I picked up the All Things Come To Pass 7″ single by The Babies after Vivian Girls’ show here last summer and it’s off-kilter lo-fi charm has me regularly unleashing it on an unsuspecting Friday night bar full of slightly drunk people. So imagine my excitement when Marie-Antoinette came out of their wintersleep and decided to unleash a volley of top-drawer shows on us starting with The Babies this Thursday.
Oh Marie-Antoinette how we’ve missed you so. I sense a summer of memorable gigs coming up coupled with lots of sitting on the steps outside this sweet venue in the summer heat trying to stir up the courage to go talk to those girls/boys over there cos you really fancy one of them. Ah yeah, spring is in the air folks. Enjoy this, the first of many excellent shows coming soon.
Oh yes, about the bands. Well, mix Vivian Girls and Woods and you get The Babies.
Kevin Morby, who plays bass in Woods, and Cassie Ramone, who sings and plays guitar in Vivian Girls, wanted to start a band. They recruited drummer Justin Sullivan, who had played with Ramone in Bossy, began practising and The Babies debuted as a three-piece in March 2009 at Dead Herring, their friends’ loft in Brooklyn. Nathan Stark, formerly of Bent Outta Shape, joined on bass and the full line-up’s first shows were that summer. They recorded their self-titled debut album with Jarvis Taveniere at Rear House Studios, which doubles as Morby’s home; his vocals were done in his own bedroom. (Taveniere, Morby’s bandmate in Woods, has also recorded Real Estate, Vivian Girls and Woods.) The debut follows 7-inch singles on Make a Mess and Wild World. The Babies’ songs are roughed-up jewels cut from the same cloth as Hazlewood and Sinatra, The Velvet Underground and Nico, Pisces and Linda Bruner, and other dream marriages.
Support comes in the shape of KIT.
KIT are a super-melodic experimental rock band mainly from Los Angeles, California. They were recently described by Rob Barber of High Places as << a strange intersection where Void meet Incredible String Band >>. They play fast, short, defiant songs that mess with the ideas of pop music and wayward punk. KIT songs can typically embrace hardcore rush, pop verse, jagged noise and cheer rally, all within the same moment – nothing but raw energy and instinctive songwriting holding it all together.
So, let the summer begin.
