The Eames Era and Exit Clov @ Iota Club and Cafe
A track on a couple soundtracks, buzz spewing from the URLs of a few hundred bloggers, some decent press in Spin – used to be that was enough to get you a record label deal. The Eames Era may not have found the going so easy, but after a wonderful little set at Iota on Monday night, they seem poised for a bigger breakthrough.
The band’s basically four dudes – two guitars, bass, drums – backing the cute and bubbly Ashlin Phillips. Phillips is the kind of frontwoman who turns an everyday indie pop band into something to write home about. She’s the only one really moving on stage, but she moves a lot and quite well too – if the Pipettes are ever looking for a fourth, they need not look any further.
The songs rarely deviate from straightforward indie pop. The two guitars provide the texture and the drive, the bass and drums the foundation, and the vocals give the performances their icing, or their gooey center, or whatever sweet-tooth-pop-hook analogy you prefer. When the guitarists weren’t cracking dead pan jokes – after the second song, one of them dryly quipped, “So far, this is the best show we’ve ever played” – they were chiming along with new wave interplay or just a set of pleasantly ringing chords. After taking the usually bouncy “Little Brother” slowly, the band hit their stride on the yelping, dance-y “When You Were a Millionaire.” The set stayed in the mid-tempo to fast range throughout, which allowed them to keep a sturdy pace while running through “Both Hands Full,” “I Am A Thing,” and the surf-tinged “Last to Know.” Surprisingly, there was no “Fake Do-Gooders”, but closing with the funny a cappella of “Dear Gabby” compensated.
Other songs (“Benjamin,” “Watson On Your Side”) reminded us a lot of Elephant 6 alums like Essex Green, and consequently it’s hard to make the argument that they’ve got a really original thing going on. Standard indie arrangements yield uncommonly catchy and often witty songs performed by a hip and cute lead singer? Sounds like a recipe for blogosphere success to me.
For the Eames Era, the show was the beginning of a two week tour with D.C.’s own Exit Clov. Exit Clov have built up a substantial following the past couple years, aided by some strong performances, a number of well-received releases, and an ability to jump from genre to genre with ease. They headlined this particular night, and though the crowd thinned a little bit, it was evident that this band have a good group of fans.
As for the music itself — yeah, the genre-jumping is all true. The band is very tight, extremely well-rehearsed, and sounds crisp and sharp all the time. But the memorable moments were somewhat rare, and, frankly, not all that memorable.
On the other hand, “MK Ultra” is their big pop song, and it was a good demonstration of the band at its best. A Replacements-indebted intro led into a wash of shoegazer fuzz – not terribly unlike Asobi Seksu – and featured bright harmonies from sisters Emily and Susan Hsu. This and a couple other moments – the urgent rev of “DIY” and the vitriol-filled “The Hate” – highlighted the fact that this is a talented group of players with good chemistry. But, late in the set, the band embarked on a dizzying genre-jumping exercise, starting with an airy piano and violin part from the Hsu sisters and moving to a full-band, Eastern European folk rave and then to noisy post-punk. All the moments were well-composed and played, but the drastic jumps became disorienting and really halted the set’s flow. Even if dexterity in a diverse number of styles is the band’s strength, they might be better served narrowing their focus and giving those exciting guitar tones and delicate, breathy harmonies a little more direction.