Friday, January 4, 2008

Best bands So Many Dynamos played with in 2007 that we didn't know were going to be awesome before we played with them

So i guess the Beatle Bob rant was a lot of negativity, so I felt like making up for it by doing something positive on here. We didn't play a TON of shows in 2007, I think our final count was 75, but we had some really great ones and made some new friends and blah blah blah. Here's a list of the best bands we played with last year that we didn't know were going to be awesome, but were. This doesn't include bands that we played with that we KNEW were going to be awesome and were. That list is (in order of performance): Ad Astra Per Aspera, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, HORSE the band, Russian Circles, Maps and Atlases, We Versus the Shark, Cinemechanica, Octopus Project, Ho-Ag, Enon, and Bring Back the Guns

The New Trust
We drove straight to San Francisco to play the Noise Pop Festival in February, and immediately afterwards almost all of our shows fell through on the west coast. Luckily, we got added to 2 shows with these dudes (technically a 2 dude, 2 dudette hybrid). Unfortunately, one of them was in Salt Lake City, UT. There's nothing like playing the most miserable place in America to make 2 bands bond. Musically, they play straight ahead indie rock with no bullshit and they have a song called "You've Got to be Fucking Shitting Me". That's awesome.

Pattern Is Movement
This has to be one of the weirdest bands in the universe. We officially met PiM this year, and wound up playing with them 4 times with 3 different lineups. It sounds like somebody turned Kid A up too loudly and sang opera-style over it. They played a house show in Pittsburgh with us and 6 hardcore bands and tore the house down when they covered "Everything in its Right Place". Wow.

Heavy Heavy Low Low
I didn't know what it meant to not give a shit about anything until i met these dudes. They're some of the sweetest, weirdest guys in the universe, and I would have never appreciated them musically if we hadn't toured with them and heard 50 bands try to do what they do but not nearly as well. Seeing 300 kids in North Carolina jump over each other to chant "Oh Shit Fuck" along with this band brought a tear to my eye.

Light This City
When HHLL dropped off our tour with HORSE the band, this band picked up. I never thought i'd love a metal band the way that i love Light this City. Megadeth style riffs, Iron Maiden style solos, and vocals by a girl that sounds like a really tough dude. The breakdown to "Exile" was in our heads for about 2 months.

Powers
Powers is to Athens what Thor Axe tries to be to St. Louis (or at least Edwardsville), but they're a lot less ironic more conceptually righteous. It's 4 guitarists (including Bryant from Cinemechanica and Luke from We Versus the Shark) and one drummer (Mike from Cinemechanica), and they set up the amps in the corners of the club, throw the drums in the middle and play quadrophonic math rock. Seriously.

The Bronzed Chorus
These dudes from North Carolina do what Explosions in the Sky do, but better than Explosions in the Sky and with half of the people. It's 2 people sounding like 8, and they're one of the most intense live acts i've ever seen.

We'll be touring again soon and i can't wait to see what sweet bands we get to play with this year.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

tell me how you really feel about pattern is movement!