The New Pop (Shins, Grandaddy, Spoon, Tapes n Tapes, New Pornographers, Unicorns), DFA-style disco-punk (LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture), early post-punk (Wire, Fall, Gang of Four), plus some AM Gold stuff like Cheap Trick and Hall & Oates
Sounds Like
Creative Loafing:
"Atlanta's Club Awesome crafts playful lo-fi pop melodies that fall somewhere between Joe Jackson and Joy Division."
"Club Awesome kicks out the jams with twisted, lo-fi pop gems that rhyme Josef Stalin with Jackie Collins ... and they've been known to wear Speedos on stage."
"Club Awesome, who with that name has a lot to not only live up to but also make up for ... had a solid Northwestern indie-pop thing going on...sounding parts Tullycraft and the Thermals."
Not For Tourists:
"Snowden, Deerhunter, the Selminaires, and Gringo Star have all scratched a notch on the headboard of the indie-rock scene in Atlanta. Recently, I found yet another band to add to that ever-growing list. Club Awesome likes to have pool parties... The lead singer sounds a bit like Joey Ramone and you can't help but flail about to their music. Plus, if you feel like it, you can take a dip. Wet t-shirts + good music = Awesome."
Evil Sponge:
"[Club Awesome] are a four-piece who play old fashioned angular post-punk with shouty, anthemic vocals. If you didn't like this style of music in the 80s or 90s, I would wager that Club Awesome won't really do anything for you. But for those of who have heard quite a lot of this stuff (reference points include Superchunk, The Housemartins, Hefner, and The Wedding Present), they do it surprisingly well. It's always a fun, energetic time, and I found myself really enjoying them as I bounced along happily to the tunes. I hope that they keep this up."
"I was quite afraid that Club Awesome would be a disappointment, despite the pool and the fact that I liked them when I saw them previously. However, once they began, I was totally into their music. Another hard to describe combination, I think at the time I termed it "Nerd Pop." In retrospect, I’m not sure that does the band justice. Basically, the play lots of staccato chords, with an occasional synth and over powerful drumming. Singer Errol Crane vocally bops along, reminding me just a bit of some of the more quirky North Carolina bands like SNMNMN or Eyes to Space. In short, their set was bouncy and happy, and made me (as well as most of the other denizens of The Drunken Unicorn) want to dance. Towards the end of the evening, they played a fairly accurate cover of Fire from The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Surprisingly, this choice suited Club Awesome's sound, and was one of the highlights of their set. Then, for the second time in the evening, when the band finished playing, I wanted to hear some more."
"They have a post-Interpol sound, punctuated by some rather pretty, affected guitar work with the occasional 60s style keyboard. But the music and rhythm is carried primarily by the bass, which gives the band a hard edge."
"BBs go out into the night" at Criminal Records for Record Store Day, with Errol as a sticky wet white tiger:
Thanks for filming us, Kim!
Here's a tiny tidbit of Duran Duran's "Rio" performed for Josh Rifkin's "500 Songs for Kids" charity behemoth, with hot buttered Mikey Holliday on bass:
Clapping is great. Singing along is great. Call-and-response vocals is great. Staccato dueling guitar chords is great. Counting (as in "1,2,3,4!", or even up to 14, the number of times to pump an air rifle) is great. Sad words for happy music is great. Disco drumbeats is great. But Shins-y country style also is great. Keyboards are always great. Dancing is great. Additionally, costume changes, sparklers, dry ice, large stage props, and light shows are great.
We started in 2004. We wanted to be a country-music Smiths cover band. We kind of sucked. Some people thought we were geek-rock, and some people thought we were punk, which was probably because we were doing it wrong. We threw out all our songs and wrote new ones. We put out a suggestion box at shows. "Stop standing around like fucking corpses." (Okay.) "More keyboard parts!" (Okay.) "Play 'Whyte Tygre' twice, because it's THAT GOOD." (Okay.) (Thanks.)
We started getting better. Now people were saying we sounded like Joe Jackson, which was probably just we were playing the notes right. We won a battle of the bands. We won studio time, which we forgot to use. Instead, we recorded an EP with our friend Brian Slusher from Slushco, which we forgot to release.
We opened for Asobi Seksu, The Paper Chase and Oppenheimer. Et cetera. Suddenly, we bought an aboveground pool and demanded that it go up when we played shows. Vainglorious, maybe, but it worked. The real-live-producer Nev Walker found us and offered to record our first record, and at the same time we found a use for one of our EP recordings, on a seven-inch shared with Tokyo Sex Destruction. We became magickal, and used our powers to fight evil.
Click the pages below to read our Final Essay On Club Awesome (Theme: Who's Your Greatest Hero?)
Club Awesome is a very serious and important band and people like them. Tell them how great they are at CA [AT] CLUBAWESOMEBAND [DOT] COM.
For booking please contact the lovely Bradley Hagen at BOOKING [AT] FASTFASTSHOES [DOT] COM.
YESSss! we must make the TTM, TTS + CA thing happen soon and often. we really enjoyed you guys this wknd & are glad to have finally crossed paths. we can't wait to get out Footloose on again at your next show... xo, ~ttm,tts
