Biting the Big Apple
Two Seattle music scene frontrunners, the Turn-Ons and the Divorce, take their shots in New York, the current music capital of the country. Stranger reporter Hannah Levin goes along for the ride.
Tools
It was with this in mind that The Stranger went along with two buzz-worthy Seattle acts--the Divorce, a rising indie rock band with commercial potential, and the Turn-Ons, a more mature, artistically adventurous band a-as they navigated their way through the music industry hierarchy over the course of a four-day trip to New York in June. Both groups have paid their dues and made a dent locally-the Turn-Ons released three records over four years on their own label (Childstar Records), and the Divorce released an extremely well-received debut last spring on the now-defunct Fugitive Records. Led by their shared manager, Christian Dowager, the bands were looking to nurture a new fan base in New York City and catch the attention of the producers, journalists, and A&R folks who can give hopeful acts an inlet to broader audiences. What follows is a diary of their hot, sticky descent into the Big Apple, a week of searing heat, serious rocking, and perpetual partying.
Wednesday, June 15, 9:15 pm
Stranger Personals
the Spice Market
Under the well-meaning and courteous direction of Dowager, a Brit-by-way-of-Los Angeles who relocated to Seattle last year to manage the Turn-Ons and (more recently) the Divorce, we find ourselves "meeting and greeting" at the Spice Market, a celeb-studded Southeast Asian restaurant in the meatpacking district, presumably under the guise of creating interest in the shows both bands will play over the next four days. We are joined by an assortment of random, beautiful guests who don't seem particularly interested in either band, including a svelte, semi-snarky publicist responsible for promoting parties for W, Vanity Fair, and Spin, as well as a disarmingly arrogant young man claiming to be the personal assistant for painter Chuck Close. I sip my $14 ginger-infused margarita, marvel at our $60 micro-appetizers, and begin fantasizing about finding a more suitably sordid dive bar that will let us smoke after hours. Turn-Ons guitarist Corey Gutch shares my discomfort and hopes that our next scheduled stop, a private party for both bands at the Marquee Club (where members of the Turn-Ons are scheduled as guest DJs), will be more our speed.
Wednesday, June 15, 11:30 pm, the Marquee Club
No such luck. Marquee turns out to be an opulent cliché, complete with multiple velvet ropes, Bergdorf blondes, trivial celebrity sightings (Natalie Portman, anyone?), and more insanely expensive drinks. In fact, our "private party" is simply access to the bottle-service-only area, which essentially translates into a poor man's Puff Daddy affair: We purchase a $60 bottle of mid-range vodka and are given a short, sleek couch to sit on in an upper bar that is far from private. Our place in the scene pecking order is further clarified when no one can give the band a lucid answer about their scheduled DJ slot. Although Eli Anderson, a Sonic Boom employee and friend of both bands, manages to spin a few tracks from Seattle bands the Girls, A Frames, and the Intelligence, we soon realize the turntables are about to be hijacked by indie filmmaker Larry Clark's crowd, including handsome delinquent Leo Fitzpatrick (AKA the really bad kid in Kids)--an interloper that Turn-Ons producer/multi-instrumentalist Erik Blood quickly welcomes.
"He's playing a song I've been looking for for years," Erik tells me excitedly. He heads over to ask Fitzpatrick about the record ["Bam Bam," by Sister Nancy] and seems so thrilled he no longer cares that he's lost his DJ slot. "He told me what album to find it on--now that's a cool guy!" Erik gushes, discreetly igniting a Camel Light outside of the gaze of the adjacent meathead bouncer. The thrill is short-lived: The predictable NYC rock soundtrack of Interpol and Franz Ferdinand begins thumping through the speakers, a meathead bouncer tells Erik to put out his cigarette, and our collective interest begins to run low, as does our bottle of vodka. "C'mon! Isn't this supposed to be New York City, cultural hub of all things cool?" laments Erik. We pay up and head out in search of smoker-friendly bars, cheaper drinks, and hopefully edgier ambience.
Thursday, June 16, 1:20 am, the Black and White
Because virtually every member of our traveling party is an avid smoker (if only while imbibing), negotiating New York's smoking laws is a source of both continuous irritation and communal bonding. Outdoor patios are our only saving grace, along with the curious phenomenon of after-hours smoking: Certain bars gleefully put out ashtrays after midnight, providing grateful regulars with a return to the pre-Bloomberg era and lending late-night cocktail lounges a delightfully deviant, speakeasy vibe.
Happily, we end up at just such a haven--the Black and White, a cavernous charmer of a lounge, comprehensively stocked with reasonably priced whiskey, an uplifting soundtrack of hard-edged indie rock, and vintage heavy metal--and blessedly, there's an ashtray on every table.
After closing down the bar, all four Divorcees and Eli shack up in the same snug hotel room. This doesn't seem to bother them too much, thanks to their youthful adaptability, the sheer excitement of being in New York for the first time, and the obvious ease of their interpersonal dynamics.
"I think we have the best time when we're all together," explains drummer Kyle Risan. "Myself, [bassist] Jimmy [Curran], and [frontman] Shane [Berry] all lived in the same apartment for a while and we didn't get on each other's nerves--any more than could be expected. The close-quarters thing is something we're used to and feel comfortable with."
Camaraderie and optimism aside, they all seem relatively unencumbered by trivial conflict. "There will never be a full-length feature film about the Divorce's problems and how we worked through it," deadpans guitarist Garrett Lunceford. "We don't need a $5,000-a-day counselor."
Thursday, June 16, 8:30 pm, Pianos
Inside the dark, narrow showroom, the Divorce are tuning up and Shane is squinting through the red haze of an oddly-placed spotlight. "Good evening, we're the Divorce," he says, with barely a millisecond of hesitation before they launch into "Air Traffic Control," a newer song that reflects the dramatic departure in their sound since issuing There Will Be Blood Tonight, their debut record, last spring on Fugitive Records. While that record's shiny pop-punk perfection and slick production earned them plenty of KEXP airplay and a respectable following of loyal young fans, after watching them tear through this opening number and segue effortlessly into the next, it's abundantly clear that either they hadn't realized their potential when that record came out or the subsequent introduction of Garrett as a second guitarist has punched up their sound and diversified their arrangements so dramatically that they're almost a different band.
The sparse but receptive crowd includes three feverish Divorce fans who drove all the way from Washington, D.C., to display their appreciation (and vocalize repeated requests for specific songs). Watching them hang on every lyric and elbow each other with excitement, it's pretty obvious the band could nurture a sizable female fan base with very little effort.
Friday, June 17, 10:07 pm, Royal Oak
After a great deal of confusion about set times and acceptable volume levels, the Turn-Ons are setting up their gear on the dark maple floors of the Royal Oak, an architecturally gorgeous, painfully hip new bar in Williamsburg. They've received caustic, conflicting warnings from the bartender and soundman about how loud they can play--apparently the bar's acceptability as a live music venue is still in question by local law enforcement, an unknown variable that leaves everyone wondering whether one cymbal crash too many will end the evening prematurely.
Lithe, soft-spoken frontman Travis DeVries gently strums the opening chords to "The Low End," a newly-minted and appropriately hushed down-tempo song, but the noisy chatter of three hipsters effectively erases the grace of the moment. Travis strolls over, still playing his guitar, and inquires politely, but firmly, "Do you mind?" As if by virtue of his low-key approach, the rude chatterboxes promptly exit and are cumulatively replaced by a highly appreciative--albeit moderately drunken--crowd who eventually take full advantage of the band's close proximity (there is no stage to speak of, unless you count a few layers of ruby-colored rugs), snapping photos, dancing illegally (stern "No Dancing!" signs line the perimeter of the room in accordance with the city's cabaret laws), and generally going berserk for the Turn-Ons' seamless blend of glamorous space rock and brainy, narcotic Brit-pop. Any concerns over decibel levels fall away and Travis leaps up on tables and chairs, careening around the room with such reckless aplomb that I overhear two slack-jawed hipsters declare--unironically--that this is "the best shit to come out of Seattle since grunge."
Sitting in a nearby booth, grinning and nodding appreciatively, is Paul Mahajan, the well-respected sound engineer behind several of New York's most recently revered bands, including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, and TV on the Radio--a fact that doesn't go unnoticed by Erik, a respectable producer in his own right (along with recording the Turn-Ons' records, he's recently engineered the Catch's debut and is helping the Divorce finish their sophomore release). The two later hook up for soul food at Union Picnic and, as Erik puts it, "geek out a bit about production." Mahajan promises to show up for the show on Saturday at Don Hill's.
Saturday, June 18, 10:20 pm, Don Hill's
When we arrive at Don Hill's, the air conditioning is cranked so high that it can't be more than 55 degrees inside, the gruff doormen and bartenders seem fully irritated at our presence, and there are a grand total of seven people in attendance. I seriously consider just calling it a night and heading somewhere more warm and friendly--such as the street corner outside--but Christian pleads, drapes me in his wool military jacket, and buys me a White Russian, convincing me to stick it out.
As soon as the Divorce strike the opening notes of "Birds=Magic," I'm glad I've stayed. As long as these boys book themselves a national tour and college radio picks this up as a single, they have a clean shot at serious success. As a frontman, Shane has an arrestingly pretty face and a sorrowful sprinkling of heart-shaped tattoos, but he's no Chris Carrabba clone--he's wielding all the punk-rock-Peter-Pan traits that make kids of both genders simultaneously aroused and angry. Package that with dry lyrical wit, uncompressible natural energy, and guitar lines that somehow arc regally without sailing into shallow, radio-friendly waters, and you've got the perfect band for older emo kids who are getting hungry for something more self-effacing and less self-flagellating.
As promised, Paul Mahajan shows up with a gaggle of pretty girls and more than a few kind words for both bands. The showroom is soon flooded with a foxy, white-belted crowd for TISWAS, a punk rock dance party not unlike Seattle's dearly departed Pho Bang, and things start feeling much warmer and festive as the kids dance to the proverbial underground. Mahajan and the Turn-Ons retire to the makeshift green room in the club's decrepit basement to talk shop, while Divorce bassist Jimmy Curran and I shamelessly dance like idiots to Jet, jointly wishing the tour wasn't so close to ending.
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As often happens on these journeys, it's difficult to quantify what was gained for each band, but both can claim notable accomplishments: The Divorce managed to attract some serious major-label attention, and rumor has it that reps will be checking out the band on their home court at Neumo's on August 19. After a live KEXP broadcast from the Museum of Television & Radio (John Richards was broadcasting his popular morning show from NYC all that week), the Turn-Ons met with Mahajan's agency reps at Breathing Protection. The influential agency expressed interest in aligning the band with Mahajan for their next recording project--and given the amount of time the engineer spent hanging out with the band at the Royal Oak and Don Hill's, along with the easy rapport he shared with Erik, it wouldn't surprise me to see his name on the next album's liner notes.
Regardless of the ultimate result, a few outcomes remain indisputable facts: Both bands came home dirt poor (Garrett had to pay $150 to the hotel for burning the carpet, and fashion-conscious Corey couldn't stay away from Vivienne Westwood's boutique) and physically exhausted (Divorce drummer Kyle was sick for two weeks). But they're all deliriously happy and probably won't hesitate to head east the next opportunity they get.
Chatting at Linda's one month later, I ask Shane to relay his favorite memory of New York. He pauses, struggling to narrow down his options, and then slams his beer on the table emphatically. "Basically, New York was one of the best times I've had in my life," he says, positively brimming with optimism and gratitude despite the lack of A-list audiences or career-making record deals. "It was a week of doing exactly what we wanted to do. One of the best things about being in a rock band is having an excuse to go to different places around the country and around the world--how can you complain about that?" n
The Turn-Ons and the Divorce play Neumo's on Thurs Aug 19 with the Cops and Charmparticles.
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