New Strange Boys Songs
Hey, the Strange Boys finally figured out how to put songs on their myspace page... congrats guys! And it couldn't have come at a better time, because they've posted four brand new tracks that are all very good. Each one clearly signals a shift in focus for the band, but one in particular, "Author, Author," really stands out as quite a change. The song has some of the sad, medicated feel of Lou Reed's quieter solo stuff, and Ryan Sambol's detached vocal delivery works perfectly with Greg Enlow's clean piano. Good stuff.
posted by stonedranger at 2:27 AM
68 Comments:
Wow. Sounds great. It's weird to not hear him do his trademark high-pitched scream, though. Now that I remember, they were more like this last time I saw them.
They were described to me as "garage rock" before I first saw them a year-and-a-half or so ago. Although I liked their energy, that didn't make sense to me at the time since I associate "garage rock" with 60's punk. These recordings make it more clear that they were heading in that direction the whole time.
I hear a trademark shitty voice, and it's on every song.
Having been blown away AND disappointed (probably due to hype) by the Strange Boys, I find these new recordings lacking.
However, the drumming on that drug/iggy/drug song are pretty righteous.
Those young bastards.
Regarding hype, I've noticed several bands who get lots of blog hype get very poorly attended shows. Why do you suppose that is? Does anyone know?
speak of the devil
http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0C003D5FC6137FE3
10:20
Thats because all the people that read blogs are still at home reading blogs instead of going out to shows. That and going to shows is on the decline especially in Dallas, thats why you are starting to see more bands stop in houston and austin instead of dallas and austin. Sucks huh.
yeah... sucks fo' sho' yo.
well, we'd better go see if wilonsky likes it.
i gotta say, tho, sure glad samuel dried up and blew away. wastoid.
now only if the flatliners would get the hint, eh???
that pretty much goes for grimy as well. too bad that whole paper can't be sent packing like the republicans, eh??????????????
liquified macrobiotic bovine wash.
so this is the band everyone kept talking about? eh.
I went to see two of the bands hyped on this blog and was suprised at how few people were there. People not putting their money where their mouth is apparently. These are strange times when even good press does a band no good. Over hyping a band does more harm than good?
Music isn't about gig attendance anymore. It's about how many myspace friends you have.
this band is cool because i haven't ever heard them before and i can't at tha moment cos their myspace be swamped totally radical
just as I thought...
they still suck
Well the Strange Boys are playing 5 shows in Dallas and Denton between now and christmas. Maybe overkill could be hurting attendance? There are many other groups in this area that are doing this too, and oversaturation is always a nail in the coffin.
the strange boys are only good for one thing..blinking and posing for the girls.they remind me of a distant cousin to the osmond family done up in mod clothing learned from reading too many tiger beat magazines and rock history books.
they're not so bad but yeah the vocals are kinda "i'm not gonna sing well, not even attempt it, because i'm rad" and the instruments are all heavily polished and stuff which makes the purposefully bad vocals really stick out...i like bad vocals sometimes (meat puppets dude!) but here it seems a little staged...anyone know what i mean?
no, his voice is the best thing about them.
yeah, i like the vocals
well, what i think is that america needs more bands, we don't have enough, especially ones with internet access
wait, so what you're saying is that bands should use the internet more often? doesn't make sense. i believe in the sanctuary of radio
yeah, but the radio is owned by clear channel and they feed us puppet bands mass marketed without regard to the intelligence of the audience
is myspace somehow better?
maybe, because at least with myspace bands can put up whatever they want (but then there is the rupert factor)
well, goodnight internet, nice debating with you
goodnight son, come back tomorrow, to check on the progess of your comments
will do internet, i love you!
lol backatcha
:_(
i miss you
hmm... big strange boys fan here. Just listened to the tracks.. hmm... kind of brilliant, but not what I was expecting - at all. They have slowed down? are they playing these at their shows? Seems like the keyboard player has "mellowed" them out? I miss the staright, fast garage punk..but I applaud them for doing the unexpected with these. As far as the voice - it does come accross a bit more awkward than usual on these, but I think its b/c the songs are just slower and you can actually kind of HEAR the guy for the first time...
Is that E.T. ? in the picture?
haha, greg looks like et!
and yes, they have been performing the newer stuff, and i think it sounds pretty great (or it did at the gypsy tea room). The slower songs make the faster songs a little more exciting to hear. i miss the 3 member days, but i can apreciate what they are doing now. it was once just a barage of noise and attitude and now it's a little more craftsmenship. and i don't think it's greg that is "slowing" their sound down, i think that was a decision that they had made already.... Greg is just the piano player they added to make the sound they wanted happen. Ryan is two steps ahead of where you think he is. probably has the next strange boys "evolution" planned.
anyway, i think it sounds great. one of the newer songs sounds like something you'd hear at a soc-hop, and it's great.... a little prescious, but great.
and the remake of who more fitted or right is great too.... from straight forward punker (origional version) to something w/ a little more soul.
which reminds me... if you want to see the difference between the "then" strange boys and the "now" strange boys. find a way to hear both versions of "who more fitted or right"
i'd say it shows their growth pretty well.
It's a great point that one (of the too many) anonymouses made...a lot of blog hyped bands don't draw well. So that makes it pretty difficult as a booking agent. I certainly want to have variety and appeal to different crowds and most definitely crowds whose opinions I respect. But we also have to make money. Believe me, if I was only booking bands I liked then some of my shows would be a lot different.
As far as The Strange Boys go, I have to admit that it took me awhile to get used to his voice. But it grew on me and the songs are good. The last time I saw them was at The Gypsy Tea Room with The Black Angels. The S Boys sounded effing great.
So decide for yourself. They're playing tonight at Double-Wide with The Pink Spiders from Nashville. And like 95% of our shows, it's only $5.00.
I'll be there. Feel free to tell me what you think.
For the life of me, I can't figure out what drives Dallas crowds to shows and what keeps them away. Sometimes it seems that Observer press is a big help in that respect, but other times it doesn't seem to have any effect at all.
As far as the blogs go, I don't find it all that surprising that many of the "hyped" shows don't draw extremely well. On this blog, a lot of the stuff we recommend just doesn't have a lot of mass appeal, and I'm usually not surprised to find small crowds at shows we go to. However, I'm often surprised at how many people turn up for shows that I would never expect to draw well, so its really pretty much unpredictable.
As far as the other blogs in town go, it seems that Texas Gigs really doesn't "recommend" any shows, Fineline Live keeps most of its focus on one club and one small group of people, and Sam M's blog recommends a lot of the old guard dallas bands that i almost never go see... so i don't know what kind of crowds they get or what role his blog plays in attracting crowds to those shows.
The only local blog that really seems to have consistent drawing power in my experience is Gorilla vs. Bear. But then again, Chris often recommends shows that are already going to be well attended, so its hard to tell exactly what kind of effect he has.
My basic point? I don't think any single media outlet in town has ANY consistent impact on show attendance, but its almost completely impossible to be able to say that with any scientific certainty.
Greatest impact on show attendance in Dallas? It's simple: Is Black Tie Dynasty going to play or are they not. This is normally the deciding factor for people when they are thinking about going to a show in Dallas.
Stonedranger.....you're right and there are certainly other factors that affect attendance. And I have to say that attendance is certainly not all we care about. We just want to be able to stay in business. For example, even though we actually lost money on the last Phillip Roebuck show (which is incredibnly amazing to me), we would have him back as many times as he wanted. Because he's crazy awesome and we love him.
And another big deal is that we do not want to raise our $5.00 cover charge or our $1 PBRs. But we need people to come to shows. We can't book bigger bands if we can't do guarantees and we can't do guarantees if no one shows up even for the good shows.
And while I love it when we're one of the recommended shows in the Observer, there have been shows that were recommended and then no one showed up for. So yeah....nothing makes it a for sure deal. Even the two Birdmonster shows Chris has done at Double-Wide have not been that well attended.
That all said, we love for our shows to be written about...good is better, but bad is OK too. We're not going to complain about more information being out there.
And yeah...thanks for the reminder. I need to book Black Tie.
Cha Cha.. I was kidding. Please don't book Black Tie. Im serious.
I know you were. That's why it's so funny. One thing you should know about me is that I like to make myself laugh.
But yeah...regardless I am going to book them. Unless they're too big for Double-Wide now.
That's classy. We'll done anonymous.
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
wow. guess you won't be coming to that show then?
Cha Cha is most awesome hotness. Yaow!
am I the only one in dallas that can't STAND!!! black tie dynasty? OMG! I was groaning through their set waiting for them to end so I could see black angels. too much black black black.
nancy-I'll figure out how to log in when I care.
i guess nancy hasn't been around that long.
D.O. doesn't much effect on show attendance. I've played shows that have been D.O. endorsed, and it was some of the poorer attended (though really fun!) shows we've played.
finelinelive is a club dada marketing machine, and while i am glad there's a club making a comeback, i sort of wish it wasn't a place with a triangle stage facing the akward island bar. plus the sound is run by a guy named Bobcat. enough said.
Dd is like the VH1 of local blogs.
and this one seems to enjoy dancing to dj's spinning other music more than highlighting shows in the area.
not to say that blogs are the solution to Dallas problems or Denton problems or whatever.
the solution is to stop reading these blogs and go see the bands that play all the time. sometimes you won't like them, but you'd be surprised how many bands around here are pretty good that you might not have thought to give a chance. as long as the venues keep $5 cover and $1 pbrs (cha cha) then there's really very little reason not to be a little adventerous, something i think dallas has lost and is sorely missing right now.
Spot on and funny.
thanks. i care about this shit more than most could imagine.
I think Stone D made a good point on there not being a real formula to what will make people go to shows.
It seems to me that a lot of bands have a very lazy approach to putting together a show anymore.
Sending out a mySpace bulletin or 2, spamming your friends MySpace comments and expecting the clubs to promote the crap out of you show just isn’t enough. It seems to me that the bands that live by this system are always the ones bitching that they didn’t draw enough, as though it has to do with anything other then the fact that people aren’t into your shit.
There are very few bands that try to plan their shows as events. Hand picking the bands to play with. Matching the bands you play with to your crowd and so fourth.
People go where the crowds are, and the bands need to take the first step in creating the crowd.
Do you think half the people that go to Black Tie Dynasty shows actually like their music? Of course not. The douchebag dudes are there to see the girls that are there to get the free drinks from the douchebag dudes. It’s a circle. It’s the same reason Advent out draws Pleasant Grove.
At least a band like Pleasant Grove, or Centro-Matic, or Sub Oslo knows what they are. How big of a crowd do you think any of those 3 have played in front of in DFW? More than a couple of hundred? More often then not they are playing a Friday night at the DW or at the Wreck room in front of 75 people.
Obviously its not about the music.
hansford, i agree with about half of what you said. it is very important that you view your show as an event. that's hard to do in this town for a few reasons:
1. it is rare that your band is asked to set up a show at a venue and plan the entire night. it is usually the proud job of the booking agent of the club to find bands that want to play. i don't think anyone who has the opportunity to set up a show would do so in a way that they're playing with a bunch of bands they hate and sound nothing like. the fact is, most bands don't get to invite other bands to jump on a bill with them when they are asked if they can play.
2. it is very common in this area for bands to get asked to play a show the week of the show. its hard to get the word out/make posters for shows when you don't have a lot of advance notice.
3. for some reason, a lot of bands talk about community and then don't back it up. the noise community, which i am not a member of, nor really enjoy, are a very good example of how these bands make their community work. they've gone as far as making their own DIY venue in a house. the pop community doesn't function that way, neither does the louder rock/punk/whatever set. likeminded bands don't go to each other's shows, or seem to take an interest in what each other is doing. they're more concerned about which next big national act they want to open for... a nobel cause to be sure, but we've got a lot of talent right here.
these problems all have very obvious solutions. some can be controlled by us musicians, some can not.
and hansford, it's got to be about the music. black tie dynasty is what happens when it stops being that.
i thought fine line live was the vh1 of dallas blogs.
people over thirty talking about clubs that are over thirty, telling stories about the "good ole days" and generaly not apealing to anyone but themselves.
oh, and lets not forget the terrible videos and even worse "photographs" (generaly of girls who work for the observer, someone from ppt, sock monkeys, or the back of some bald guys head w/ a band somewhere in the background)
There are two main items to come away with after reading this thread.
The Strange Boys still suck as bad as I remember them to.
Cha Cha is one of the coolest people you will ever get to meet.
Well, I'm glad there's some love with the hate. Thanks!
Just to respond to some of the points made by anonymous 3:22, I really welcome bands putting their own shows together IF it makes sense. I have to make sure that at least one of the bands is (hopefully) going to have a decent draw. I also have to make sure that bands aren't playing at Double-Wide too close together or have competing shows already too close in the area. I try to accomodate bands that have specific bands they want play with. I mean, I stay pretty busy and that's less work for me, so why not? It just needs to make sense.
Also, I try to book shows two months out so there is plenty of time to advertise. Sure, sometimes specific dates are hard to book for whatever reason or bands cancel. Then I have to do last minute booking...which I hate.
But I completely agree with you about bands not going out and supporting each other enough. It does seem to be better in Denton.
And as always, this feedback always helps.
cha cha, just curious: how many people is a 'decent draw'? 20 or so? just wondering what someone who books a club considers a decent crowd.
The bands don't go see each other unless they have members in common and sometimes not even then. There is plenty of talent in our backyard. People will drop $20 drink overpriced beer to see a mediocre indie band, but wince at spending $5 and drinking cheap beer because they did not read about the band on pitchfork. This is the problem.
You should also support the good Dj's around here. Radio in Dallas has been a dead format for years. There has never been any college radio. You can go to Austin and hear local bands from here on the radio. In an ideal world all of the local DJ's would have their own Radio Station in Dallas. If you look at the talent pool of Local DJ's(Wild in the Streets, Prince William, Dj Nature, Select , Sober, Stephen R, The Lollipop Shoppe, The Smoke, Wanz, DJ G, The Metro girls and The Meat Radio crew) that would be one hell of a Radio Station.
i am my own dj i refer to myself as jesus christo and i always draw 40 or 50
Good question about draw.
For an opening band, 20 is great. For a headliner I am content with 40 or 50. But our best nights are 250 paying at the door. The way the door works at Double-Wide is all the door money minus $80 for sound goes to the bands. I like this a lot because DW doesn't keep any of that money and it encourages bands to promote their shows and not have a big guestlist. And people should feel good about paying the $5 cover because it really does go to the bands.
I hate it so much when we only have $20 or even less to give to bands. I feel awful. Especially for road shows.
Luckily for the most part bands that play at Double-Wide like playing there and want to come back and are nice about things. I've seen bands give their money to the bands that are on the road a lot of times. And that's very cool.
And going back to bands setting up their own lineup, it makes it easier when bands do this because splitting the money is usually easier.
jesus christo....i was wondering if i could book a show with you....
and thanks Mikey. ;)
contact me on myspace for booking information
Cha Cha rules. I've given our portion of the band money to the road act. I mean I have a 20 minute drive to handle while they are trying to make it to the next city.
The DoubleWide rules. I love playing there and will stay anonymous.
Sounds like some radio station should let all those guys have guest spots. It would not only be good community it would be good listening for once. I love the Double Wide too. Although it pains me to go see a band there when the room is kinda empty and everyone is outside on the patio. Is it really so hard to drop $5 to support your local scene and maybe give the band a chance? I don't get patio people.
yeah Centro is always good for 200 fyi ... that's anywhere anytime
playing at the Double-Wide rules. it's definitely 'home away from home' in D.
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