Crib Notes

WATCH FOR THE HOOK: Davila 666

The raw and ragged din of garage rock, new wave and girl groups are as American as apple pie. Such primitive rock ‘n’ roll movements weren’t exactly what Carlito Davila had in mind when he left his home town of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late ’90s to find the Seattle music scene. But while visiting the States he got his first exposure to the music of Television, the Ramones, and the Killed By Death compilations of obscure ’70s and ’80s punk rock. “It was like nothing I had ever heard before,” he recalls with a mild accent. “These people were making music because they had to, and it felt so real and honest and homemade to me, and I loved it.”

That exposure planted seeds in Davila that would later bloom into his band Davila 666, a group many are calling Puerto Rico’s answer to the Black Lips.

The sounds of modern Puerto Rico are defined largely by Latin hip-hop, bomba and reggaeton, and although a small enclave of punk and hardcore music exists in San Juan, the music Davila heard in the states was totally alien to him. When it comes to pop culture, Puerto Rico is a bit isolated, so by the time he made his way to Seattle, circa ‘96, the music scene he was looking for had come and gone. It was around that time that he met Erin Wood while working at Shop and Save.

Continue reading “Davila 666’s pop homage to garage”

(Photo courtesy In the Red Records)

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Austin, Texas, garage-punk quartet the Strange Boys craft a primitive, lo-fi rock and roll sound that’s both dirty and addictive. At its most predictable moments, the group comes across like a Lone Star state little brother to the Black Lips. But when they’re on, they’re on. Their In the Red Records debut, The Strange Boys and Girls Club, unleashes a psychedelic post-punk jam that’s part Texas psychedelia and part slow, Southern post-punk. Carnivores and the N.E.C. also perform.

$8. 8:30 p.m. The Earl, 488 Flat Shoals Ave. 404-522-3950.

Before their proper show at the Earl the Strange Boys are playing a free acoustic show across the street at Reactionary Records at 6:30 p.m.

“Heard You Want to Beat Me Up” mp3

(Photo courtesy of In the Red Records)

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Photo by Terry Woelfer

Brooklyn trio Vivian Girls craft a ghostly, melancholy pop sound that feels at home amid the current crop of younger acts taking cues from the noisier no wave of 1970s New York. Rather than sulking in the scrape and fuzz of peer acts, like Blank Dogs and No Age, Cassie Ramone (guitar/vocals), Kickball Katy (bass/vocals) and Ali Koehler (drums and vocals) work up a concoction of shoegazer punk and twee sounds bound by primitivism.

The ethereal fidelity of their self-titled debut, recently reissued by In the Red, wraps Phil Spector’s wall of sound around angelic girl-group coos that sound both familiar and far away. Songs such as “All the Time,” “Where Do You Run To” and “Never See Me Again” resonate with simple and addictive melodies that are both innocent and easy on the ears.

Alternating threads of gloom and elation come together throughout their songs and culminate in a wash of fleeting emotions that guide each number through a loosely conceptual album. “The songs were arranged in such a way that the first half of the album is about falling in love and the second half is about falling out of it,” frontwoman Ramone explains.

When speaking about her musical influences, she’s not concerned with dropping the names of artsy punk bands. Instead, she pines over Burt Bacharach of all people. “He is so brilliant it makes me wanna scream.”

She’s not kidding either. As she delves into what draws her to Bacharach’s songwriting, the unlikely influence becomes clear; as though she’s describing her own band’s sound to a fine point. “I like his songs because they are both really catchy and somewhat depressing and they evoke an instant sense of nostalgia, even if you’ve never heard the song before. He also does interesting things with phrasing and chord progressions,” she says. “That is what I aim for whenever I write a song.”

Vivian Girls with Rizzudo and Tyvek. $8. Sun., Sept. 28. 8 p.m. The Earl, 488 Flat Shoals Road. 404-522-3950. www.badearl.com.

Click below to read a short Q&A with Cassie Ramone and Kickball Katie.

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