by Dale Bridges
I hate band bios. During my not-so-illustrious career as a music journalist, I have read approximately seven bajillion band bios, and they always make me sad. Here’s what happens: Some idiotic marketing team in L.A. writes a bunch of sycophantic crap about how Blandy Derivative is “a totally original band”—and then they go on to compare them to a list of completely unoriginal bands that stole their sound from other completely unoriginal bands. After that, they drop the word “indie” about fifty times and hyphenate the hell out of everything. “These genre-defying indie artists can best be described as alt-nuevo-indie-rock-mariachi with a hint of folkcore-esque anti-indie-punk and a smidge of indie-jazz-metal-fusion-electronica. Did I mention they’re indie!”
It’s all bullshit.
Snarky rock critics are ruining music. As a snarky rock critic myself, I can testify to this. Intellectual dweebs in retro glasses are hyphenating good music right out of existence. Blues. Rock. Country. If these descriptors were good enough for Robert Johnson, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash, they should be good enough for your local alt-weekly hipster.
Critics, lend me your hyphens! Give it a quasi-rest already.I’ve been covering music in Boulder, Colorado for about five years, and Ego Vs Id is my favorite band. What does this mean to you? Absolutely nothing. There’s no reason to think my aesthetic discernment is any more refined than yours. However, I do think these boys are casualties of the Great Hyphen War. Their success is not even remotely equal to their talent and hard work, and I blame the hipsters for this. These days it’s not enough to deliver great lyrics and emotionally moving musical compositions; you also have to wear vegan pants and play an organic mandolin.
Ego Vs Id is a rock band in the classic sense. Rock started out as the blues played faster and with more volume. There are other differences, of course, but that’s the basic stuff. The best rock musicians have continually found ways to reinvent the blues. It’s not a matter of adding a deejay into the mix or spewing pyrotechnics all over the place. It’s about creating something new that feels old, and EVI does this better than any other live band around. They manage to move their audience with extremely personal songs about love, pain, Lenny Bruce, and girls named Jenny without ever becoming exclusionary. Some bands write songs that feel like inside jokes—only the cool kids are allowed to laugh. Hipsters love that shit. EVI is not one of those bands.
There’s a lot of anger and passion in the music, which also turns some people off. I’m not talking about whiney goth/emo anger, where twelve year olds get together and lament the loss of their iPhones. This is the real shit. It’s survivor anger, redemption anger, the type of barbaric yawp Whitman wrote about once upon a time. You can hear it in the vocals, in the slow-stabbing chords—EVI wants to hurt you. Not sadistically and not permanently, but they want you to feel a fraction of the pain they carry with them every day. Neurotically happy people will never understand this music. It’s not for them.
I can’t say enough about their new album, Taste. I’ve been listening to it nonstop for three weeks, and I’m not even remotely tired of it. The songs are simple on the surface, and then they grow, sneaking into your brain and tapping on your subconscious during the loneliest hours of the night. Like all great songs, they itch. You want to scratch them, but you can’t reach. It’s an album that will make you want to fall in love just so you can remember the bitter-sweet pain of heartbreak. Buy it, don’t buy it—I don’t care. I’m not here to promote the damn thing. I just like it.
On Thursdays EVI plays a live show at a nameless bar here in Boulder. I’m not going to tell you where this bar is located. It’s nothing personal, I just don’t want people to find it. If the hipsters get a hold of it, they’ll turn it into something trendy and trite. But Boulder is a small town, so it shouldn’t be difficult to track it down if you’re motivated. Ask around. There can’t be that many nameless bars in this city.
EVI puts on a hell of a show. Not that anyone notices. Usually the audience is me, Max the Bartender, Jimmy the Nomad, Jimmy’s large-breasted girlfriend, and the bouncer. I guess everyone else is off listening to one of the many alt-indie-psychograss-jambands in town. Did I mention they’re indie! Sometimes the guy from the pizza place next door brings a calzone over and stays for a couple of songs. Once a group of frat boys dropped by to give each other high-fives and puke in the toilet. That was a fun night.
Between sets the band members either get drunk with the audience or pick fights with each other, whichever they happen to be in the mood for at the moment. When Max the Bartender announces “Closing time!” for the tenth time and threatens to shoot everyone if they don’t leave, EVI slurs through the “Cheers” theme song, and then we all stumble home singing “Where everybody knows your name. And they’re always glad you came.” It’s the highlight of my week.
Of course, EVI has played large venues all over Colorado, as well, but my favorite shows are the ones at the nameless bar. They feel personal. Connected.
Someday soon EVI will be discovered. A large record label will snatch them up and put them on a big stage where they belong. When that happens, I’ll have to watch them in a stadium packed with thousands of screaming fans. It will be good for EVI and good for the music industry in general, but it just won’t be the same. The EVI I’ll always remember will be the three young men gutting their souls every Thursday night for five drunks in some unnamed bar that no one has ever heard of. Live From Nowhere. They’re desperate, they’re starving, they’re heartbroken, they’re drunk—but they’re great, damn it. They’re my band.
-My name is Dale Bridges, and I approve this message. | Boulder, Colorado - September 2010
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