So It Goes

Hockey: “Learn to Lose”

Occasionally, I’ll drag my ears out of London circa 1978 long enough to listen to new music.  I hadn’t heard of (or heard, period) these dancetastic Portlanders until their publicist sent me some pre-Bonnaroo info, including a clipping from Britain’s Q magazine where they were named a band to watch.  I was curious enough to check ‘em out on my first night in Tennessee and they absolutely blew the roof off the tent.  Their lead singer, Ben Grubin—dressed like Get Physical-era Olivia Newton-John—raced around the stage in a blur of flailing elbows and stomping feet, while belting out choruses with more hooks than an aisle at Bass Pro Shop.

Since then, I’ve force-fed them to everyone who stands still long enough and I can’t recall the last time I looked forward to a record release the way I’m counting days until their debut, Mind Chaos, drops in August.  They’ve gotten a lot of comparisons to the Strokes, and they have enough fuzzed out vocals to earn ‘em, but there’s also a lot of Talking Heads in their music too and, as I put it in a BitchBuzz article that will run later today, they’ll get your ass up and moving faster than a middle of the night fire alarm.

Give ‘em a listen.  They’re gonna be big.