Cinema Cinema
Two By Two (By Two)
Cinema Cinema, Fugitive Souls, Status Green, Future Future - Blender Theater, NYC - 9-17-09
This was an interesting night, three Jersey bands (and one from Brooklyn) showcasing at the Gramercy Theater in front of a very sparse audience, sponsored by the Village Voice and WXRP-FM ("The New York Rock Experience," and a quick look at the station's website shows Hockey, Muse, Patti Smith, and good ole Matt Pinfield, so it might actually be a decent station). Why the Voice and a NYC rock station would bring three Jersey bands over to play a mostly empty theater, I don't know. (Note: Balcony was closed, I guess so the crowd would look bigger on the floor, although I really don't see why I couldn't sit down; what, I'm going to spend more at the bar if I'm standing up through four bands?)
Future Future
So here's the interesting part: The first and last bands both had doubled names (Future Future, Cinema Cinema) and two members (vox/guitar and drums.) Despite those similarities, the bands couldn't have been more different. Future Future look like they popped out of a Nickelodeon sitcom (in fact, they look a good deal like The Naked Brothers Band, if only the Naked Brothers were in the band and the bass and keyboard parts came from pre-recorded loops.) I give them credit for not giving in to trends and playing that awful day-glo autotuned emo pop, on the other hand, the fact that they don't sound terribly trendalicious might explain why there were so few teenage girls in attendance screaming for the boys to take their shirts off, or whatever girls at All Time Low concerts do these days. Instead of screaming synths and girly vocals, 17-year old Jordan peels off chunky riffs from and belts out poppy odes to adolescent angst, his guitar buzzing with an array of fuzz pedals, while 'tween sibling Jamie clobbers the drums. It's definitely more Jonas than Jimmy Eat World but, hey, at least they're not wearing spandex or headbands or throwing in faux raps about "hot" 15 year old girls (cf Pepper, Brokencyde). Here's the problem: I don't see the $2 PBR swilling Brooklyn hipster slacker crowd going for this, and the band's never going to reach its core audience (i.e. the kids they go to school with) playing +21 bars and weeknight shows at expensive clubs in Manhattan. If this construct doesn't click, Jordan will be off to college in a year where I'm sure he'll grow out his beard and start playing Todd P. venues in mold-covered sub-basements in Canarsie. Sunrise, sunset...
Cinema Cinema
Let's jump to the other end of the night - Cinema Cinema, also a two-man operation but sounding a lot fiercer, not so much like the White Stripes but more in the vein of the sadly overlooked grunge-era duo Local H, who ripped the throats out of many a nublie indie-rockin' coed back in the Nineties, when bands were still allowed to be vicious, aggressive, and raunchy without risking an arrest for date rape by the Politically Correct fashionistas of the Ludlow East Side.
I will skim over Status Green (serviceable if uninspiring pop/rock from Asbury Park) and Brooklyn's Fugitive Souls (channeling dated New Romantic shmaltz with a humorlessness that borders on self-parody,) all delivered with - as it oh so typically is - no real sense of stage presence, fashion sense, or communication skills. They should really do one of those designer reality shows where a cabal of fashionistas take four hopeless shlubs from some Jersey bar band and teach them how to dress for a show, cut their hair, sing into a mike, and hold an audience's attention. Assuming such a thing could even be done.
I am all for bands getting on stage, playing gigs, getting in front of people, especially when they're just starting out. Every hour young Mr. Lawlor from Future Future spends on a stage in front of real people will teach him more about being a working musician than ten hours rehearsing in the basement with his brother; such is the nature of show business. And if the gods are willing and he pays his dues, one day he'll be able to look an audience in the eye, tell a funny story, segue into an amusing anecdote about the derivation of the next lyric, and then completely charm the pants off everyone in the room from the little girls to their grandmothers. That's when you know you're on the right track; not when you can play six songs in a row and announce to the world that you have a "set" and ready to play shows.
George Ade said, "there are at least two kinds of education." I eagerly await the band who has learned how to entertain me.
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