Three Shades of Gray
Thurs April 3 at the Last Supper Club.
First, a quick quiz: Do you enjoy listening to--or own--any records by the following bands (please mark all that apply):
() The Eagles
() Bruce Hornsby & the Range
() Phil Collins-era Genesis
() G. Love & Special Sauce
If you marked one or all of these bands, then chances are you'll like Three Shades of Gray. You'll enjoy their funk/rock/blues/occasional-hiphop/easy-listening brand of product.
If instead you merely scoffed or grunted or muttered something along the lines of "Man, that shit's lame," then you might want to skip their next show.
Here's another (fairly obtuse) description: Three Shades of Gray's songs remind me of the Miami Vice coda music. To explain: At the end of nearly every Miami Vice episode, after Crockett and Tubbs have slaughtered some nefarious dealer/cartel, inevitably there's a scene where one or both of them gaze solemnly out at the carnage, a breeze massaging their pastel suits, while some would-be hit plays on the soundtrack. Fade out, roll credits. This is the type of music Three Shades of Gray play.
Am I being snide? Not really. To be honest, Three Shades of Gray aren't my type of thing, but that doesn't make them bad. After all, if they sucked, people wouldn't have danced at their performance (though said dancing was that awkward, jerky dance many of us white people often inflict on others around us--a dance I call the "honky hotfoot"). Six members strong (two guitars, bass, keyboard, drums, and bongos--yes, bongos!), Three Shades of Gray are ridiculously accomplished; their set sounds straight from a CD. They even manage to pull off a cover/medley moving from Blondie's "Rapture" to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" back to "Rapture"--and, as official One-Night Stand photographer Ryan (maybe facetiously) pointed out to me during the show, "How can you not like a band that references marijuana and porn in the same song?"
I had no response.
