Pop Noir
Oct. 10 at the Echo
Joe and Luke McGarry are twins. They are well over six-feet-tall. They model. They have a band, managed by their dad. They do the illustrations for this very rag for like $4 each, and they do them cheerfully, and quick. They’ve got cute British accents. They are smiley, and well-spoken, and use lots of product in their marvelous Yardbirdsy hair.
So how many girls do you suppose were in the Echo for the Pop Noir gig on Friday, the day they turned 21? (Actually, only one of them did; they’re twins with different birthdays, which is awesome, and I don’t know which of them had to wait till Saturday for his own birthdayness, because I can not tell them apart.) Hint: A lot! A lot of girls! Maybe all the girls in the world! And their Chilean drummer, Nico, might not have been hurting for his share.
I forget what their maybe sort of earnestly literate lyrics were; I wrote them down, but then on deadline forgot my stack of scribbled-on cocktail napkins at home. A quick check of their MySpace page though offers a song called “Ansel Adams”: “Nineteen hundred and six/Can you feel it? […] Hey Ansel Adams/Where’d you get your crooked nose?” See what I mean? It’s all very Crowded House with a little lift from 10,000 Maniacs’ “Hey Jack Kerouac,” but upbeat and not at all Natalie Merchant’s special brand of lugubrious suicide.
I do remember some impressively Jaggeresque footwork from whichever boy was singing and on keys, and a keyboard interlude that was this close to breaking into some proggy Asia. It was a great mix of lightly discofied Kinksy rock with the New Wave of the Second British Invasion. What do I mean? I mean “Don’t Fool Yourself” had a whole lot of Duran Duran going on, that’s what I mean.
Duran Duran – but cuter! What’s that the girls say? Oh, yes: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Published: 10/15/2008
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
