The Echo – Los Angeles
Live Review: 6/30/09
***

The Strange Boys have the youthful, wide-eyed good looks of a pop punk band, although once you start listening to their music, they are anything but twee and PG-rated. Jangly guitars, classic garage rock structures and scratchy vocals quickly make way for the kind of whiskey-fueled, devil-may-care nonchalance that bands like the Black Lips have popularized in recent years. By the time the band arrived on stage, the front row—previously occupied by flannel shirts, fedoras and aspiring groupies—made way for a younger, less suffocating crowd. While the previous opening band was all grubby, drunken posturing, the Strange Boys took the stage with a more grateful and easy-going demeanor. Cans of Tecate and bottles of Red Stripe already littered the stage amongst amps and effects pedals, with young fans of the band exchanging maudlin niceties with guitarist Greg Enlow, who amusedly likened the colorful flashing lights of The Echo to those at a rave.

Enlow may have been bemused at the set-up since The Strange Boys seem more likely to perform in smokey saloons and dive bars than they would at an all-ages show. The band’s music, however, has its own intoxicating effect. On record, the band plays a raucous, messy rendition of Nuggets-era garage rock that translates well on-stage. Guitarist/singer Ryan Sambol, wearing the tired, glazed look of a jaded frontman, had no trouble straining his voice to produce his high-pitched, smoke-weathered vocals, barely discernible above the band’s acoustics. Intelligibility aside, you get the sense that you know what Sambol’s singing about, whether it be the barroom romance (and fistfight) of “Heard You Wanna Beat Me Up” or the drunken commiserating of “Woe Is You and Me.”

Photo Credit: Judy Yoon

Throughout the set, The Strange Boys resembled a band taking its success with humility and high spirits, not quite erupting into the wild stage antics of their influences but dutifully producing music that had the audience, both sloshed and sober, dancing throughout their set. At stage right, a group of young fans took a swig of vodka and Tecate, toasting the band and loudly exclaiming, “Dude, how awesome is this?!” Their exclamations, becoming increasingly unintelligible, soon gave way to “Dude, how the hell are we getting home?!” Whatever their means of returning home, the kids seemed to have forgotten their concerns, letting loose to their intoxication and the appropriate soundtrack provided by The Strange Boys from Austin, Texas.

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http://www.myspace.com/thestrangeboys

http://intheredrecords.com/pages/strangeboys.html

via Abe Ahn, 3 July 2009 10:10am | 3 |