Out on the dancefloor with Anthony, Dave, Annie, Drew and Alice, I noticed that indie rock boys move in a nearly identical fashion (the exceptions being Anthony, who has a bit of the goth left in step from years of frequenting Perversion and Paul, who still lives up to the Go Go Box Whore moniker even when he is dancing to James Brown with his wife and there is not a single go go box in sight). Knock knees. Slide to the side in a slight Pac-Man fashion. Raise foot off ground with bent knee. Keep back stiff. Bend forearm so that wrist and shoulder meet for only a second. Insert an optional circular arm swing. Repeat. Watching the dance spread across the floor as the Smiths played, it seemed as though nearly every guy there was trying desperately not to break out into a Johnny Marr-inspired air guitar routine.
As for myself, I looked like an uptight priss on the floor last night. Baby step left. Baby step right. Blame it on the shoes. I wore these slouchy black boots with heels high enough to raise me above every other person on that dancefloor by at least an inch. I only wore them because they looked good with the dress and because I thought I wasn't going to dance, being a bit tired and having suffered from a nightmarish allergy attack all day. But, Anthony had been going on about the new Hard-Fi cd that he bought while in London and how the tickets for the LA show sold out by the time he was back in town and how it was the best thing he had heard in a long time. How then could I avoid dancing with my friends when Larry played a Hard-Fi track that wasn't "Cash Machine?" But then Hard-Fi turned into Ladytron, which gave way to the Smiths and so on and so forth and I bent my knees and dug the balls of my feet so hard into the floor that it started to hurt in a way that hasn't happened since learning how to hold my balance in dance class decades ago. My eyes grazed the bottom of the room. Plenty of girls were there dancing in shoes either as high or higher than mine and still managed to move with some semblance of poise. Meanwhile, I'm genuflecting on the dancefloor because it's the only way I can teeter on the heels without falling flat on my ass. I should know by now, some people just aren't made for heels.

All this pining over Depeche Mode can come in handy. If you want to know how that is possible, pick up a copy of Razorcake issue #30 (in which the magazine celebrates its fifth anniversary) and read "Music for the Modies," which is written by yours truly. It is a, dare I say, heartwrenching testament as to how one should be embarrassed by fangirl antics at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, but, in fact, is not. You will laugh, cry and play "Everything Counts" at full blast as you scrawl Depeche Mode Rules on your Vans and doodle Violator album covers on your notebooks.

Okay, maybe not, but still, I hope you take the time to read it.

A few years back, I had booked a band called Riah to play at Transmission on the night before Thanksgiving. They were a small, local group who sounded like the Faint circa Black Wave Arcade who managed to pack the house. While we had a really successful run at the Parlour, this was the one night that stood out in my mind as being completely off-the-hook, a night that set off a string of events too involved and ultimately boring to post here. Time passes and as the crop of super-60s rockers across the city suddenly sway towards the 1980s, Riah morphs into Love Like Heaven, a very swingin' 1960s by way of Madchester group inspired by a Donovan song.
While it is definitely a bit odd to see the formerly Jarvis Cocker-looking singer with his hair brushed forward like Damon Albarn in the video for "There's No Other Way," I must say that I actually prefer Love Like Heaven to Riah. The songwriting is a bit more polished now, with stronger melodies and more immediate guitar riffs. The band's drummer quit a little over a week ago and, since this gig was already booked The Mojo Filter's drummer Anish filled in behind the skins. Despite the last minute line-up changes and with two days of practice, Love Like Heave performed quite well. The last song of their set (I don't think Eric the Guitarist told me the name) was by far the strongest piece in their set, reminding me of an old Charlatans U.K. song without the acid house-tinge on the backbeat.
Having seen The Mojo Filters quite a few times at this point, I can honestly say that they are one of the tightest bands in town, never failing to perform at the top of their game. The highlights of this set included the wah-heavy "Dreaming in the Meantime," which is fairly new and not on the previously released cd and a cover of "Soul Power" by Derek Martin, which Clifton the Bassist told me was lifted from a Funkadelic song, if I'm not mistaken.

Editors frontman Tom Smith doesn't sound like Ian Curtis, although there are hints of a lifetime of Joy Division listening session on "Lights," the opening track for The Back Room (out now on import through Kitchenware Records). However, he does look an awful lot like the late, beloved Curtis, especially when he pulls the microphone towards his sweat-drenched polo shirt, goes stiff and starts belting out lyrics. His mouth moves into odd, wide shapes, somewhere between awkwardness and anguish and the voice relinquished is so full and pure that it seems more fit for a stadium than the back room of a Hollywood and Ivar club with a rundown, indistinguishable facade. Is there such a thing as a band being too good for its surroundings?
I purchased The Back Room at Tower last week, the last copy in the store and, so far, the only copy I have seen in stock at any record shop I have visited lately. While I fell for "Munich" a while back when I heard it on Lamacq Live, it was not until I heard the cd as a whole in my car that I realized that I just might be listening to my new favorite band. Trust me, I don't use that title very often, but Editors deserve it. If I were still a teenager, I would be listening to this in my room as I sobbed English rain tears because my parents drive me nuts, my friends are backstabbing assholes, all the cute boys are gay, I have cramps and college is still two years away. Then I would start cutting out pictures of the band from Q to hang in the most honored spot next to Moz, Robert, Ian, the Depeche Mode boys and Siouxsie.
Needless to say, it's an intense cd, but in a live setting, the band is all the more striking. It's a beauty debilitating for the beholder, like love at first sight. I couldn't dance to the set. All I could is stand still, three or four feet away from the stage and stare like some frozen music geek who gets way too involved in the sounds filling the room.
Afterwards, Ivan (who I thank a million times over for getting me into the show), Norma, Jenny and I ended up in the sort-of-backstage party room chatting with members of the band. I think they hit up all of the members, I only spoke with Ed (Drums) for a split-second and Chris (bassist) for slightly longer. They were extremely cordial, especially considering that it looked as though they had been swamped by people in the hour that passed between the end of the show and our meeting. Chris told us that they are coming back to the States for South by Southwest and then sticking around to play for a while, so we are hoping that we can see them again very soon, before they become so huge that we will have to pay scalpers to get tickets for Staples shows.

I have been listening to this self-titled cd from Eagle*Seagull for a few weeks now while trying to think of something significant to write about it.
Getting the basics out of the way, Eagle*Seagull is a sextet hailing from Lincoln, Nebraska who have been playing live for a little over a year. This is the band's first album.
Now to the sound. I suppose that people could refer to this as "melodic indie pop," which would mean absolutely nothing since pop music, by nature, is supposed to be melodic. If it isn't, then there is something definitely wrong. Others might refer to the songs as "hook-laden," which again is a moot point for reasons similar to the above. It could be music for the mature indie rocker, what is now referred to as the "yindie," which would do the band a horrible disservice, since "yindie" often implies boring. Then, one might compare this band to other bands that have a similar sound. Say, for example, Bright Eyes. After all, Eagle*Seagull does sing "let's get drunk and forget ourselves" ("Death Could Be at the Door") and doesn't Young Master Oberst sing about getting drunk and forgetting himself a lot? This, however, would also do the band a disservice, since its sound is both richer and more heartbreaking than anything this reviewer has heard on a Bright Eyes album. Eagle*Seagull has its moments of teary-eyed cheerfulness ("Photograph," my personal favorite) mixed with funeral party despair (Again, "Death Could Be at the Door") and perhaps that is the reason that I am still listening to this disc weeks after the fact.

Eagle*Seagull's self-titled debut is out now on Paper Garden Records.