by Brad Roberts
On Friday, November 12, 2010, I wanted to see Sonny and the Sunsets at the Echoplex since I'd interviewed their drummer, Kelley Stoltz, when he was in town a few weeks ago with his own band. This San Francisco band owes a lot to the bands of the Bay Area golden age in the late sixties, when simple melodies and pure vocal harmonies poured forth. Their set was pleasant and pretty, well played and the band has a nice, naturally warm stage presence.
I was anxious to see The Pains of Being Pure at Heart(above photo by Pavla Kopecna), who appear set to break big any day now, as there's been a steadily increasing buzz around this band for the last six months or so. Their gauzy, shoe-gaze psychedelia is a genre I am predisposed to like so I found their set pretty electrifying, the singers were animated and charismatic and the band played with tremendous skill before a worshipful crowd. I didn't have any of their recordings, so I picked up their latest, Higher Than The Stars at the show.
I had been completely won over and found the show, overall, a big surprise, but the synthy-wash of My Bloody Valentine-type, gauzy dance music comes across as pretty tunes with the same dance beat in an overly glossy package on record, whereas live, it is a whole other beast. Where they were charismatic and joyous on stage, they come across as cold, almost monotonous, on record.
As I watched them live, I couldn't help but compare their style to
Film School who mine similar territory, but when I listened to their CD the discrepancy of their songwriting became more readily apparent. On their latest CD,
Fission,
Film School write songs that show an amazing versatility and variation. Every song on
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart sounded flat and homogeneous, perhaps the result of over-production. There was just no variation in the vocals or the incessant beat and, unfortunately it made me question just how good the concert actually was. In this case I just have to separate the recorded work from the dynamic stage presentation of the live band. Or maybe I just picked up the wrong CD.
No mention of WEEKEND???
Posted by: Gabriel | November 18, 2010 at 08:31 PM