RIFF MARKET

OK Dad Get Off My Back About Your Friend's Band's CD: Riff Market Family Edition

Download: Gas: "Nach 1912" [from Pop Ambient 2007]

This is hard to explain without sounding the taddest douchey, but since all promos are sent to my parents' house, and since my parents still think that sending people free CDs is batshit insane, the equivalent of sending somebody a stack of unmarked benjis, mom+dad tend to be extremely diligent in handling them. Several times now I've come home to stacks and stacks of promos-- meticulously alphabetized, all the annoying plastic off them, all the compilations organized by record label-- all just sitting there on the kitchen table set up like it's a Sam Goody window display. That, and I'm pretty positive dad got rid of this enormous truck he loved just so he could make room for more promos in the garage, and I'm increasingly suspicious that mom+dad had kid #5 just to alleviate the burden of sorting. Briana, I'm sorry this is the way you had to find out.

The first ten minutes back home involve dad making reference to the following:
-how I "got some mail"
-how CDs are really expensive these days, aren't they huh
-how "I bet you could make a lot of money selling some of these CDs"
-something about snowmobiles
-how "after dinner let's go drive over to the mall and sell some of these CDs"
-another thing about how awesome snowmobiles are

Anyway the shortest possible version of this story, and without being too poetic about it all ("all of the CDs were alphabetized... except one"), is that my dad's been pestering me for like six or seven months to write about this band that some friend of his is in. Three or four months ago, this "friend" was merely "this guy I know," and three months before that it was "I got a sweet tip for you on a hot young Philly band," so I have no idea what the exact story is. It could even be his band for all I know (my dad is a famous drummer in the Philly bar mitzvah band circuit). As for payola, which obviously I asked for since I'm a B.W.A. (blogger with attitude), my dad said he would make me one of his delicious Superbowl Sundaes, which I'm pretty sure is just moose tracks ice cream served in a dirty coffee cup. Even still, it's pretty hard to argue with the guy who taught you that it's perfectly normal for a grown man to carry a few wetwipes on him, just in case he's in the bathroom and the going gets tough.

So, dad, this is for you: Evolv is this band from Philly that plays pretty technically proficient proggy-but-not-prog rock, lots of drum fills and double-bass kicks and soaring vocals and billion-dollar fx pedal programming a la your Linkin Parks and Korns and Audioslaves and other metal-ish arena bands, though with infinitely less rapping. One song called "Agenda" sounds like a Mars Volta track, but then it moves more into Foo Fighters territory--all major label-sounding rock and roll that's not yet on a major rock and roll label. I'm pretty fascinated by this circuit since it's like they play in totally different clubs than indie bands, at least in New York. Like it wouldn't surprise me if the guys in the band have never heard anything beyond classic and major-label rock type acts--works for them, since suddenly commercial possibilities closely mirror personal creative satisfaction. They can sing, they can play, it's all there, no note out of place, it's pretty bombastic most of the time but maybe that's your thing. Plus they're playing the Khyber on Thursday-- check them out. No guarantees, but you may or may not see a guy who looks exactly like me, but with really long hair (in the back), and two pretty bad-ass tattoos on his arms, and a well-kempt beard to shame all well-kempt beards.

70 RIFFS