Richmond’s very own Prabir and The Substitutes, who play undeniable hook heavy pop rock, are making their 930 club debut this Friday, opening for the Japanese Beatles bonanza that is The Silver Beats.
Which is terrific (and deserved) progress considering that a casual surveying of the BYT calendar shows them playing Chief Ike’s barely 6 months a go.
Moving on up.
Plus, Peter and Lexie saw them just last week at the Cat and the review was something to the effect of:

….rocking out modtastically but without irony or pretense Merseybeat style. If you’re going to play a raved–up Who-ish cover of “Boots Were Made for Walking” right after a similarly banging version of Take the Skinheads Bowling you’d better be equipped with the chops to really jump around and do hi-kicks and stuff and these guys have it

So we figured, before they churn out their album and become too famous for (our) own good, we’d have you get acquainted with them, in their own word. So:

Prabir & The Substitutes came into existence in early 2006 in Richmond, VA. Since then the band has been hard at work on writing and arranging melodic and catchy, vocally driven pop music. At a quick glance the band can be described as a rock and roll blender. The songs have a late 50s R&B foundations, added in are 60’s harmonies, and performed like an over caffinated 70’s soul band. Inspiration comes from anything from Robert Johnson to The Concretes, but the main stays in the band’s record collection are The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Otis Redding, Van Morrison, Ray Charles, and The Kinks.

In early 2007 the band release “Annabelle, I’m Coming Home Tonight”. Then shortly after that hit the road and went all over the nation, touching both coasts and north to south on the eastern seaboard. Half a year later the band put together “Share” and released that for the second half of the year’s worth of touring…so, with “Share” the band is back on the road and back on stage.

The band’s live show includes five vocal parts, fast paced minute long short songs, a capella songs, and lots of energy. Being on stage is the band’s most comfortable spot, so the shows are always fun.

Right now, the plan is to keep touring, keep seeing more sights, keep hearing more sounds, and in general have a good time putting some smiles on some faces. In Feb, the band will settle into the studio again to work on the third record. Once the record is done, the cycle beings a new. Back to plugging in and turning up.

In the meantime, coat your ears with the audio sugar that their music is
Listen up and try to resist:

The Kiss:
This is a song about the moment before the first kiss. A romantic/ nervous kind of song. The song starts off with the setting and kind of goes on to describe the feeling of anticipation of the first kiss. There’s lots of fun vocals and really boppy beats. We love playing this song live.

When Was The Last Time?:
I wrote this song after seeing Van Morrison in Austin, TX. I loved how he didn’t have to play guitar or anything, just stood up on stage and belted out the songs. So, for our live show to have another element to it, I decided to pen this song. I took it to the band and they brought it to life way more than I imagined it could have been. Chris and Charlie both get solos in the middle, the vocals are fun, the lyrics to the song just came out. Its basically a somewhat bitter song aimed towards a girl (arn’t most of our songs?). In its bitterness though there is a sense of longing mixed in, so its kind of a play between two emotions. Really though, its a great song for me to not play guitar in live and there’s a lovely groove to it. Very fun.

Five Little Pieces:
I wanted to write a song about this band. Being a five piece and just kind of having fun and singing with friends and how we need more time to do our thing and all that. Basically, I was trying to write a song that all five of us could sing and it’d be applicable no matter who sings it. We all feel very much so a part of this thing right now, so I thought it was fitting for the chorus to be “Five little pieces and they all are mine!”. As in each one of us can look at the rest of the band and kind of feel very proud to be doing this, or at least very happy to have this is something is our’s. Latley, this has kind of become our theme song and usually closes our sets.

at this point you probably want more, don’t you?
well then,
befriend them on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/prabirandthesubstitutes
and show up early on Friday to 930 club

 Send to a Friend