Minus Hooker (Endless Boogie, Cake Shop)

Shhhh.

There’s really no such thing as a secret, anymore.  Your favorite under-the-radar band?  Give anyone their name, an hour, and internet access and that person’s an instant expert.  Bloggers have taken to the maternity ward beat, begging expectant mothers: “But do you think he/she’ll have a band?  Can I have an interview?  Will it wear my t-shirt?” 

Two weeks ago, no one had ever heard of Lily Allen; now she’s walking around with a fork jutting out her shoulder.  We’ve all seen her permanent record, her complete medical history, a few of us have dated her.  Some poor chump’s got alimony payments.  Things happen so fast.

Athens, Seattle, Omaha, Montreal, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In an advertising age where exclusivity is nothing more than a marketing concept, it’s damn-near-noble when a band has been around for eight years and has a devoted cult following... but doesn’t have a CD or merch, much less any promotional material to which I can link.

They’re a New York band that’s been playing together since 1997, playing shows since 2001.  They released their first two limited-edition records, simultaneously, last year.  Both were untitled, both were vinyl-only, both sold out almost immediately.  The lead singer/guitarist is 51-years (or, if you prefer, three-Arctic-Monkeys) old.  There’s no place online that’ll tell you where they’re playing, and they don’t play gigs unless they’re asked.

Like last year, when David Pajo asked them, along with Spoon, Mogwai, and Deerhoof, to perform at the Slint-curated edition of All Tomorrow’s Parties.

They’re called Endless Boogie, and their name is their address.

If that name – they may or may not have taken their title from the John Lee Hooker song – sends you running off, fine, that’s more room for me.  I first heard of them when I was compiling that list of Top 10 Lists; Go Fuck a Flagpole had EB at the top of theirs, and I was always intrigued when someone stuck a stray act at #1.  And further intrigued when easy info didn’t rise up with a quick Google.  I was ready to dismiss the thing as some sort of dancey-dance mixtape when I came across the following description (now cachéd) at Fusetron Sound:

"Endless Boogie have managed to release two LPs of homespun rehearsal concoctions - volume one in a limited edition of 500, volume two in a numbered limited edition of 150 (well, 299 were pressed, but 150 were placed at random at really bad record stores and thrift shops all over town). For the uninitiated, Endless Boogies music could be described as remarkable in its niggling mindlessness, its funereal parade of yawn-enforcing riffs, the pseudo-light it throws upon non-problems. And, of course, this is a really good thing." - ? After 4+ years of playing the shittiest dives in NYC (and the Slint-curated ATP fest..), Endless Boogie have finally released, not one, but two lps! All star line-up features Paul Majors (beyond-legendary underground record trafficker - see recent issue of VICE. ?), Chris Gray (Double Leopards, White Rock), Jesper (1/2 Special label head -released the last batch of Trad Gras discs) and Marko Pezzati (Naked Raygun!). The name says it all.. Both hand stamped/screened with inserts. Highly recommended!

The records – Volume 1 (“White”) and Volume 2 (“Black”/Stanton Karma) – were $17 and $32, respectively.  I don’t own a record player, but after a little more digging I found some stuff tucked into a far corner of the internet.

And sort of shrugged.  Oh.  A Jam Band.  Filed them away.  But I started running into the name more frequently – or, at least, recognizing it – and every time it was in some gushy description about how revelatory these guys were.

I rail against The Jam Band from time to time.  While I don’t worship at the altar of the three-minute-thirty-second mark, as I’ve gotten older I like to think I’ve grown to appreciate songcraft a little more.  Noodling is masturbatory, redundant, wasteful.  If you’ve got a point, get to it.  But my inner teenager thinks that the forty-five minute version of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” Pink Floyd played in Oakland in 1977 is the greatest thing since nothing.  My inner teen wants to sit, stoned, at a friend’s pig roast, drinking cheap beer, listening to some dude talk to his guitar forever, man.

*

Cake Shop is a shit place to see a show.  Upstairs they sell records – and, possibly, cake – but concerts are held downstairs in a long basement with a low ceiling.  The stage is at one end, no more than a half-apple box off the floor; above it someone’s tacked up acoustic foam and hung a string or two of unblinking white Christmas lights.  Unless you’re standing in the first five rows, you see none of this.

It’s pretty much the perfect place to see a band that may or may not exist.

[Oh, I’m being melodramatic.  The band has opened for both Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks and Dungen; they’ve been mentioned in Pitchfork (though only as part of a list of “Ten Things That Will Improve Your Life” guest-written by Wooden Wand’s Jehovah).  They even, for whatever reason, wound up on Gawker’s to-do list, last Friday (not that you’d ever want to be in a basement full of people who’d planned their weekend accordingly).]

Endless Boogie plays the sort of almost-hookless, almost-anonymous minimalist, blues-based psychedelic extrapolations you imagine echoed over fields at every free outdoor music festival in the early ‘70s.  I see comparisons online to Foghat and Thin Lizzy; krautrock gets a mention – mostly, I think, because some people like to mention krautrock whenever they can – as does metal.  It’s really not music you should think about, that much.  A groove sets in, and guitars find things to say during it.  That’s all.

Which doesn’t sound the least bit noteworthy, I know.  Anyone can dick around with blues guitar.  But anyone can also generate your regular, dull-as-shit angular post-punk attack, too, and lord knows they do.  What’s remarkable about EB is how they connect with convincing regularity.  They played five songs during their seventy-minute set, Saturday night, even stretching The Small Faces’ “Wham Bam Thank You Mam” [sic] past the ten-minute mark.  I wasn’t bored once.  And I get bored easily.

(Listen to this while I finish up, here:  The band played a live 100-minute set at WFMU last November.  It’s streaming here (Realplayer), and it smokes.  Play it loud.  If I could buy that on CD, I would.  And that’s an in-studio radio gig.)

The band’s a four piece (there’s a quick description (along with a glowing review of last October’s Bowery show) here) but the focus is generally on frontman Paul Taylor – though with a head of hair Crystal Gayle’d envy, sometimes there’s little to see beyond a nose and his instrument.  His voice offers mostly indecipherable grizzle.  But man, that guitar sings.

Some people are absolutely, positively going to hate this stuff.  Normally, I’d make the assumption I would.  We’re used to music that works in circles; when something goes off in a straight line, there’s always the worry we’re headed nowhere.  These guys play with enough confidence that they’re worth following.  It’s not challenging in the way we think of challenging music, these days:  It is tuneful, it is energetic.  It sounds like... oh, like it’s been done to death.  But its demands – time, patience – are important ones, and the rewards are there.  It’s not difficult, but it’s inconvenient, and if nothing else, Endless Boogie serves as a good reminder some things should be just that.

*

And the reason for their mystique?  “We’re lazy.”  Said two of them.

When I told Taylor it was difficult to find info about the band online, he said, “You just have to search for quote-Endless-Boogie-unquote-minus-sign-Hooker.”

Guitarist Jesper (pr. “Yesper”) Eklow said they “may have another show coming up in two weeks-ish.”  I’ll let you know if I hear anything.

Maybe.

*

I love this:  When Joel Hunt reviewed “Volume 2” for Baltimore’s City Paper he mentioned there was “enough guitar loudness (complete with audible radio bleed-through from the amplifiers) to make it as heavy as the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy of 1919.”

Eklow wrote in to clarify:  “The radio you hear is just a radio (we always jam to the Mets game).”

*

Speaking of Lily Allen, she played her first-ever gig last Thursday night at the London club Yoyo, and... nothing?  Well, one myspace blogger called it “Fuckin wicked!” before spending the rest of her entry discussing phlegm.  There are ridiculously huge photos at Yoyo’s myspace page (none of Allen performing) and a mention they had to turn people away at the door.

Someone, somewhere, last week offered The Pipettes up as an Allen-alternative.  Er... I don’t think so.  ABBA+Phil Spector+B-52s, but too heavy on the ABBA and they’re making me miss Fred Schneider.

[UPDATE:  This from Allen's myspace blog: 

"what am I doing ? I can't play a gig , I get on the tube to a hotel in the west end to do a few interviews before I went to soundcheck , A lovely man from GQ interviewed me and it was one of the two best interviews yet , so thank you man from GQ for taking my mind off the inevitable shambles that will occur later, for an hour or so . Then off to soundcheck , everything fine thanks, mind at rest , a little . So I wen't back to this Hotel watched TV and had a shower along with a couple of alcoholic beverages , before getting my make up on and getting changed into my loverly new dress for my show . On arrival at the club , I push my way through the crowds of autograph hunters and paparazzi(joke obv) and get downstairs , the place is packed and I am really really nervous now so I have a pink cocktail and a shot of Jaegermeister and make my way to the stage , a couple of girls were pushing me back saying " we were here ages ago , you can't just push to the front" and i almost felt like hiding there in the crowd and not doing the show at all , but politely I said " I've gotta sing though" and they let me through . DISASTER .......... my earpiece thingy does'nt work and I can't hear myself , I did LDN and everyone sang at me so I don't think anyone noticed how shit I sounded , but on the next song it was very apparent by the looks on peoples faces how rubbish I was , but then, as if by magic everything started working , and people danced and cheered , I laughed nervously and it was great . Got pretty pissed after that and DJ'd for a bit . Then I went home .
Woke up on friday and cried immiediately."]

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Assorted elsewheres:

• I am Fuel, You are Friends has one of the new Replacements songs for download.  It sounds... like a Replacements song.


• I Thought I Was a Fool for No One, But Oooh Baby, I’m a Fool For You Dept.:  The Torture Garden has the new Muse single, “Supermassive Black Hole,” and it’s about as big and dumb and derivative as you might think.  It’s also pretty fucking fantastic, served over a steaming pile of semischlocky electrofunk.


• SkiBrooklyn has links to a couple mp3s featuring the reconstituted Alice in Chains... as fronted by Tool’s Maynard James Keenan.


• And Earfarm has Tool’s Coachella performance for download.

tags: replacements  endless boogie  muse  tool  concert reviews  lily allen  

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