Icy Demons at Great Scott, July 27, 2008
By WILL SPITZ | July 29, 2008
Unless you’re, say, George Michael, summer Sunday-night shows can be rough on a band, who have to play to a crowd that’s sun-dazed and bummed out about the imminent back-to-reality slap on the sunburn of Monday morning. Especially when you don’t go on till it is Monday morning — which is where Chicago’s Icy Demons found themselves at Great Scott, taking the stage a little after midnight, following searing sets by locals Paparazzi and Pretty & Nice.
Head Demon Griffin Rodriguez (a/k/a Blue Hawaii, of Need New Body and Bablicon semi-fame) did his best to rile up the 30 or 40 folks who remained, hopping down to the floor in front of the stage on a couple of occasions, asking the soundman to turn up his drum machine. (“We want you guys to feel this.”) And it worked, to a point — a handful of people danced to the more upbeat songs, most of which were culled from Icy Demons’ new Miami Ice (Obey Your Brain). But the music of this six-piece — Rodriguez along with three keys-and-guitar-swapping dudes, a drummer (not co-founder/drummer Chris Powell, who doesn’t tour with Icy Deez because of other band Man Man’s busy schedule), and a bouncy tambourine-toting woman in red sequins who sang almost every word along with Rodriguez — just wasn’t compelling enough to rouse the room.
Said music is marked by an abundance of cool ideas: an unusual syncopated rhythm here, an unexpected jazzy chord change there. Too often, however, the disparate parts fail to jell. “Summer Samba” was a pleasant but humdrum samba-with-synths that went nowhere. “Miami Ice,” a lighthearted song about a jaunt to you-know-where, started with a fuzzy synth arpeggio and puttered along aimlessly before petering out on the repetitive riff it had begun with. Rodriguez sang about “Taking a trip, just for a trip.” Sometimes that just isn’t enough.
Related:
Slideshow: Six Finger Satellite at Great Scott, Between rock and a soft place, Japandroids | Post-Nothing, More 
- Slideshow: Six Finger Satellite at Great Scott
Six Finger Satellite at the Great Scott
- Between rock and a soft place
There's a blog post on the Everyday Visuals' Web site titled "Pop is fucking (aka. Everything to all people? / a/k/a. Coldplay is just as bad as Wavves)" that I was tempted to cut, paste, and submit in place of this article.
- Japandroids | Post-Nothing
I was tempted to write off Japandroids as just one more lo-fi punk band who've overdosed on fuzz.
- Sound and vision
When I hurried into a large tent to catch Micachu (a/k/a Mica Levi) and the Shapes at SxSW this past March, my back was killing me. I was in shit shape. This would normally be the point where the writer’s woes get turned around by the subject’s music. Far from it.
- Feel-good hits of summer
Life is unabashedly beautiful for Wheat founders (and Taunton natives) Brendan Harney and Scott Levesque. That sentiment echoes throughout their latest release, White Ink, Black Ink (The Rebel Group) — which is surprising considering their track record with major and indie labels over their dozen years in the business.
- Gloom merchants
It would’ve been nice if Bobby Hecksher, songsmith and ringleader of the Warlocks, had spoon-fed me some anecdotes from back when he used to trip out with Timothy Leary.
- Band of outsiders
The Beatings got back from their eighth US tour the day before, but they’re already reconvening over at frontman Eldridge Rodriguez’s misplaced little two-story beach house in Lower Allston. I do a double take on the way through the cute picket fence.
- Photos: Televandals at Great Scott
Photos of the Boston stop on the Televandals' Good for Nothing tour
- Up and autumn!
Behold! The prime of the approaching fall local rock crop.
- Hop to!
Somewhere in Allston, there’s an over-caffeinated barista/drummer bitching about Bad Rabbits.
- Soul training
Mayer Hawthorne rose to instant retro-pop acclaim the same way that everyone from Al Green to Michael Jackson moved on up — work and luck.
- Less
Topics:
Live Reviews
, George Michael, great Scott
