THE BLOOD BROTHERS

Photo taken by Nathan Martin. Idea taken from HERE.

The way I look at it, the experience of The Blood Brothers is worth about $10. That’s the tipping point where I can feel like my ducats were well spent. This is mathematically convenient since I’ve spent $30 in my life seeing the band perform three times. I saw them for free at UC Berkeley, and then I spent $10 seeing them in Oakland. Last Monday I checked them out for $20 here in Sacramento. I did that for a few reasons, the first being that I would rather be at a show than anywhere else. The other reason was that I just got paid.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m skeptical about this ticket price. Even with …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead as the official headliner. ...Trail Of Dead would have offered major incentive five years ago when Pitchfork gave Source Tags And Codes a famous 10.0 (and I agreed). Now, after not caring about ...Trail Of Dead for five years, the only incentive to see them is, in fact, The Blood Brothers. As a matter of scientific inquiry I asked everyone I saw that I knew if they were going to stay for ...Trail Of Dead. Most were not but plenty did.

I missed the openers, save for two minutes of the The Celebration, (that means I saw none of The Brothers And Sisters). The turnout looked good for The Library, which couldn’t have made anyone that stoked, since the show was booked at a venue called The Empire, where it would have been all ages and accommodated 900 people. Instead (and thanks to less than 100 presales), the show was 18 and up and about 200 kids from all over (Reno, Chico, and Davis represented hard) got to brush shoulders with The Blood Brothers, who couldn’t really hang out backstage (because there is none at The Library), or in their Green Room (because it is about 8’ by 8’ and hardly large enough for a rider’s-worth of beer). So the band just trolled the crowd and kicked it at the bar. The venue didn’t really matter anyway, since The Blood Brothers have basically been doing the tour thing forever. They’re still ready to eviscerate any scene they encounter.

The Blood Brothers seem like five pretty real dudes, despite how they dress (what's the deal with the two belts?) and the unusual pedigree of bands they tour with. That’s why I hope that a few kids thought it was a huge deal to actually brush shoulders with them. The first time Nave saw them they were opening for The Used and Taking Back Sunday, before either of those bands were anything more than enormous mailing lists. But since then The Blood Brothers have opened for everyone and anyone, including a lots of (con)temporary “next big things” (like Coheed And Cambria and Glassjaw) as well as a bunch of great bands (like Cursive and Glassjaw). And now they’re big. Certainly bigger than ...Trail Of Dead, who looked and sounded like a bunch of dads playing Sonic Youth covers. Poorly.

The Blood Brothers opened with “Set Fire to the Face of Fire” (video of the Sacramento performance of this song below). This is one of the scream-y tracks off the great new record, Young Machetes. Two albums ago they penned Nave’s favorite track, “Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon” (MP3 posted below), which begins with a fierce keyboard gurgle and has an interlude where everyone in the club sings “Where is love now? Ba-ba-ba-baaaa-ba-ba,” but everyone sings like Sinatra’s zombie corpse just got a hold of some helium. Ever since that song the band has had “scream-y” songs and “other” songs. The new album has both of these song types, and Pitchfork lamented that “instead of choosing between seducing or screaming at their audience, they found a much less interesting middle ground.” Ok. What is said “less interesting middle ground,” fair Pitchfork? Apparently “Young Machetes is half metal band, half high-school musical, with unpredictable transitions, two-minute songs stretched to the limit of composition, and a few pop concessions that pale in comparison to the softer side of Crimes, bones tossed to a mainstream audience by a band that's far too strange to be this famous.” First of all, a lot of those descriptions sound cool, not not cool. Secondly, I have no idea how a band “that’s far too strange to be this famous” (which I agree is totally fascinating) could “toss bones” at the “mainstream.” I’m confident that anyone and their Hummer-sponsored mother can conceivably sell-out, but it will not sound like any part of Young Machetes, and if it does then I hope to be in tech-pop heaven where angels that wear all over print t shirts and have names like “Alasdair” and “Vendetta” teach me how to two hand tap with all ten fingers. The point is that it’s an inaccurate long shot to say that a band as weird as The Blood Brothers has ever “toss[ed] bones” to “mainstream audiences.” I’ll agree that neither Young Machetes nor the preceding record Crimes took the giant progressive leaps of ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn, the one album revolution of pop and hardcore that it was. But these recent records remain aggressive loyalist symphonies from a band that—to give them the benefit of the doubt—hasn’t let up (or grown tired) of it’s approach to making music. I can’t argue with Pitchfork’s assessment of the album: there are metal tracks and there are energetic, youthful “high school musical” tracks. (Again, I love those descriptions). My point is just that Young Machetes is still a taught record, and especially the “other” songs (the not metal/scream-y ones) remain astonishing—especially live. These songs make a Blood Brothers set worth ten of my brilliant dollars.

These are songs like "Laser Life" (video below) and the second half of "Camouflage, Camouflage" (MP3 below) from the new album, Young Machetes. These songs are weird, inviting, and based on dissonant keyboard lines and Queen-like grandstanding. In a live setting, neither of The Blood Brothers’ singers practices much in the way of precision, and most of their melodies are lost to energetic convulsions and the incredible volume coming from the bands blast-shield-demolishing rhythm section. Not to worry: on record the band hits all sorts of harmonies and melodies—thanks to all sorts of studio correction techniques. But unlike …Trail Of Dead, which had three guys who couldn't hit a single note live (I haven’t heard the new record. Should I hunt it down?), The Blood Brothers needed only to convey the vibe accomplished on their records. And convey the vibe they did.

For a third time in my life The Blood Brothers ruled. It was fun to see them and it was fun to see who came out to see them. …Trail Of Dead bothered me, but at least they mostly played old songs that I knew how to love. I think the whole tour went to The Fillmore in San Francisco the next night. I'd be curious to know how that went. …Trail Of Dead kept acting like they thought they were actually playing a thousand seat-er. For one song, when the main mediocre singer (Conrad Keely) sat down at a keyboard to "try a song they haven't done for a while," one of the supporting schlubs (the third guitar player) commandeered the center-stage mic. "Can we get some more lights on Conrad?" he asked a few times. The lights obviously weren't moving, much less automated; the stage was about 15 feet long, two feet high, and most of the 150 people in the crowd could hi-five the drummer if they leaned forward. "Ok," the schlub said. "Well everyone look over there at Conrad, he's the one that's gonna be singing." It's great that he was able to tell us—the audience—how to watch people perform music in our hometown. Thanks guy.

So here’s some video and three BrilliantMP3’s from The Blood Brothers. Be sure to take a minute to check out Crystal City Clothing, which is a clothing company run by Johnny Whitney (one of The Blood Brothers’ two singers) and his wife. The designs are great and the clientele is hilarious (as if Panic! At The Disco could get more awesome). I was hoping there’d be some Crystal City schwag at the merch booth, but it ‘twasn’t to be so (there was none). Too bad, since in my weird world there’s no wallet-laxative better than a crisp new shirt.





Right click and save to download ”Camouflage, Camouflage” from the album Young Machetes by The Blood Brothers.
Right click and save to download ”Spit Shine Your Black Clouds” from the album Young Machetes by The Blood Brothers.
Right click and save to download ”Cecilia And The Silhouette Saloon” from the album ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn by The Blood Brothers.

The Blood Brothers’ WEBSITE.
The Blood Brothers on MYSPACE.
The Blood Brothers on PUREVOLUME.
The Blood Brothers on LAST.FM.
The Blood Brothers on WIKIPEDIA.
The Blood Brothers on HYPEMACHINE.
The Blood Brothers on AMAZON.
Singer Johnny Whitney’s and drummer Mark Gajadhar’s rad side project is NEON BLONDE.
Support The Blood Brothers enormous, powerful, probably-good-in-bed LABEL.