Turning Up The Not-Suck
Lemonyellow & The Umlautz//Freddy’s//7/28/06
Seeing as how Freddy’s Bar is such a fertile garden of musicians and various assorted creative types, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that Bleu J. Umlaut, one of their bartenders, has joined forces with Freddy’s regular Pat Umlaut and formed The Umlautz. I didn’t realize that Pat and Bleu are related, not being a regular myself—but then again I didn’t know that Roger is my twin brother what with that whole decade between us, but we were born on the same date so it must be.
So when I heard about The Umlautz I of course started getting psyched for this and more than a little curious, even as Pat and Bleu screwed themselves up pogoing and stage diving at The Saudi Agenda’s SP gig and couldn’t rehearse. Even as I heard that Bleu, in telling Pat when their first-ever gig was, said, “So maybe I’ll see you there.”
“Well, you better not suck, ‘cause I’ll be there.” I told Pat when I saw him before the Zambonis’ gig. And I write about bands and all that. And I have blog where I do that. And here’s the address. No pressure.
“We are gonna so not suck,” Pat promised me. “We’re gonna turn up the not-suck. We’re gonna make The Spunk Lads sound like a chamber orchestra.”
The big day was approaching and I couldn’t find their website. Nor was I getting any emails about the gig. Well, what else is new? I was tempted to email Pat to see if the gig was still on. It was either that or sit around wondering if perhaps they changed their minds and didn’t want me there. But when the email came around with their website address, I saw that they’re now a duo. Well, that’s just great. Another Freddy’s band to go thru a major lineup change—and before their first gig. How does a punk band not have a bass player? And I was looking forward to this. Gahd, they’re just going to be wasting my time and theirs. And I was getting a little ticked off about the wasting my time aspect. And then I thought, Well, then again, I prefer keeping things simple when it comes to bands, punk bands especially. Lessee, I think the Seconds are a duo and they’re pretty cool. Two Tears. Also a cool duo. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. Besides, you can’t fault their logic for starting a band: “Bleu is a bartender + Pat likes booze + they both like music=The Umlautz.”
It was another oppressively hot day. I could barely walk home; the air felt like it was just pushing me down and gravity was double. I crawled into bed and even though I don’t think I fell asleep, I dreamt that I missed the gig and slept thru ‘til the next day and I felt like crap for missing the show. As I got ready to leave, I had to wonder if it was still, indeed, Friday. So even though I left at 9:15 and knew that 11 didn’t really mean 11, I still jumped trains on my down. Not because I’d be worried about myself if I didn’t, but because you never know what would be happening on the tracks what with all the rain and power delays. It was sweltering in Freddy’s bathroom and it didn’t take long for the rest of the Backroom to be equally hot as I sat there listening to some guy playing guitar solos. Turns out he’s Brooklyn’s foremost Zappa devotee, as his fliers proclaim. Okay.
Next up was Lemonyellow—redundant, right? Because you really want a band name that connotes sourness and you really want to drive that point home. They’re a pop-y keyboard quartet except the singer seemed to think that he could. Still, the Backroom smelled of citronella or furniture polish or something and my eyes started watering. Lemonyellow wouldn’t’ve been so bad just as an instro group, in case we needed one, but no. I could blame them for not rocking hard enough for me to not need earplugs, but really, that was my call not to put them in—even when I was able to move up closer. All their songs blended into one, and at times it seemed that the band members themselves were nodding off during their own set, songs congealing and then splintering off into the cosmos. “Woo hoo! 4 songs in a row!” their singer explained. Oh, that’s it. The highlight of their set was when their singer/guitar player was tuning up and he kept hitting a chord and then someone in the audience, I don’t know if he was a friend of theirs or some random guy, starts making noises in the exact same key and echoing the tuning. It took the guitar player a bit to figure out where the noise was coming from and when he did, he looked furious, as if this was ruined their set. It was the funniest shit.
The Umlautz’s first song was accompanied by two dancing tomatoes, (girls wearing papier mache tomato heads) which kinda worked—but at least nobody was throwing the tomatoes. And as I watched their set, totally transfixed and literally hanging on the edge of my seat and imagining seeing them in different venues, I realized: Oh, yeah, duh—The White Stripes were (are?) a duo. And that’s the thing. I never thought about The White Stripes upon learning that The Umlautz is a duo; I was expecting a different genre entirely considering who they are and the bar they haunt, plus their name. Pat described their sound as “the Ramones meets Thee Headcoats” (I’m pretty sure that’s what he said), plus their drummer and MIA bass player have never played either before (hence my being psyched and curious) and so I wasn’t expecting raw, bluesy, garage rock. Or a serious band—well, probably as serious as these guys can get and still start off with a count of “Uno! Dos! Tres! Suzy Quattro!” Because you should take your music seriously, not yourself. Plus, their original profile had the cover of Please Kill Me for a pic and I think they classified themselves as punk and comedy. Their current profile says punk, crunk, and funk. And avant-garage. Not to mention kicking off with dancing tomatoes. They did 2 covers, a Nina Simone song and I, Me, Mine—which was met with a request: “Do it naked!”
Pat responded by taking his shirt off and starting to pull down his pants, but he didn’t go all the way because he claimed his underpants weren’t so clean. Why is it always the musicians that you don’t wanna see topless always the ones who are getting topless? See, this is why you should always wear clean underwear, in case you get a request to. . . . Wait, scratch that.
He said, “I feel like I should be in Queens.”
Hey! What does my borough have to do with big, hairy bellies and not-so-clean undies?
Of course the request was clarified after the song: “I meant Bleu.”
Roger said, “I was telling Reggie Mental that The Umlautz is like opening your veins with a piece of rusty metal and being fascinated by it.”
Uhm. Yeah, I can see that, but can’t you get tetanus and then lockjaw that way? That sucks. The Umlautz do not.
Though they tried to stretch out the 8 songs that they know to an hour, they closed with an incredible cover of I Wanna Be Your Dog, in true spirit that would do Iggy proud.
After, Bleu asked me what I thought. “I value your opinion above anyone else here.”
Jeez. How did this happen? Oh, wait, considering what I do, I should be proud of the ringing endorsement. And I am, don’t get me wrong. It’s just weird, that’s all.
Seeing as how Freddy’s Bar is such a fertile garden of musicians and various assorted creative types, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that Bleu J. Umlaut, one of their bartenders, has joined forces with Freddy’s regular Pat Umlaut and formed The Umlautz. I didn’t realize that Pat and Bleu are related, not being a regular myself—but then again I didn’t know that Roger is my twin brother what with that whole decade between us, but we were born on the same date so it must be.
So when I heard about The Umlautz I of course started getting psyched for this and more than a little curious, even as Pat and Bleu screwed themselves up pogoing and stage diving at The Saudi Agenda’s SP gig and couldn’t rehearse. Even as I heard that Bleu, in telling Pat when their first-ever gig was, said, “So maybe I’ll see you there.”
“Well, you better not suck, ‘cause I’ll be there.” I told Pat when I saw him before the Zambonis’ gig. And I write about bands and all that. And I have blog where I do that. And here’s the address. No pressure.
“We are gonna so not suck,” Pat promised me. “We’re gonna turn up the not-suck. We’re gonna make The Spunk Lads sound like a chamber orchestra.”
The big day was approaching and I couldn’t find their website. Nor was I getting any emails about the gig. Well, what else is new? I was tempted to email Pat to see if the gig was still on. It was either that or sit around wondering if perhaps they changed their minds and didn’t want me there. But when the email came around with their website address, I saw that they’re now a duo. Well, that’s just great. Another Freddy’s band to go thru a major lineup change—and before their first gig. How does a punk band not have a bass player? And I was looking forward to this. Gahd, they’re just going to be wasting my time and theirs. And I was getting a little ticked off about the wasting my time aspect. And then I thought, Well, then again, I prefer keeping things simple when it comes to bands, punk bands especially. Lessee, I think the Seconds are a duo and they’re pretty cool. Two Tears. Also a cool duo. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. Besides, you can’t fault their logic for starting a band: “Bleu is a bartender + Pat likes booze + they both like music=The Umlautz.”
It was another oppressively hot day. I could barely walk home; the air felt like it was just pushing me down and gravity was double. I crawled into bed and even though I don’t think I fell asleep, I dreamt that I missed the gig and slept thru ‘til the next day and I felt like crap for missing the show. As I got ready to leave, I had to wonder if it was still, indeed, Friday. So even though I left at 9:15 and knew that 11 didn’t really mean 11, I still jumped trains on my down. Not because I’d be worried about myself if I didn’t, but because you never know what would be happening on the tracks what with all the rain and power delays. It was sweltering in Freddy’s bathroom and it didn’t take long for the rest of the Backroom to be equally hot as I sat there listening to some guy playing guitar solos. Turns out he’s Brooklyn’s foremost Zappa devotee, as his fliers proclaim. Okay.
Next up was Lemonyellow—redundant, right? Because you really want a band name that connotes sourness and you really want to drive that point home. They’re a pop-y keyboard quartet except the singer seemed to think that he could. Still, the Backroom smelled of citronella or furniture polish or something and my eyes started watering. Lemonyellow wouldn’t’ve been so bad just as an instro group, in case we needed one, but no. I could blame them for not rocking hard enough for me to not need earplugs, but really, that was my call not to put them in—even when I was able to move up closer. All their songs blended into one, and at times it seemed that the band members themselves were nodding off during their own set, songs congealing and then splintering off into the cosmos. “Woo hoo! 4 songs in a row!” their singer explained. Oh, that’s it. The highlight of their set was when their singer/guitar player was tuning up and he kept hitting a chord and then someone in the audience, I don’t know if he was a friend of theirs or some random guy, starts making noises in the exact same key and echoing the tuning. It took the guitar player a bit to figure out where the noise was coming from and when he did, he looked furious, as if this was ruined their set. It was the funniest shit.
The Umlautz’s first song was accompanied by two dancing tomatoes, (girls wearing papier mache tomato heads) which kinda worked—but at least nobody was throwing the tomatoes. And as I watched their set, totally transfixed and literally hanging on the edge of my seat and imagining seeing them in different venues, I realized: Oh, yeah, duh—The White Stripes were (are?) a duo. And that’s the thing. I never thought about The White Stripes upon learning that The Umlautz is a duo; I was expecting a different genre entirely considering who they are and the bar they haunt, plus their name. Pat described their sound as “the Ramones meets Thee Headcoats” (I’m pretty sure that’s what he said), plus their drummer and MIA bass player have never played either before (hence my being psyched and curious) and so I wasn’t expecting raw, bluesy, garage rock. Or a serious band—well, probably as serious as these guys can get and still start off with a count of “Uno! Dos! Tres! Suzy Quattro!” Because you should take your music seriously, not yourself. Plus, their original profile had the cover of Please Kill Me for a pic and I think they classified themselves as punk and comedy. Their current profile says punk, crunk, and funk. And avant-garage. Not to mention kicking off with dancing tomatoes. They did 2 covers, a Nina Simone song and I, Me, Mine—which was met with a request: “Do it naked!”
Pat responded by taking his shirt off and starting to pull down his pants, but he didn’t go all the way because he claimed his underpants weren’t so clean. Why is it always the musicians that you don’t wanna see topless always the ones who are getting topless? See, this is why you should always wear clean underwear, in case you get a request to. . . . Wait, scratch that.
He said, “I feel like I should be in Queens.”
Hey! What does my borough have to do with big, hairy bellies and not-so-clean undies?
Of course the request was clarified after the song: “I meant Bleu.”
Roger said, “I was telling Reggie Mental that The Umlautz is like opening your veins with a piece of rusty metal and being fascinated by it.”
Uhm. Yeah, I can see that, but can’t you get tetanus and then lockjaw that way? That sucks. The Umlautz do not.
Though they tried to stretch out the 8 songs that they know to an hour, they closed with an incredible cover of I Wanna Be Your Dog, in true spirit that would do Iggy proud.
After, Bleu asked me what I thought. “I value your opinion above anyone else here.”
Jeez. How did this happen? Oh, wait, considering what I do, I should be proud of the ringing endorsement. And I am, don’t get me wrong. It’s just weird, that’s all.
posted by heather @ 5:17 PM
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