Bands on the Run Revisited: The Bands Who Would Be Kings

The Year was 2001.

The Show was VH1's Bands on the Run.

The butt was glued to the couch.

I loved watching every minute of this show during the summer before my sophomore year in high school.  Having mastered the art of playing guitar while singing probably only about 2 years before, I was at the peak of my ambitions with my own future, inevitable rock stardom.

It was a fun show that gave music fans a fly on the wall (or at least, what seemed like one) view of what it was like to try and make it as an indie band, hustling from gig to gig around the country, politely informing bar patrons the No, you do not know any Offspring covers.  A solid show with a repeatable formula.

But it was never repeated.

That first season was the only one we got.  And none of the four bands on that first season ever went further in fame than their time on the show.

What happened?

13 years later, I did a little research and downloaded 3 of the 4 bands albums from the time to see how their music holds up today.

Josh Dodes Band

You really only need two words to describe Josh Dodes Band musical stylings: Ally McBeal.

The first band eliminated from the show and upon revisiting their music, it is no mystery why.  JDB sounds like every band on 1996 college radio had an easy-listening jazz fusion baby.  If you had Ben Folds, Counting Crows, Hootie and Blowfish, and Dave Matthew's Band but less edgy.  There's definitely a Walking in Memphis, Piano Bar style to their sound.  Like they belong on the soundtrack for the movie The Firm.  Even in 2001 they must have sounded dated as hell.

Still, everyone in the band is clearly very skilled and from what I can tell from a Google search Josh Dodes is still active as a solo artist and studio musician.  Even if I'm positive they suck right now, I look forward to my 60th birthday when I'll revisit their album, "Get Up", and love it's smooth sound.

Best Song: Be My Friend, But Be Naked

Lasting Memory: Thinking all of their songs sounded like rejects from Rent.

Recommend?: No.

Harlow

It's hard to remember much about Harlow.  It doesn't help that their music is almost impossible to find (they were the one band I couldn't recover an album to listen to).  They were an all girl group.  They looked like goth but had a sort of grungy sound.  They seemed like a bunch of alcoholic fuck-ups on the show but had a spunky attitude.  No one seemed to like their music and they were soundly defeated in the battle of the bands that saw them kicked off the show.

I was able to recover one song from youtube, "Still Haunting".  Which has a distinctly similar sound to Smashing Pumpkins (and more tellingly, Hole).  It's not awful, but nothing to get excited over, and definitely shouldn't be a band's best song.

Sadly, for Harlow, their greatest legacy aside from Bands on the Run, is being part of the punchline in a David Cross joke.

Best Song: ???

Lasting Memory: One of the members flirting with an Englishman only eventually leave him behind shouting "I think you're cute but I won't sleep with you because I heard Englishman are crap in bed."  Classy broads, Harlow.

Recommend?: No.

Soulcracker

Now we're getting into the quality of Bands on the Run.  Soulcracker were, for all intents and purposes, the villains of the show.  They were talented and fun loving, but they came off as a bunch of arrogant, corporate minded, jerkoffs.

The primary objective for bands on Bands on the Run was to make money, and in this area Soulcracker were unparralled monsters of efficency.  I don't think there was a single week that they weren't atop the leader board for money raised.  They were smarter than the other three bands combined, the only problem was, they knew it.

The focus of most fans' ire was band member Beastie Ulery.  Who's main occupations in the band were trash talking, selling merch like a mad man, obnoxiously jumping around on stage, and I think playing the trumpet once.  In a very interesting article I came across, lead singer Sutton Althisar defends Beastie (along with how most of the bands and their members were portrayed on the show) saying VH-1 tried to play up small things and minor conflicts for ratings.  That is undoubtedly true, but in the moment Beastie was a total dick, and no one, not even the members of his own band liked him.

A face all too easy to hate.

Soulcracker's sound is a kind of pop punk/post-grunge hybrid.  Something about them definitely reminds me a lot of Blink-182 and Sum-41 although thet aren't nearly as pop or catchy.

The two bands they most remind me of are Sublime and Home Town Hero.  The Sublime connection is more in spirit than sound, but it is undeniable.  Home Town Hero was another post-grunge band from the west coast active in the early 2000s.  I would say Home Town Hero was a little more polished and radio-friendly, but both definitely occupied the same place on the dial.  

While their dated sound makes it hard for me to recommend their album, At Last, for You, I will admit I don't hate it and it is possessing of the quality to grow on you with repeated listens.

Best Songs: "Greatest Generation", "Two Little Boys"

Lasting Memory: I always thought the band's decision to not attempt to raise money leading up to the final battle of the bands against Flickerstick wreaked of Producer's influence.  Had they raised enough they could have rendered the final battle of the bands pointless.  But they didn't and then they lost the battle of the bands and lost the show.

Recommend?: Free Download Yes.

Meanwhile, check out what they look like today... wow.

Flickerstick

When Bands on the Run finished it's first season with Texan indie-rockers Flickerstick crowned champions many suspected foul play.  It certainly is a possibility.

The objective of Bands on the Run was to make money.  The entire time on the show, the bands were told repeatedly that the band that raised the most money would be awarded first place and all that came with it at the end (a major label showcase, 50k in prize money, 100k in guitar center equipment).  Them was the rules, that is, until the final episode when the two remaining bands - Soulcracker and Flickerstick - were told that there would be a final battle of the bands worth $5,000 for whichever won.  For Flickerstick, who were trailing Soulcracker in merch sales by a whopping $3,000 it was a life line.  For Soulcracker, who had worked their butts off for three months, it was a death sentence.

Flickerstick had already attracted interest from VH-1 for a show about bands featuring siblings (two of the members were brothers).  When Bands on the Run came along, Flickerstick was selected and some believed that the other bands were merely cannon fodder thrown in at the last minute so they could be knocked down on Flickerstick's road to stardom.

Let there be no confusion: Flickerstick was the best band on Bands on the Run.  At the time they would have fit right in on a modern rock station with a sound somewhere between the Goo Goo Dolls, Bush, and early Radiohead.  They were by no means great, but they were fun and catchy and still have a few songs that hold up strong to this day.

There's no question VH1 wanted viewers to root for Flickerstick.  Unlike the other bands featured, Flickerstick were never shown taking cheap shots at their competition, they were too preoccupied with their own drama. Portrayed as a group of lovable ne'er do wells, Flickerstick were a sort of quixotic bunch of drunks that just couldn't quite get it together enough to ever really make any money.  They were the mixture of talent and self-destruction that rock n'roll has romanticized over and over again.  They would skip gigs, cheat on their girlfriends, sleep late and party early, but it was all forgiven when they got on stage.

Like all the other bands from Bands on the Run, they have since broken up, and also like the rest of the bands, their high-water mark came and went with the show.  They recorded one major studio album, and their one lasting legacy is a live album recorded in 2002.

They may not have found the fame and fortune that VH1 promised them, but for one summer, Flickerstick was everything.

Best Songs: Smile, Chloroform, Direct Line to a Telepathic (live recording)

Lasting Memory: Lead singer Brandin Lea flipping out on bandmates in the van after they wouldn't stop arguing about something.

Recommend: Yes to their live album, Causing a Catastrophe

Weezer (1994) Turns 20

Weezer (1994) came out May 10^th 1994.  Weezer’s Blue Album turns 20 today.

To say an album “changed my life” is a pretty overused phrase.  Especially an album you discovered when you were 14.  How can an album change your life when you’ve barely even lived it?  So instead of saying it “changed my life”, perhaps it is more appropriate to say that Weezer’s debut album Weezer shaped my life.

It was a few years before I really gave it a listen.  I was, after all, only seven when it first debuted.  I have a vague memory of hearing “Buddy Holly” when I was eleven or twelve: I thought it sounded dreary.

No, it wasn’t until I heard “Hash Pipe” from Weezer’s second self-titled album, known as The Green Album, that I went to the Manchester Media Play and picked up both Green and Blue.  The next days I sat listening to both albums, alternating from one to the other when they finished, over and over and over and over.    Both albums were good, but Blue was something else.

The next weeks it was all I talked about to my friends.  I had starting learning how to play guitar two years earlier in middle school.  I spent the next months teaching myself every song on that album.  I probably played “Say it Ain’t So” for friends and at parties in college two hundred times.

As a personal item it is priceless, as an album it is amazing accomplishment in music.  The Blue Album finds a blend between heartfelt, poetic lyrics and sly pop sensibilities and plays them up to a critical mass.  You can love The Blue Album because it speaks to you, you can respect it because it is a master class in production and songwriting. 

There is not a single point at which the album falters.  Every single track is new idea, a different variation on a single sound.  Anthemic force, clever pop, unbridled enthusiasm, teen angst, pained longing, every song is a feeling played out in a sharp 3 ½... or 8 minutes (some feelings take longer than others).

Years later, it has inspired countless bands and imitations.  When it was released, critics praised The Blue Album for its clever pop songs.  They could see half of what made the album great.  To see the other half, it would take time.  Not as long as twenty years, but looking back now, there is no mistaking what it has meant to music and all of the fans that Weezer (1994) shaped the lives of.

The Salty Sublimity of Future Islands

I had actually heard of Future Islands before they played Letterman.  That’s when most of you probably heard about them.  It was in that performance from early March that Future Islands front man Sam Herring danced and bobbed his way into the hearts of music blogs everywhere.  Letterman himself was visibly tickled by the performance exclaiming, “I’ll take all of that!” when going to greet the band after performing their song, “Seasons”, the first single off their brand spanking new album, Singles.  Letterman would reference the electric performance multiple times in subsequent episodes and memes of Herring’s unorthodox dance moves began popping up all over the interwebs.  That is how most of you probably heard about them.

I had heard of them a few months earlier in a music dig through ITunes that has become something of a weekly routine for me.

Future Islands are a lot like very good whiskey.  They’re a synthpop trio with an indie infusion giving them a smoother finish than one might expect from a band with a lead singer that likes to growl as much as Herring does.  Their dulcet tones spiked by the occasional flourish of guitars or anguished howl.  I don’t particularly like easy listening synthpop, nor do I especially like whiskey, but Future Islands is very good whiskey and you’ll never try anything so smooth.  The music fills you with a warm rush that calms and excites you at the same time.

They have a sound about them like the ocean.  Both distant and close, silky and rough, refreshing and salty.  A dichotemy that makes them as intriguing as it does exhilarating.

Few songs could encapsulate this feeling better than the new wavy anthem “Swept Inside” off their 2010 album, In Evening Air.  It sounds like something straight out of 1979 England met with the slick production quality of today and made this ear candy that is simultaneously soothing and manic.

So, even though you may have only just heard Future Islands for the first time and you’re only just thinking about picking up their fantastic new album Singles, you might want to start thinking about picking up a lot more than that, because these guys are one of the best bands going right now.