By: David de Young
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Casey Garvey of Yer Cronies - Photo by Jon Behm
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Pictures of Then is a 5-piece band from Minneapolis comprised of Casey Call, vox/guitar, his brother Joe Call, drums, Joe Gamble, guitar, Tim Greenwood, keys/vox, and Larry Koszewski, bass. After their opening set at the Uptown Bar Friday night, lead vocalist Casey Call told me the band had been playing more gigs out of town than in town lately, so perhaps that explains how this gem of a local band somehow eluded my radar over the past year and a half. I stood next to HWTS editor Bob Longmore at the Uptown Bar Friday night and tried to guess where these guys were from who were throwing quality song after quality song at us: Brooklyn, NY? LA? Nashville? They had the polish and confident stage presence of an out of town band seasoned by months of touring.
Pictures of Then worked with producer Jason Orris when they released their debut full length CD Crushed By Lights in 2007. It was recorded in Minneapolis at The Terrarium. The band plays sometimes heavy, always melodic, slacker-rock with and abundance of influences, primarily from the 1970s. They would sound great on a bill with Little Man or the Port Angeles band The Lonely H, and I understand they have actually played with both these bands already. Listening to their album after the show, comparisons to Smashing Pumpkins also came unquestionably to mind, along with hints of pysch- or space-rock. Other times they reminded me a bit of Twin Cities band The Umbrella Sequence.
Wherever you try to peg them on the musical landscape, their songs are well-crafted and memorable. And on stage they are dramatic without being pretentious. Bassist Larry Koszewski even pulled off a solo on a 5-string bass that might not have worked for a lesser band.
Yer Cronies are Casey Garvey, Greg Reese, Mike Brown, and Jared Isabella. They were the band I had actually come to see tonight. I’d been digging their CD, When I Grow Up, and I’d hoped and planned to attend their CD Release Party August 9 at the Entry, it turned out not to be in the cards for me. Last month, several of us at HowWasTheShow had caught a case of what, for lack of a better term, I’m going to call groove fever after playing “’Divi Divi’ Tree,” the ethereal opening track on their album on the August HWTS podcast.
Greg Reese of Yer Cronies - Behm
At Friday night’s show they opened with “Daniel Day,” the haunting second track from their CD. Wearing a $ sign necklace and a hat with ear flaps, Casey Garvey sang the opening lines of the song: “I am the king of this city, and everybody loves me / I am the king of this city, and everybody hates me.” The song has a bit of the flavor of hip hop, without actually being hip hop, but actually morphs through many musical styles and song structure changes before it ends.
Greg Reese shares vocal duties with Garvey in this band, and they switched back and forth throughout the set. Reese sang the melodic, yearning second song, “Hard to Get By,” then moved to the piano for the darkly bouncy folk of “Kerouac.”
As the set progressed, it occurred to me that what had drawn me to the band on album was also sucking me in live, a definite slacker vibe and songs that you can enjoy easily at first listen. Yer Cronies is an easy band for both local music fans and critics to get behind, even placing in the top 10 in the 2008 City Pages “Picked To Click” critics’ poll. Friday night The Uptown Bar was crowded by both fans and what appeared to be a rather large contingent of old friends of the band. A small gaggle girls held down the front row dancing and taking photos of each other.
The band closed out their set with Reese at the keys for “In Absentia” a Radiohead-like groove, at the end of which bassist Michael Brown inexplicably knocked his bass into part of the drum kit and started to put on his jacket. He actually had both sleeves into it before the rest of the band hit the last note of the song, concluding a set that felt a little short at six or seven songs, but definitely left me looking forward to seeing them again soon.
See Bob Longmore's review of the second half of this show featuring The Van Gobots and The Small Cities here.
Location Info:
Uptown Bar and Café
Artist Info: Pictures of Then, Yer Cronies
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