I refuse to classify this band. I’ve read a lot of reviews, over the last day or so, of Japandroid’s album, Post-Nothing, and every writer has devoted a solid paragraph—at least—to comparing them to another band, to a genre, to a sub-genre, to a sub-post-ultra-minimalist-extra-such and such a type of music/band, and I refuse to do that. And if you say a word about the White Stripes, I’m going to punch you in the mouth.
Okay, I go back on everything I just said. I will classify this band, but I hope it will be on my own terms, and ideally, theirs as well. I’m going to call it Buddy Rock. To watch this band play is to watch best friends invite you into their world, making sure you’re having fun. Brothers-in-arms is an understatement, a pale, innocuous description of the camaraderie that is on full display as these two, Brian King on guitar and Dave Prowse on drums, vamp on each other and blast music at impossibly loud volumes. They are clearly best friends. They are pals, bros, clasped-handed chargers of the uneventful night, shakers of the bored, inspirers of the cynical, muses of the uninterested.
As if any given night in Manhattan could be any more exciting than it already is, Brian—mischievous grin and tight, white pants in tow—takes on the duty of making sure that you’re having as good a time as he and his full flask are. Dave is only slightly more subdued – the Sundance to Dave’s Butch Cassidy.
Japandroids are a band devoid of pretension, or self-consciousness. It would be easy—and true—to say that these guys know how to put on a show, but it’s pretty clear that this is the performance they would be giving if they were in a garage, alone, and not in front of a crowd of oddly eager and devoted fans.
Japandroids played at the Mercury Lounge in the East Village of New York City on Thursday night to a crowd of about 250, but they woo’ed, and hey’d, and fist-pumped like it was Shea Stadium with the gates kicked in. Someday soon, it will be.
It’s not that they don’t know how good they are—when the guitar player swings his guitar around like a hard cock, you know they know they’re good—it’s that they disregard it. They’re not about how good they are, they’re about how good you are, and how happy they are to be rocking out with you. They want you to come along.
Look, these guys are going to be huge rock stars soon enough. If their relentlessly singable songs weren’t enough to get them over the hump, their affability would easily do the trick. You might as well drop eight bucks on iTunes for their album now, so that when your friends finally come on board, you’ll be able to brag that you’ve, “totally been into that band for a while now.”
It may already be too late.
Artists:
japandroids.com
myspace.com/mtsthelensvietnamband
Download:
Japandroids – “Young Hearts Spark Fire” – [mp3]
Album:
Japandroids – Post-Nothing is out now. Buy it on Amazon.
