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Whenever you get a chance to go to a show, regardless of genre (in most cases), take your chances. I was broke, tired and not that stoked about going out, but my roommates were going to go see HORSE The Band the other day and I was on the fence about it. I’d seen HORSE The Band a couple times, and they always put on a great show. For some reason I just wasn’t in the mood to go out.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really had nothing else to do, and I didn’t want to be at the house by myself. Fortunately my hatred for being alone pushed me to attend what ended up being a great night. HeavyHeavyLowLow was just starting when we got there, and following right after was HORSE The Band. They really rocked it out. There is something about hardcore music and the sounds of my old school Nintendo that really turns me on. They even played “Sex Raptor.”
My roommate Brett informed me that the band we missed, So Many Dynamos, needed a place to stay. It sucks sleeping in a van, and we have plenty of room, so I told him I was cool with it. My only fear was that they were a shitty hardcore band that was uninteresting to talk to. So before they got to the house, I pulled up their myspace and realize they are far from hardcore, and in my opinion a rather odd match for a HORSE The Band tour. It was a rather unique sound and quite frankly one of the better bands I’ve heard in a long time.
If you imagine the pop-sensibility of Ozma (yes Ozma as opposed to Weezer) with Q and Not U-like transitions and breakdowns, you’ve got a decent idea of what their guitars, drums and keyboards sound like. Vocally, you have a quieter, catchier timbre that at one point reminded me of Brandon Reilly of Nightmare of You. At other parts it sounded as if Cedric Bixler-Zavala from At The Drive-In had suddenly taken over their singer’s trachea.
With every intention of doing a formal interview, a few beers’ worth of hanging out convinced me that this was the kind of band that is just too much fun to stop the party to start a formal interview. To get to the heart of this band, it was necessary to witness them in their natural state of hanging out.
So after long talks about comic books, music, old school cartoons and swapping tour stories, what I found to be most admirable about this band was their dedication. Few bands these days have it, and it’s inspiring to find a band that won’t give up. Every one wants to be in a band at some point in their life, but no one has the balls to actually do it. By “do it”, I don’t mean to simply write some songs, learn a few crowd-pleaser covers and play around town. I’m talking about how at least one (maybe all) of the members dropped out of college to hit the road. How they have been at it for six years or so. They have recorded a lot of their own stuff. They’ve screenprinted their own shirts. They’ve toured all over, lived out of a van and got paid shit for it. But now they are on their way to CMJ for their second time, and should be releasing a new album at the beginning of 2009.
So how did they end up on a tour with HORSE The Band? They’re friends. Lesson to be learned here is that being a dick to bands you play with, people you meet, club owners you meet and really anyone you come across can really bite you in the ass. I know a lot of assholes, but not many of them build friendships that lead to having Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie produce your upcoming release and a chance to play a couple dates with them.
Their new album will be called The Loud Wars. Don’t know when it will be out exactly, and they will not reveal the label it will be released on, but be on the look out, you won’t be disappointed. I recommend going to their myspace, www.myspace.com/somanydynamos and checking them out. Also, if you read their band name backwards, it reveals a secret message.
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