Anytown Graffiti

    

                              

             

Anytown Graffiti-Pela

Released: April 23, 2007

Great Society Recordings

Right now, this is my favorite album.  Not kidding.  I actually have to stop myself from listening to it all of the time.  Pela is, without question, one of the absolute best new bands (even though they've been around a few years...) of this decade.  No question.  I believe that they will be around for a very long time.  I hope they will be around for a very long time.  Recently, I geeked out and after seeing them at the Tractor Tavern, hopped on a train a couple of days later to see them play at the Doug Fir in Portland, OR.  On a whim.  Something completely uncharacteristic of me.  But they were just so damn GOOD!  They played like no band I've seen in a looooooooooong time.  They played with love and joy and energy and heart and soul and generosity.  The sold out Tractor folks couldn't get enough.  When they were done, we were all wishing they would play more and more.  It was such an intensely, singular and amazing experience that waking up a couple of days later and realizing that I could hop on Amtrak and see them play that night, I felt that I simply had to.  A three hour-ish train ride later and I was checking into the hotel adjacent to the Doug Fir.  Met most of the band as they were entering the restaurant--part of the Doug Fir; very inclusive kind of place to stay and see a show, if you're ever in the area--and I was exiting to get the wallet I'd left in my room.  

"O.  Hi."

"Hi."

"I just wanted to tell you guys that your show at the Tractor was so amazing that I had to take the train down to see you play tonight!"

"Really?!!  Wow.  I'm Billy.  This is Tom, Nate and Chris [the tour manager, not the keyboard player.].  Thank you!  That's so great.  Gosh, I'm blushing."  Handshakes and hugs.  (Even if those weren't Billy's exact words, they're pretty darn close, and he did say that it made him blush.)

That's the other thing...  they are so nice.  Genuinely nice.  Sincerely and wonderfully nice and grateful for the support and energy the audiences give.  It's such a reciprocal relationship and I really believe it's uncanny.  I see a lot of live music and even though I often enjoy the show and, if I'm paying to see them, I really like the band, I haven't seen this kind of show.  I saw them play for a sold out crowd and two days later a not even 1/2 full house.  They played with equal intensity and abandon.  All out.  No sluffing off because the crowd wasn't there.  These guys love what they do and want to share it.  That's really not as common as one might think.  They are a rare gift to rock n' roll.  BUY THEIR MUSIC.  SEE THEM PLAY LIVE.  You will not regret it.

Every time I hear this album, now, I still feel some of that thrill from their live show.  They're the real deal.  As Shawn said, via a text after seeing them at Spaceland, in LA, "Ok.  They are 4 real."  And how!  

Listening to Anytown Graffiti is, even before I saw Pela's live shows, a unique experience.  I get excited about what I'm hearing as I'm listening.  Every time.  The commitment and emotion is visceral.  The intensity, palpable.  In some ways, this album hints at early--like Boy early--U2, especially "Tenement Teeth".  A song that also contains one of my favorite passionately sung/screamed lyrics "I kissed her lips of ruby red and this is what was said: LAND!  LAND!  LAND!  LAND!"   How about hearing that played, live, and a crowd of hepped up folks crying "LAND!" with you, huh?  It almost can't get any sexier...  "Calvary", less than 4 minutes long, was an emotionally powerful audience sing-a-long of 10 minutes, maybe even 15, at the Tractor.  It's pretty powerful on the record, too.  With the exception of track one, "Waiting on the Stairs" and the title track, "Anytown Graffiti", these songs come in at four minutes or less.  They have a tendency to leave the listener--at least this listener--wanting more, but also knowing that had they gone on, it would have been too much.  Pretty smart, lads.  The talented McCarthy's powerful and emotionally charged vocals ride along with the playing of his fellow supremely talented band mates.  Readers of this blog will already have noted that I'm a sucker for resonating-beats-in-your-chest drumming and Pela's Tom Zovich is among the best drummers working, today, in my humble opinion.  Wow.  

As a whole, this album is gloriously not over produced.  You know how that can happen.  It can sound too perfect.  Too crisp.  This record, for me, sounds like they're all playing in the same room together, like in the old days of recording.  Not laying down individual tracks, with musicians in separate rooms.  There is a rawness and alive quality to this album.  Lyrics that evoke lost loves and hard living, while not getting stuck in morose, self-pitying mush.  No, too much passion for that.  The final track, "7th and 17th" is an acoustic guitar accompanied by the sounds of children playing--a city pool?-- and a thunderstorm's arrival quietly ends the album.  Summers past, when life wasn't so complicated by heartache and desire... lovely.  

I gush.  I know.  I probably blabbered on too much when I met them at the restaurant, too.  I can't help it.  They make me excited for the future of music.  They're inspiring.  I feel compelled to spread the word that is Pela.  Even if I wind up sounding like a silly groupie.  I'm not.  It's not like that at all.  I believe in this band and their talent.  These guys are special.  Rare.