Tuesday, January 25th
Emo’s (outside) 9pm
$18 tickets
Best Coast
Best Coast’s frontwoman Bethany has an outline of Cali tattooed on her arm and has openly dissed “California Girl” Katy Perry on the fact that she sucks at being one, she obviously doesn’t mess around about reppin’ her state. If Cali days are anything like listening to the mix of sunny and angsty vibed sounds of Best Coast, sign me up. Debut album Crazy For You is endlessly playable. Bright and stoner laid -back songs with wispy layer upon layer of fuzzy lo -fi reverb like a rolling ocean on the surface, surfing you along with Bethany’s sometimes grungy sometimes sweet vocals. The lyrics read like diary entrys ranging from the aftermath of a breakup, that sunny cali weather, and most importantly, her cat (who so beautifully graces the cover).
Best Coast live is a great time. The music translates so well to the stage, the soft lo-fi and reverb are amazing. Bethany will also keep you plenty entertained between songs with short stories about weed, her cat, and whatever else crosses her mind. Take a sonic vacation to Cali for the night and surf it out with some sweet sounds.
Wavves
So incase you haven’t heard it through the Grapevine yet, Best Coast frontwoman Bethany and Wavves lead dude Nathan Williams are a hot item. It really makes sense, both bands make songs about youth, love, life and loathing under the Cali sun and both have Snacks the cat as the cover mascot. Sickenly adorable.
Wavves boasts a somewhat classic 90’s vibe, think early Weezer and sometimes even touching on the sounds of Nirvana. Not quite as sunny as the co-headliner but still create a beachy washed away feeling with reverb and surfy drums. You can’t really tell who or what Nathan has an issue with when throwing out defensively worded lyrics, but luckily it never gets too heavy before being shrugged off and replaced with musings of fun and entertaining a bored mind.
Wavves has a good time live, playing as much as they can with as much energy as they can from start to finish.
No Joy
No Joy has completely won me over with their debut album Ghost Blonde. There is so much packed into their sound, it takes spending hours with an album that boasts only a handful of songs to unravel it all. Referring to their sound as ‘doomgazer/pop’ via facebook, No Joy takes dreampop surf to both a higher and lower place (sound wise). Mixing in subtle hints of what feels like grunge, metal, garage, and who knows what else really into a thick muddy feedback wall of sound, reverb heavy is a tad bit of an understatement for opening track ‘Heedless.’ The album was produced by Sune Rose Wagner of The Raveonettes , and it boasts a bit of their signature understated and subtly spaced out chaos. I have a feeling this band will be everywhere this year, they really rock.
**No Joy is also doing an in-store at Waterloo Records tomorrow @ 5pm!
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