The Next Round - Episode 6: Beat Radio

Sorry for the podcast break, but I'm back with a long two-beer chat with Brian Sendrowitz of Beat Radio.  Brian and I met for happy hour drinks because like most of us, he has a day job.  But that suits him just fine, as it provides him the financial stability to make the kind of music he wants to make when he wants to make it.  It's an interesting listen, especially to hear the volume escalate as the bar gets increasingly busier.  Also I was getting over a cold when we taped it, so excuse the sniffles.

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If you'd like to check out Beat Radio's latest two singles, go to their Bandcamp.  They're also playing Saturday at Spike Hill in Williamsburg at 8pm sharp (Facebook invite here).

Due to a booking error, I won't be at Flannery's tonight as stated, but I will be hosting at Magooby's Joke House on Friday and Saturday.  Paul Virzi headlines.  LivingSocial deal available too!

Beat Radio Bushwick Show Gets Cut Short

"I'm breaking out keyboard and the sampler tonight for my solo set at Brooklyn Fireproof.  Things might get weird."  Or so read Beat Radio's Twitter at 3:58 Friday afternoon.  At 8:30, just sitting down to my dinner, I saw the post on their Facebook: "Set time was moved up to 10pm!"  I scarfed down my salad, and began the hour-long commute to Bushwick.  It turned out the venue had double-booked, forcing the four acts on the first show to cram their sets into half the time.  It was understandable that Brian Sendrowitz didn't want to spend half of his allotment rigging up electronics, so he opted for an amplified acoustic guitar.  Three songs in, he asked, "Do I have time for one more?"  God, I hoped so.  Though his performance lasted barely 18 minutes, it was nice to get to hear some older tunes like "Sunday Matinee" and "Treetops," even if the latter was at a faster tempo, likely sped up to preserve time.

Bushwick may be a blossoming neighborhood due to its affordable rents, but no one who doesn't already live there wants to go.  The transportation options are too limited to make it accessible to anyone not living along the L or the brown line.  While there is a certain thrill to the DIY attitude of the venues, it rarely outweighs the fact that almost every show that I've been to in the area has been sparsely attended.  I guess that's the irony the hipsters have been searching for.

BEAT RADIO - 07.19.13 - BROOKLYN FIREPROOF (17 minutes, 45 seconds)

SET -

Sunday Matinee / Chasing a Phantom / Treetops / Golden Age / Hurricanes, XO

Both Brians of Beat Radio Back in Brooklyn

I walked into Muchmore's about five minutes before 9 to find a tiny bar that only had Abita on tap (What?).  I quickly discovered there was much more to Muchmore's (Well, not exactly.) when I looked through a doorway to my right to see a stage in a room about the size of a studio apartment.  Couches lined the muraled walls, decorated with grotesque characters like this angel.

Why was I in this unfamiliar place?  Beat Radio were making their return to Williamsburg after last month's gig at Pete's Candy Store.  And this time, Brian Sendrowitz would be accompanied by his sole bandmate, Brian Ver Straten, on drums.  The duo opened with "Elegy," and transported the room into a what resembled a mid-'90s grungy house party.  While Sendrowitz himself has described his music as "bedroom pop," Beat Radio's latest effort, Hard Times, Go!, was recorded in his basement, and it sounds like it.  Just listen to the screeches of guitar on "Hurricanes, XO" or Ver Straten's cymbal crashes on "Never Let You Down."  You can't make that kind of noise in your bedroom.  Bringing that basement-sized sound into the demented living room-vibe of Muchmore's paid off in a big way.  Every song sounded fuller than it did at Pete's or on the record.  The distortion in "East Coast" could've curdled milk, and it contrasted wonderfully against Brian's tender singing.  When he hit a wrong chord in "Stars Collided in Our Hearts," Sendrowitz apologized, "Sorry," with a bashful smile.  He was immediately excused because it was so genuine, it was like he was among friends.  Even his pitch for merchandise was affable, if silly: "We're like Kiss.  We have action figures, beer koozies, Hot Pockets.  Some of those are true."  And while Hard Times songs made up the bulk of the set, it was a nice surprise to hear older tune, "Everything is Temporary."

Because the show started a half-hour late, I wasn't able to run over to Brooklyn Bowl to watch Everything Everything as I'd planned, so I stuck around for the next two bands on the bill.  The Pine Hollows came next, playing most of their new album, Something My Heart Understands.  Led by Gianni Napolitano, who looks and sounds like he could've been a member of the Beatles circa 1963, the Pine Hollows make music in the mold of those early Beatles singles.  Perhaps too tightly in the mold.  There are worse bands to emulate, for sure, but the strongest moments came in a three-song sequence towards the end of the set that rocked harder than the rest, ending with the creepy cadence of "After Dark."  Hopefully they will continue to expand their sound, and not just in the way the Beatles did.

The final band of the evening was Hey Anna, an indie pop outfit consisting of the three Rauch-Sasseen sisters and two of their friends.  The band incorporated several trendy styles into each song to create music that is both catchy and substantial.  While the sisters often swapped lead vocal duties, I preferred the configuration with Erin at the helm, as it seems the band does, just based on the number of songs she fronted.  Things got moody and literal when guitarist Andrew Smolin requested, "Can we turn all of the lights off?" for "Blackout," and new song "Dancin' 'Til 3" recalled a female version of Vampire Weekend.  I'm gonna keep them on my radar, as should you.  Download their EP for free here.

BEAT RADIO - 03.22.13 - MUCHMORE'S (37 minutes)

SET -

Elegy / Golden Age / East Coast / Hard Times, Go! / Stars Collided in Our Hearts / Teenage Anthem for the Drunken Boat / Everything is Temporary / Days Like Diamonds / Hurricanes, XO

Beat Radio Covers Robyn at Pete's Candy Store

Beat Radio's new album Hard Times, Go! drops on the 19th (though you can buy it now on Bandcamp), and last night at Pete's Candy Store, fans were treated to batch of the new tunes, some old favorites, and a cover of Robyn's "With Every Heartbeat."  When I arrived at Pete's, the bar was bustling.  I squeezed my way into the train car-styled back room, and found myself in the midst of a poetry reading.  The final poet was reading from his book of verses from the point of view of a schizophrenic man, but I found it vapid, considering the author didn't know his character well enough to know where he was or what he was doing.

The poets cleared out after hawking their books, but they should've stuck around.  After soundchecking with a bit of "Golden Age," Brian Sendrowitz a.k.a. Beat Radio took the stage with his guitar.  Beginning with "Days Like Diamonds" from the new album, he moved onto a cover of Robyn's "With Every Heartbeat."  Sendrowitz has admitted that the new album was directly inspired by the Swedish pop singer's Body Talk, so this was more of a loving tribute than a hipster joke.  He then revealed "Chasing a Phantom" was written after watching an episode of Mad Men.

"So my drummer Brian's gonna have a baby.  Well, his wife's gonna have a baby momentarily, so he's not here," Sendrowitz said before inviting Pete Oberg to join him on synth for the single, "Hurricanes, XO."  "This one's kinda sad and depressing," Brian offered, teasing Hank Williams' "There's a Tear in My Beer" preceding one of my favorites, "Stars Collided in Our Heart."  To introduce "Dreaming Wide Awake," he began telling the story of its germination in helping to move his sister-in-law upstate, but was interrupted from a yell in the back.  "Incest!" the guy shouted.  Confused, Sendrowitz asked, "What?"  "You guys need a drummer?" the intruder proposed.  Brian shrugged it off, continuing, "I'm dedicating it to my sister-in-law because it would be a nice thing to do, until things got weird."  Laughs from the crowd.  "Awkward for life. That's our motto," he said, starting into a more subdued version of the song than on the album.  Sendrowitz has been busy recording an acoustic companion to the album for its Kickstarter sponsors, which has been somewhat of a surreal experience for him.  "It's like in 2004, if I'd decided to go in the alternate direction. It feels like I'm living that now," he remarked.  Expecting another HTG track, I was pleasantly surprised to hear heartfelt oldie "Teenage Anthem for the Drunken Boat."  The song references both "Don't Stop Believin'" and "More Than a Feeling" in its lyrics, and with a smile, Brian repeated the "More than a feeling" line in the style of Boston.

There is a definite poetry in Beat Radio's words.  I first saw them perform at the Bell House in 2009 when they opened for the Mugs.  I had slept only an hour the previous night, and was nodding in and out of sleep throughout the performance, but some of those words found their way into my sleepyhead.  I gained even more respect for Sendrowitz after the show, when he stopped chatting with the pretty girls surrounding him in order to get a CD for me.  (I realize now that he was probably married at the time, so it wasn't that big of a deal.)  That concert was my last in New York before I moved to California that year.  It was actually in California, on the lawn of the Brand Library in Glendale, where I really connected to Beat Radio, listening to The Great Big Sea on my iPod, the theme of a romanticized past striking a chord.  Though I don't listen to the album often, I pull it out during the emotional times when I need it.

Hard Times, Go! is a darker album than the previous Beat Radio records.  In earlier efforts, the blips, bloops, and loops of the instrumentation helped to uplift Brian's musings on failed relationships and nostalgia to a point where they never seemed permanent.  He'd learn to love again and lose again, a vicious cycle, but a cycle with some optimism.  Despite the Robyn influence, the new LP is decidedly less electronic, and the lyrics are decidedly more adult, infused with the complications brought on by both the dissolution of the band and money problems.   Sendrowitz, unlike the ambitious, yet spurious poet, knows where his POV is coming from.

So what prevents the album from being a complete dirge?  The hope in Brian's vocals.  Sendrowitz is not technically a great singer, but he's an honest singer.  When his voice wavers, you excuse him because of the excellent songwriting, sort of like Bob Dylan.  Maybe that's not an accurate analogy because Dylan is obviously a better lyricist, and Brian is a better singer.  Jeff Mangum might be a better comparison.  Be that as it may, I think he should have started the show with Pete on keys.  The guitar and synth harmonized to complement Brian's vocals nicely, so if he had put that portion upfront, he could've then stripped it down to be even more honest and intimate.  It might've even kept around some poets who could've initially been turned off by another warbling guy with an acoustic guitar.

BEAT RADIO - 02.01.13 - PETE'S CANDY STORE (33 minutes, 18 seconds)

SOUNDCHECK -
Golden Age (incomplete)

SET -
Days Like Diamonds / With Every Heartbeat / Chasing a Phantom / Hurricanes, XO / Golden Age / There's a Tear in My Beer (tease) > Stars Collided in Our Hearts / Dreaming Wide Awake / Teenage Anthem for the Drunken Boat