Weekends @ Metro Gallery Feb. 25

[TGIF! LOLZ!]

I'm starting to think that most of the press on the Baltimore band Weekends is written by their very close friends. For example, a blog that I'm just discovering exists, BMore Musically Informed, had this to say about them:

Already garnering comparisons to Ponytail this Baltimore duo fills any rock and roll void one might possess with riffs of pure joy. No Age's Nouns was a similarly great record, but each and every jam on Weekends' s/t debut blows Nouns out of the water.

Really? Where have they garnered comparisons to Ponytail, pray tell? Among your friends? Because I haven't seen any, and the two bands sound absolutely nothing alike. Their sounds are as disparate as No Age and Ponytail. One is really loud, sludge-hammer noise-punk, and the other is really loud, but melodic surf-guitar riffs with a girl out front screeching nonsense. Don't get me wrong -- I like both bands, but the comparison is inapt.

Or take, por ejemplo, this incredibly undescriptive "No Cover" profile from City Paper last month, which includes the following quote from guitarist Adam Lempel:

"I saw Brendan playing [and] I was just like, 'I want to be in a band with that dude,'" Lempel says while doing a vigorous impersonation of Sullivan on guitar. "[He was] rocking out so hard. He was just into it in a good way."

This quote, to me, captures hipsterdom in its most perfect, putrid nutshell. It's like, being "into it" is ultimately BAD, and Lempel liked Sullivan's playing because he was INTO IT, but just like, not in a lame way. He's really venturing into uncharted territory here: a hipster band with musicians who are actually enthusiastic about music. Their approach, as reported, complete with self-described "rudimentary" drumming and a marked aversion to something called "blog rock," which we don't really hear defined in any way, offers no argument to me about why I should listen to this band. In fact, the only possible type of person I could see reading that review and thinking, "I really wanna check Weekends out," is the lowest, vilest type of poseur who jumps up every time they read the word "Copycat," puts on their pom-pom winter cap, wriggles into their skintight jeans, and heads out for a six-pack of Pabst (not Boh) before the show.

All that said, I went to go see Weekends last night because I've met Lempel at shows before, and he's a Hopkins grad, and he's always seemed like a really nice, genuine guy. I arrived right after Bad Liquor Pond finished up, and left right before True Womanhood took the stage. I'm sick, and I'm going on vacation next week. Gimme a break.

They did about 7 songs, almost all of which sounded like No Age covers. Sullivan's guitar work, I think, is a lot more interesting than Lempel's. He makes a lot of use of his Strat's low-end, so that bass tones don't get completely lost in the wall of fuzz these guys pump out. Lempel's approach has more to do with playing mathy melodies, one string at a time, with an octave pedal on, which is not very captivating. Likewise, Lempel's a better drummer. The few songs they played that deviated from the ear-blowing noise-punk model featured Lempel playing beats that were...I dunno...funky. I mean, the music honestly never approached danceable, unless you consider violent torso-bobbing dancing (funny side-note: I noticed a kid who was a few years under me at college in the audience who is an Orthodox Jew and also sort of a punk in his spare time, and he was dancing in just the aforementioned manner, and it looked like he was getting really into his davenning). The vocals were highly-reverbed and completely inaudible. The crowd was small and not terribly enthusiastic. If Weekends is going for the type of cultish, sweaty mosh masses that the usual bullshit MICA bands draw, they need a new business model.

And again, I find myself stepping back, because in reality, Weekends was alright. I mean, they're derivative, but they're sort of fun. They do rock out. They twitch and spasm and lurch around with their guitars, as if the instrument is some sort of wriggling snake that is very strong and hard to control. It's loud, and therefore subversive. They seem to be doing what they've rehearsed to do. I guess I'm just getting tired of all these bands that think that reworking the White Stripes model over and over again is the best outlets for their talents. Let's think it through a little more, and develop the concept, eh, guys?