|
BIO:
In the short time since they formed, L.A. rock band
Everybody Else have collected a sizable grassroots
following in America and overseas. They released their
debut album last year and recently released an acoustic
version of their album digitally, entitled, 1 1/2, both
through The Militia Group. There are few artists today
that can write a record of back-to-back pop gems like
Everybody Else, and even fewer with the vocal and musical
chops to pull it off live. Their unusual sound
demonstrates a deep sense of the history of pop music, but
could not exist in any decade but this one. They are a
modern group who have taken rock ‘n’ roll in a completely
different direction from the armies of all-black
re-hashers, stuck in a morose feedback loop. Everybody
Else’s music is refreshingly un-jaded; fans say they like
it because it makes them happy, which I suppose is the
main reason they are reminiscent of bands from a more
idealistic age.
In the days before “pop” was a dirty word, there were rock
bands imitating the punchy soul of Motown and the
syncopated grit of early reggae, playing something that
was bubblegum but still raw, pop music that was funky,
unpolished and not at all dumbed-down. Every generation
since the birth of rock ‘n’ roll has had bands in this
tradition—the Rascals, the Clash, the Jam, Squeeze—but in
the past decade or so, music in this vein has been
conspicuously lacking. It disappeared perhaps because of
the post-punk suspicion of anything too simple or too
catchy—a puzzling attitude given that a central tenet of
early punk was a return to the elementary songs of the
fifties. Today, that seemingly extinct music is back, but
it comes from the most unlikely of places: the smog-fed
palm trees and dingy, skateboarded sidewalks of Los
Angeles.
A trio named for a Kinks B-side, Everybody Else owe much
to the economical songwriting of the sixties, but their
influences are stylistically and temporally broad. They
are just as obsessed with hip hop and dance music as they
are with the unbridled energy of early soul and rock ‘n’
roll. “Meat Market” grooves like Outkast, but its
screaming vocals sound more like Little Richard. “Say
Goodbye” combines an electroclash beat and new wave
guitars with three-part harmonies reminiscent of the Beach
Boys or the Supremes. The common thread is infuriatingly
catchy songs, big beats, and minimalist, dancey
arrangements that sound simultaneously retro and modern.
The lyrics are personal, full of concrete images, and are
often more melancholy than the music they accompany. Over
the fuzzed-out disco of “In Memoriam” are words about
mourning the memories of lost love: “I still see the blue,
sunken barge/ down by the shore and I/ can taste the
blackberry juice on our fingers/ But there’s an echo of
careless, callow footsteps/ that run by so quickly.”
Listeners are left in that magical place where we don’t
really know what we are feeling, but it’s giving us
chills.
Lead singer Carrick Moore Gerety and drummer Mikey
McCormack grew up in the snobbiest of East Coast indie
rock circles, playing multiple instruments in bands with
their older brothers from the age of four, and in
Carrick’s case, also writing poetry and short stories.
They met when they had both just moved to L.A.. Carrick
was in the Push Kings from Cambridge, MA (all, including
Carrick, went to Harvard), whose first seven inch bears
liner notes from Steve Malkmus; Mikey was in an
underground rock group the Waking Hours, who had been
local heroes in Richmond, VA. Soon after The Push Kings
played with the Waking Hours, Carrick and Mikey quit their
bands and started playing together in Carrick’s garage.
They had a rotating cast of friends on bass, until they
literally bumped into Austin Williams, who had just moved
from Fresno,CA, and was the barista at a café where
Carrick and Mikey were eating. The day before, they had
plastered the city with “Musician Wanted” flyers, but
after Austin’s first audition, they heard how a three part
harmony should really sound, and turned away the other
mediocre contenders. Immediately, the three realized that
in addition to their indie rock backgrounds, they share a
love of old r&b and pop, but are more open minded than
most music nerds. They scorn the idea that anything that
is popular cannot be good, that modern music can never be
as deep as it was in days gone by, and they adhere to only
one orthodoxy: that a good song will transcend its genre,
its time, its popularity.
With their debut album, producer Rick Parker (Black Rebel
Motorcycle Club, Howl), has finally captured the spirit of
their electrifying live show, marked by an energy that
always seems to teeter on the edge of chaos without ever
falling apart. Carrick’s alternately sugary and screaming
current of a voice cuts through the sometimes raucous
fray, while Mikey and Austin harmonize in the midst of
Keith Moon-esque histrionics and giant bass riffs. All
great music should reflect the personalities of those
making it, and anyone who sees Everybody Else live will
recognize the jois de vivre shared by the three onstage.
The joy in their music is as infectious as it is
sincere—people in the crowd are dancing again, and even if
you don’t dance, you are likely to get their songs stuck
in your head for months If you are one of the initiated,
you know exactly what I am talking about. If you are not,
you are missing one of most unique musical experiences of
our time.
Carrick Moore Gerety: vocals, guitar, bass, keys - Mikey
McCormack: drums, vocals, keys - Austin Williams: bass,
vocals
|
