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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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VICEBURGH: Children of the Eclipse
Thursday 22 June @ 02:33:04 |
 I’ll readily cop to having fantasized on occasion about what it would have been like to grow up in the musically fertile Twin Cities rather than upstate New York. Discovering new music for me was generally something that only happened through far too many hours spent on the computer or lengthy road trips to bigger cities, meanwhile Twin Citties kiddos like the four teenagers who make up Viceburgh got to spend their school days inundated by exciting live music directly in their midst. As if that alone wasn’t enough to make me jealous they’ve gone quite a few steps further, taking the inspiration offered by their local heroes – their named after a Lifter Puller song - and running with it by creating an exciting band steeped in the sound of past and present Twin Cities greats.
“We all really love Lifter Puller and that’s what brought us together,” recalls singer/guitarist Sean Keith, 19 of the band he shares with guitarist Dustin Kleingartner, bassist James Shaff and drummer Geoff Freeman. “I feel like growing up in the local music scene has been probably the most defining thing in my life, I’ve been playing in a band since 7th grade. We draw so much of our inspiration and from local bands. I spent most of my early teens going to Eclipse Records [the St. Paul record shop and all ages music venue which closed in 2003]. You got to see these bands so many times, you got to see them evolve and refine their sound and showmanship – I mean I’ve seen Malachi Constant something like twenty-five times. It’s given us a lot of information on how to do it. Eclipse was truly amazing, not only did you see great local bands play but Joe [Furth, the owner of the store] would give you the chance to get up and do it your self. It’s a big learning experience just getting up on the stage.”
With the DIY-fire lit beneath them by Furth and friends, the boys of Viceburgh didn’t stop gigging when their beloved venue closed its doors; still too young to legally rock most clubs, they brought the club to themselves, building a mini-Eclipse in Kleingartner’s parents basement that became the site of more than one unbridled rock ‘n’ roll exhibition. “The coolest thing for this band is that we’ve always created our own shows,” says Keith, “that’s something we learned from Eclipse. We built a stage in our guitarist’s basement, set up a PA and lighting, we had over 90 people packed in there for a couple of different gigs. The fun thing about that was you could find out about a band and just invite them to play.”
The foursome’s years spent as attentive adolescent listeners and musical self-starters have paid off in spades on their aptly titled debut for Afternoon Records, Intense Excitement, with Keith’s ragged talk-sung-snarl clearly indebted to Lifter Puller/Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn and his band favoring a beautifully cacophonous post-punk duel guitar attack equal parts Plastic Constellations and the aforementioned Malachi Constant. Although playing ‘spot the local music influence’ is certainly a fun game when listening to Viceburgh, the mammoth hooks on tracks like the stuttering and frenetic “Royal Flush” and rollicking toast to the vagabond life “Highway 52” are so enjoyable by their own rights that citing sources of inspiration becomes the last thing on the listeners mind. Not all of Intense Excitement holds up to close scrutiny, the minute-long acoustic closer “Death By Kowabunga” is pretty much the definition of a throwaway track, but in it’s high points, roughly half the EP, Viceburgh sound like the kind of band that could inspire their own legions of adoring local youngsters - this despite the fact they’re all still fresh faced kids themselves having recently wrapped their freshman years of college.
Helping the kids hone their sound was an unlikely source, veteran local producer Knol Tate, 31, himself a local kid inspired by growing up in the musically bustling Dinkytown area during the ’80s. “I had seen Askeleton a bunch of times playing at Eclipse and sort of thought from there that we would knew each other by faces,” recalls Keith. “Our friends in the band Squareshooters had just been doing some recording with Knol that sounded great so I decided to call him up and ask if he would be willing to do some recording with us. It was only once we got there that I realized he really didn’t know who we were at all. It was cool though; I think he ended up being really into it. We recorded the three songs on the EP in the spring of 2005 and then about four months later recorded the rest.”
Much to his credit, Tate keeps things sounding cohesive whether the band is opting for angular artiness, as on the dreamily loose limbed “Pus Harvest,” or club-you-over-the-head-rockitude like searing album opener and mission statement “Keepin’ it Real.” At this point in their nascent musical journey Viceburgh is uncertain whether their an anthemic rock outfit tinkering with occasional serrated punk edges or an avant punk group that dabbles in directness, hearing them figure it out is half the fun. Like all bands worth keeping an eye on Viceburgh are a work in progress that are constantly seeking to evolve.
“We waited such a long time to release anything,” says Keith, “I’ve been pretty serious about being in a band for a long time. Now that we finally have a record out it’s made us want to try even harder. Now we can actually give something to people so that they can listen to it beyond the shows. I’ve been gone at college all year [in Beloit, Wisconsin] and I’ve just been coming back to town here and there to play with the band. It’s been really good, even leaving the band for a while, because all of us have had time to practice on our own and listen to a lot of new stuff independently which I think is a positive. When we came back together we were the best we’ve ever been. It’s nice to have everything be fresh, have us hearing things with new ears, playing differently. I’m excited to see where it goes next.”
Viceburgh play on Saturday June 24th at the Triple Rock Social Club with fellow openers Battle Royale and Malone and headlining act Superdanger. 5 p.m. $7. All Ages. They play again later that night for a 21+ show again with Battle Royale and Superdanger. 10 p.m. $7. 629 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. 612-333-7399. For more information on Viceburgh check them out at http://www.myspace.com/viceburgh or head over to their record label’s website, http://www.afternoonrecords.com.
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