off their latest release, Hearts and Unicorns. The pair works well together. However, the amount of credit and praise from the press is exorbitant and just plain unnecessary. In addition to being mislead, I was slightly confused at several times during their set. Annie’s chatter between songs was rather childish and almost incoherent. Micah remained quiet, smiling and shaking his head from time to time at Annie’s banter. The crowd’s reaction was either silence or a few chuckles. Her very unusual sense of humor and random conversation was a little unsettling, at least to me. Conclusion: while Giant Drag’s music was pleasing to my ears, it was nothing new that I hadn’t heard before. Note to self and avid readers of the formerly mentioned publications: sometimes big time magazines exaggerate the bands they cover, don’t always believe what you read, go find out for yourself in person.
Finally, at around 10:00, Pretty Girls Make Graves took the stage. They opened their set with Blue Lights, one of my personal favorites off The New Romance. Andrea, decked out in stylish threads like always, led the group with fine form. She introduced the newest member of the group, Leona Marrs on keyboard. I noticed some new sounds including saxophone, accordion, melodica, whistle, and of course the keyboard brought out at various points during PGMG’s set. While I knew they were without one guitar, the mixture of instruments seemed to fill out nicely. Andrea’s whistle was very prominent on The Nocturnal House and the mood all changed with the eerie march of Leona’s accordion on Selling the Wind. I was glad they played an equal amount of both new and old tunes. J. Clark caught the attention of the crowd when he toted out a saxophone for Pictures of a Night Scene. Pretty Girls Make Graves truly sparked the curiosity of the crowd with each new song. I especially liked The Number with its driving beat of drums and piano and slight tinge of an old western midway through. I think for those that were there that night, we can all agree the new songs are very “meaty.”
Pretty Girls Make Graves closed the evening with an encore that had the crowd wondering-what song would they play? What tune did they miss? What would make the show complete? Cheers exploded from the crowd as Pretty Girls started Speakers Push the Air, one of their most well-known and well-loved songs.
The show was great. I walked away with a new favorite band, The Joggers, and was in love with Pretty Girls Make Graves’ new tunes.
