In a message dated 98-01-11 02:19:01 EST, KaisrSolze@AOL.COM writes:
<< I'd like to know people's opinions on Trans Am. I just saw them live on a
whim and they were pretty cool?I was expecting them to be some variation on
Chicago "post-rock", and they did some of that, but they also did a lot of
"Stereolab meets rock"-droning keyboards and hard programmed beats along with
heavy guitar, bass, drums. They were really all over the place?each song was
a new sound. What are their albums like? Based on the live show, I'd
recommend them if you think Stereolab are too glossy, Tortoise too boring, or
Atari teenage riot too stupidly abrasive and formulaic, but you're looking
for
some unifier between Mouse on Marsish bloopy stuff/other techno, and a
certain
mix of hard /ambient/melodic rock.
>>
I just heard them for the first time tonight in NYC at Tramps (great sound
system...)
An old friend of mine is touring with them as their sound guy. They had some
moments, they did this cool live electro jam remeniscent of current
revivalists such as Le Car, Dopplereffect, Ectomorph, etc. Mostly they were
doing pretty standard indie-rock one chord (ala Stereolab, who do it much,
much better) jams or straight up instrumental rock. They even did a Led
Zepplin cover (the song name escapes me...)
Their electronic stuff was on point, however. They opened the show in an
almost Rush-like progressive rock with keyboards combined with Gary Numan kind
of way which wasn't offensive, and moved into the bleepy electro stuff
smoothly.
And I had fun watching my engineer friend dub the mix out a bit here and there
- at points he became the unseen ghost band member. The crowd heard some
crazy things that weren't coming from the guys on stage.
Overall, enjoyable. I'm allready bugging my friend about the possibillity of
hooking me up with a remix gig for them.
-John