NEWS: Gig Report: Elk City, Jealous Girlfriends, and Pela at the Bowery Ballroom

MUSIC: Gig Report: Elk City, Jealous Girlfriends, and Pela at the Bowery Ballroom

A strange mixture of bands played the Bowery Ballroom Saturday night. First up was the the Jealous Girlfriends, and I dare say they stole the show clean away. I'd read about them in the L Magazine's "bands to watch" issue, but I'd never heard their music before. The shared boy-girl lead vocals mostly hovered an octave apart, making for a full, pleasing sound and erasing much of the ego behind the first person statements that are a staple of most rock lyrics. Even when singer Holly Miranda took over the vocal duties, I remained interested in her voice as an instrument, part of a larger composition. Clear and sweet like that of Cat Power or Feist, and at times uncannily similar to Fiona Apple, her voice went from indie rock understatement to bluesy belt, though it often hovered somewhere in between.

In terms of genre, the songs were tricky to pin down, part of what made them so interesting. The songs were built around minimal synth/piano hooks, building up to some odd riff jams complete with changing time signatures, but each song retained its pop danceability. They sounded like shoegaze one moment and jazz the next, and although they're not as creatively out there as the Fiery Furnaces (who is?), they have some of the Furnaces' ability to synthesize a number of influences into something fresh and new. It's extra impressive considering that the band only formed in 2004. Their relative newness to large venues like the Bowery Ballroom was evident in the adorable shyness they exhibited, hardly talking between songs and awkwardly announcing their name only when prompted by some rather boisterous people in the front row. Jealous Girlfriends, you've got nothing to be jealous of, but I bet some people are already jealous of you!

Next up was Elk City, the band I was there to see.

Full disclosure: I'm friends with Dan Koplowitz, the guy who manages them and runs their label. I've been reluctant to write about them in the past because I couldn't quite get into them, but I've decided that their strengths and weaknesses are interesting enough to warrant some discussion. They've got many solid influences that can be distinctly picked out, as they tend to dominate the songs in which they appear; '80s shoegaze, '60s girl group pop, and '70s psychedelia are all agreeable to the ears, and lead singer Renee LoBue is a compelling presence, with a strong voice that has a lot of range but tends towards the lower end of things. Sometimes she employs a dramatic, Bowie-esque vibrato that for some reason makes me imagine a female impersonator playing her ten years from now in a large vintage dress and a beehive. Do the songs have enough substance to stand up until then? I think so; after all, the music is built from genres that have already stood the test of time. Lyrically, the songs range from dark to meaningless; "White Walls" is an ode to loneliness, while the catchy single "Cherries in the Snow," the title line of which is plucked from a makeup commercial, is pure Dada.

All this makes for some pretty good listening, but sometimes the band slides a bit too far into the camp arena and ends up sounding like a rock musical about the '50s, but made in the '70s. That's ok for one or two songs, but it got me thinking: I wish Elk City would fuck around with their influences a little more. If a band is going to have such recognizable components to their sound, they need to mix them up in a way that makes your head spin or it comes out sounding a bit textbook and safe. I know I'm being a little picky about this, and most people probably can (and should) ignore this fact and just enjoy the trip through music history, one that is alternately catchy and moving. My own fussiness aside, I have to say this band is growing on me. After all, they're fun, and one certainly doesn't have to reinvent the wheel to be good.

The goodness of Elk City was even more apparent when contrasted with the next band, Pela. I will not speculate on how they got to headline the Bowery Ballroom on a Saturday, nor will I waste many words on the sheer mediocrity of these arena rock wannabes and their horrible, pink-polo-shirt-wearing fans. I'll save that for when they are actually famous, if they ever get famous, and judging by the number of Americans who like crappy music, they probably will. In addition to being mediocre, something about the band's sincere/smug/smugly sincere attitude just rubbed me the wrong way. And that's all I have to say about that.

In conclusion: I am going to write about various bands I deem interesting twice a week from now on, and if you read my descriptions and think you might like said bands, you should probably check them out.