By: Pat O'Brien
When you own your own record label, you can figure out a way to throw a kick-ass birthday party for yourself. Ian Anderson seems to know this and lucky for him he owns Afternoon Records, which entitles—no, requires—him to throw one every year. His own band played (and didn’t even headline!) and everyone was having a good time moving their Chuck Taylor-clad feet to the music. All the bands that played were Afternoon Records bands, which served as a baptism of sorts, shoving them all on stage in succession. It seemed as though a new guard was being born. Happy New Year.
I missed the openers We All Have Hooks for Hands (which is the best band name I have heard in years) and arrived during Mouthful of Bees’ set. True to what I had been hearing about them, they were striking and impressive, though I couldn’t tell you exactly why. It wasn’t necessarily the kind of music that seemed brand new—in fact it closely resembled a good chunk of the music I have been listening to for the past dozen years or so. There was just something different about it. Maybe it was because it seemed to be a lot of things at once. At times it seemed to be trying to bridge the gap between Nirvana’s Bleach and The Thermals. Sometimes it was sunny pop and still, it all kind of seemed, as a whole, like a darker version of indie demigods Pavement, even though no one song fully resembled that band at all. MOB seemed like the perfect accident, and like most accidents it was hard to look away.
St. Louis’ Target Market were next and they had a sort of slippery, crunchy grind that weaved itself into the songs, but none of it managed to stick to my gray matter for too long—I have to admit they didn’t leave a deep impression on me. Their name made me laugh a little and I wondered if I would be encouraged to quit smoking, but that wasn’t the case. I just felt like, while the music was enjoyable, overall there was just a small piece missing; the piece that makes me prick up my ears and say “Who are these guys again?” It was familiar indie rock, but in contrast to Mouthful of Bees it was just a little too familiar for my taste, though the crowd made me feel like an outsider for feeling as I did.
If Ben Gibbard fronted a slightly sloppier, fairly noisier and more delirious version of Death Cab For Cutie, then recruited some of the New Pornographers to come along with him, it would resemble One For The Team almost exactly, if my calculations are correct. (That is, if calculations can be used to weigh the merits of music and/or the creative process at all.) The music was absolutely infected with new wave and mid-90s indie hooks and lead singer/guitarist Ian Anderson wears his heart on his Penguin brand shirtsleeve. Keyboardist/backing vocalist Grace Fiddler sounds exactly like Neko Case and that’s a compliment—many people try to cop her vocal style with varying degrees of terrible results, but Fiddler just happens sound like her, no vocal affectations necessary. Their set closed with about thirty people stepping out on stage, dancing and singing The Beatles’ “Birthday.” The song seemed almost impromptu which made it all the more fun to watch, with Anderson jamming on his guitar and a wide grin carved across his face the entire time.
“Are you staying for Hockey Night? You have to!” Anderson told me twice in 10 minutes Saturday night—and by the look on his face, I knew he was serious. I was staying for sure, but considering Anderson’s excitement, I would have stayed even if I had had acute appendicitis. They did not disappoint. The room filled with a shimmery guitar lick and I was transported back to the summer of ‘73, that summer before college when my girlfriend and I took that road trip in my beat-up van out west to...wait a minute, I wasn’t even born in 1973. These guys were good. If Steely Dan had been borne out of the turmoil of the early ‘70s instead of commenting on it, they would have called themselves Hockey Night (hey, better to be associated with bad hair and missing teeth than with a sex toy, I say). Remember when you were 15 years old and new bands didn’t sound like old bands because you didn’t know what the old bands sounded like or even who they were, really? Well, now most of us know what the old bands sound like, but Hockey Night makes us stop caring. Like Kings of Leon and Midlake, they take their cues from a very specific segment of the ‘70s—in this case it’s almost wholly from one band—but they make it sound fresher than a lot of music considered “new” today. And that’s quite an accomplishment.
Photos: Ian Anderson of One for the Team; Paul Sprangers of Hockey Night by Stacy Sandstrom.
Location Info:
Triple Rock Social Club
Artist Info: Hockey Night, Mouthful of Bees, One For The Team, Target Market
Share this story:
Article comments powered by Disqus