Sep

28

with Saint Rich

Sun September 28th, 2014

7:00PM

Main Space

Minimum Age: 21+

Doors Open: 6:00PM

Show Time: 7:00PM

event description event description

Lagunitas is hittin’ the road to New Orleans with a special #CouchTrippin Fusion Ale, our friends at O+, some freaktacular entertainment from our Beer Circus, and even some couches from our Loft.
 
Join them in New York for a big freakin’ party with the two bands: Saint Rich & MAN MAN
Lagunites Couch Trippin’
#CouchTrippin
 
FREE w/ RSVP here
 
This is a general admission, standing event.

the artists the artists

Man Man

Man Man is a fearlessly unique band from Philadelphia. The group’s fifth full length album On Oni Pond features an arresting reconstruction of the group’s visionary sound – stripped to its core and rebuilt as something new and compelling yet still very much Man Man. This marked shift is a direct result of an intensive collaboration between the band’s frontman, Honus Honus, and drummer Pow Pow, who has assumed a new-found prominence in the songwriting process, bringing an exhilarating array of new rhythmic ideas to the mix. “With this album we got to do something that very few bands or creative people get to do which is a reboot, and one that feels natural,” comments Honus Honus.
 

In a review of a track called “Head On,” Pitchfork writes that Man Man “have taken their licks and endured, evolving from their excitable and divisive Beefheart/Zappa-influenced early work into rich and resonant piano pop that values populism over provocation.”
 

The compositions on the new album were honed by the band members along with producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, First Aid Kit) into a compelling mash-up of Fear Of Music era Talking Heads, classic soul, psychedelia, hip hop, and 50’s rock and roll. With its imaginative yet economical rhythms, huge hooks, and overriding sense of urgency, On Oni Pond melds these seemingly disparate influences into an unexpectedly lush, melodic album, exquisitely consolidated by the band’s unique and affecting vision.
 

“This is a strange and beautiful record but it’s also head on and fearless,” says Honus Honus. “It’s not a record that’s going to flirt with you, this is a record that’s asking you out. If you get into bed with us there’s going to be a relationship.”
 

Man Man’s latest also expresses Honus Honus’ evolution as a lyricist. Consistently inventive, the lyrics now have a new poignancy and insight that makes this album as personal and reflective as it is joyous. The thematic centerpiece of the record is the bittersweet, deconstructed soul anthem “Head On.” Simultaneously melancholy and inspiring, the track features a unique take on personal resilience exemplified by the lines, “Are you dreaming of death? Are there ghosts in your chest?” and “I need new skin for this old skeleton of mine ‘cause this one that I’m in has let me down once again over time,” which build into the refrain “Hold onto your heart, hold it high above flood waters, hold onto your heart, never let nobody drag it under.”
 

With On Oni Pond, Man Man has delivered a beautifully weird and unforgettable collection of songs. From the pounding syncopated drumming, psychedelic organ and impassioned crooning of “Pink Wonton” to the sneering new wave dub of “King Shiv” and the big beat bratty swagger of “Loot My Body,” this is an undeniably ambitious band reborn to new, focused greatness.
 

Man Man official site

Saint Rich

IN THE SPACE BETWEEN what had become near constant touring for Delicate Steve, practice was scheduled at bandleader Steve Marion’s home in rural Sussex County, New Jersey.
 
Fans of the cult-favorite band would recognize the pastoral setting from band-posted photos on the internet; horses grazing, green hills, mountain lakes. They call it upstate, the part of New Jersey that doesn’t have a reality show.
 
Christian Peslak, the group’s guitarist arrived at the house first. The weather that had been threatening all day came. Winter storm, too warm. Rain took the Paulinskill River over its banks and washed the road out period. Practice ain’t happening with the full band today.
 
Two friends in a room now. Marion puts down his guitar and gets behind the drum kit. Peslak starts strumming the opening chords to “Dreams,” a new song they’d finish within the hour. By the end of the weekend, neither had left the house. There were 7 new songs. And a new band.
They named it Saint Rich.
 
CHRISTIAN AND STEVE have been orbiting each other for nearly 10 years in a surprisingly vibrant local scene. Before Peslak was drafted as a guitarist into the Delicate Steve touring band, he was a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who had completed an album’s worth of songs by the time he was 15. It was then Peslak was approached cold by Marion (still in high school himself) — an enterprising local guitarist who had begun producing and arranging records who had heard Peslak’s demos through a friend.
 
The two struck up a friendship, worked together, and jammed when they could. Three years later Steve had recorded ‘Wondervisions’ as Delicate Steve, an instrumental record released by David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, that entered the world via a glowing New York Times review. With the vocal appreciation from many of the indie rock world’s beloved bands, [Dirty Projectors, Yeasayer, tUnE-yArDs, Built to Spill, Akron/Family, Ra Ra Riot, Fang Island, Zach Hill] and constant touring, the band began their own ascent into the indie-pantheon.
 
Since then, Peslak has provided the rhythmic guitar bedrock to Marion’s wandering melody lines in Delicate Steve. On Beyond The Drone, the debut album from Saint Rich, it’s fair to say that Marion has created the bedrock for Peslak’s wandering.
 
Peslak sings with a natural ease, a spirit that finds its way into all corners of Saint Rich songs. There’s reference here to the Laurel Canyons, old and new, to Bearsville, to any place where assorted love songs were recorded in a space you imagine had vaulted wide beamed ceilings with waters running close outside.
 
Beyond the Drone is the kind of record you continue to find new songs on after listening for a few months. It’s entirely self-possessed and a vital heart pumps through the tape. It’s a record built on the foundation of 10 year’s playing together, but born in the urgency of a flood. You will hear all of that.
 
Saint Rich on Facebook

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