Sound Bites

Double Bill of the Week

I would be remiss if I didn't mention this Friday's show at Mercury Lounge featuring two of New York's best "dream pop" bands (trying to avoid the S-word). Headliners Dirty on Purpose haven't played, aprart from opening for Band of Horses on Valentine's Day, for five months or so, though they've been plenty busy. January saw the release of their great Like Bees EP while also releasing a free, digital-only EP,Dead Volcanoes, through RCRDLBL.com, albiet in drips and drabs. The latter has been interesting to hear as it really finds the band stretching out and trying new things. I'm told that the final song they've yet to post is unlike anything they've ever done before (and George takes the rare lead vocals). Meanwhile, of the three that are currently available, I really like "The Thing About Getaways" and "Hard to Tell You" which sounds a bit like Luna covering "Crimson and Clover." (Nice spot, Sung Bin.) Friday is also bassist DJ Boudreau's birthday, so be sure to buy him a shot... after the show, please.

Mahogany, meanwhile, have been laying low since releasing the masterful Connectivity! in 2006. I don't think they've played a show since last summer. Their Myspace hasn't really been updated since then either, so who knows what they have in store for us. Maybe some more of Connectivity!, as most of the shows I saw them play for that album were only about five songs deep. But they made up for it with the two-drummer, multiple guitarists and keyboardists and vocalists attack. And "Supervitesse" has yet to get old for me.

This is kind the 2008 equivalent of Ride and the Pale Saints touring together (which they did way back a licensed driver ago). It's just one show, but still a perfect match. Tickets are $10 and will probably sell out before Friday I'd imagine.

In other Dirty on Purpose news, "Audience in the Room" from Like Bees can currently be heard in a Virgin Mobile commercial. (And I still think their cover of "Send Me an Angel" would be perfect for Gossip Girl.) Meanwhile, drummer Doug Marvin (who sings lead on "Getaways") has a solo project, Purse Snatchers, with some help from his wife Annie who plays in Au Revoir Simone when she's not judging potential New York Noise VJs. The Purse Snatchers album, To Feet of Snow, is full of the pretty melodies and gentle singing athat Marvin brings to the songs he pens for Dirty on Purpose. There's just more of them. And one of them is available on RCRDLBL.com.

MP3: Dirty on Purpose - Audience in the Room (from Like Bees)

MP3: Mahogany - Springtime, Save Our Country (from Connectivity!)

Dirty on Purpose | Music Hall of Williamsburg | 9.28.2007

Any post I write about Dirty on Purpose is going to be a little biased as they are friends of mine. But I would be a fan even if that wasn't the case I would like them -- their melodic, shoegazer pop hits all my buttons -- and I genuinely think they just keep getting better.

Friday was the last night of their tour with Fujiya & Miyagi and their first time playing at Music Hall of Williamsburg. This was easily the best sounding gig of theirs I'd ever attended. MHoW's sound system is state-of-the-art, and Dirty on Purpose sounded epic. Arena even. Guitars roared and chimed. Yet everything was crystal clear, the bass and drums, everything where it should be... maybe the vocals were a little low but that always seems to be a problem with them. DoP are a band of quiet singers.

Despite being openers it was clear there were plenty of people there to see them -- it was a hometown audience and all. A set full of crowd pleasers -- "No Radio," "Marfa Lights," "Car No-Driver" -- plus a new one (the tremolo-heavy "Audience") from their upcoming Like Bees EP, another new one that I don't think they've recorded yet, and their cover of Real Life's synth-pop hit "Send Me an Angel" which they've been doing for about a year.

The latter I'm sure started as a joke but over the last six months or some has really come into its own and is now genuinely awesome, with George Wilson's guitars going into freakout overdrive. It's still dancey, a little gothy, but with that MBV treatment to it. It would sound brilliant on Gossip Girl in one of the show's many over-the-top party scenes... someone get Alex Patsavas a copy of the EP now.

MP3: Dirty on Purpose - Send Me an Angel

Fujiya & Miyagi | Music Hall of Wiliamsburg | 9.28.2007

This was my third time seeing Fujiya & Miyagi this year and they were good as always, had most of the crowd dancing throughout their set -- still no easy task at a rock club.

The set felt almost exactly the same as F&M's seaport gig earlier this summer, kicking off with "Ankle Injuries" and hitting some of their more Krautrock-y material before getting to the funky stuff -- "Transparent Things," "Colorbone" and "Uh."

I would've liked to have heard a new song, but I didn't really mind as I really enjoy watching guitarist David Best and bassist Matt Hainsby play their instruments. Hainsby is so good at laying it down, his playing is impossibly groovy. He knows his funk. And Best has a distinctive style, very minimal, somewhere between Prince and Andy Gill, where every note counts. Now if they'd just get a drummer... which I'm told they're in the process of doing so and will debut as a four-piece next year. New album or no, that would alone warrant seeing them again.

Buy Fujiya & Miyagi's Transparent Things