Vivian Girls are opening for Matt Ward tomorrow at the Synagogue. The show is sold out so it probably does not need more hype but we love the Darger inspired threesome muchisimo and they took some photos for us on tour and charmed Peter’s pants off when they stopped by DC first so we decided to rerun it all for better or worse -Svetlana
Photos interspersed
in between
What he said:
The Vivian Girls stuttered and fluttered. They may have been from Brooklyn, but they seemed more like escapees from a really backwater part of the Pacific Northwest. Probably it’s because they seem to have hit on the novel (for this decade) combination of 80s shoegaze-pop and 90s cuddlecore—pretty much what Nirvana did in the opposite direction.
Vivian Girls is a good name for a band with a lot of girls in it who sound like the ranting of a gentle pedophile.
If Cub and the Cocteau Twins had a baby, it would sound like this band, and it would look like a really sexy movie for me to watch.
The songs were short, like this sentence. Fragments of a quilt. Of rock.
The bass player (Redhead) had some blistering back-up vocal skills. She would go AooAAooAAOoAAAOOAh and everyone swooned. (I assume, I was too busy swooning to look around)!
When the (Blond) lead singer/guitar player played/sang she would turn one Ked shoe in toward the other as if she was asking the audience to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with her in 1978, but when she was playing and not singing, she planted her feet firmly on the ground which is much better for her lumbar, considering that it is 2008.
The drummer had Black hair, which is probably why she did lots of fancy rolls and made tough faces to show that she could easily be in cool punk band, like the Refused, or Blondie.
When the bass player said that the Next Song was the First Song On Our New Album she giggled as if no-one had ever said it before. Then they played a song so wonderful that Cheap Trick and the Beastie Boys appeared in a fountain of light and held hands and kicked the Cocteau Twins out of the fountain for being too wussy. After the last song she stepped on a reverb pedal so that she could cleanly tell us to go buy t-shirts without having it sound like she was trying to tell Agent Cooper that Laura Palmer is in the Red Room or that it’s time to wake up and have pancakes Peter.
If there was a mosh pit at one of their shows it would be one of those odd, unexpectedly apropos things, like finding a beef patty in a milkshake. (That metaphor wasn’t bad actually; maybe I should save it for another time, like when you find a beef patty in a milkshake?)
Later, she told me that they are going to reprint their album because it done sold out and that some douchebag bought a CD-R of it on ebay for 60 bucks and that she wishes, the bass player, that she had known how much they’d be worth because she had a bunch just lying around and if she hadn’t lost them she would be Rich, Rich I Tell You, but I was playing it somewhat cool so I just swooned instead of asking for my money back for the CD-R.
Earlier, the guitarist told me that she can’t wait to read this article, but now I bet she can.
Conclusion: A Dark and Stormy Night
Rock and roll is way too old and studious a genre these days, weighed down with meticulous craftsmen/showman-ships and the furled sails of breathless mediocrity. Anchors aweigh!
If you have ever done happy hour at TGI Fridays or wash your underpants regularly, this band hates you.
February 20, 2009 at 10:21 am