Friday night, on a late starting double bill (a match made in heaven, I might add) I experienced one of my favorite live acts from the past couple years, International Espionage, and got my second shot at Ruby Isle, the Athens, GA-based dance trio featuring Dan Geller and Mark Mallman.

International Espionage is not the novelty act you might assume them to be if I told you they play their live shows dressed in black ninja outfits complete with red L.E.D. spotlights on their foreheads where their third eyes might be in an enlightened being. They are an undeniably fun, engaging post punk band which sound like a perfect fusion of early Devo and the B52s circa 1981, electronically updated for the 21^st Century. Green Room Booking’s Craig Grossman (who books the band and was on hand for the show) also mentioned quirky 1970s LA pop band Sparks when discussing musical similarities. 

International Espionage played a similar set to what I’ve been hearing them play on previous occasions at the Uptown Bar and Triple Rock Social Club, including one of my favorites, “Sneak Attack.” At this show I finally got around to purchasing their CD, a spy kit of sorts that includes a confidential “dossier” on the band and comes packaged in a white box marked “Top Secret” with a government warning that transmission of the information contained inside “in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.” The CD includes just 5 songs, but it’s a great taste of what the band sounds like live since sampled audio is included the live sound. (Playing as just a 3 piece tonight, the synth lines were canned.) The untitled CD was recorded in 2006 by Chad Wise at Devils Workshop sound studio. 

Next up, and getting a relatively late start at around midnight for just the two band bill, were Ruby Isle. When I’d seen the band last year at the 400 Bar in Minneapolis they had performed as just a two piece, but this time they were joined by their drummer, Aaron Lemay, also of International Espionage. As they opened the set with “Hey Hey Hey (That Kid’s Okay),” the dance floor began to fill up, and more and more people made their way up front to enjoy the fun. More than with Dan Geller’s other project I Am The World Trade Center or Mallman’s other project, his own solo career, one of Ruby Isle’s primary goals is to get people to dance.  (The sticker stamped on the front of the CD claims, "Night Shot is the record Girl Talk would make if [Greg Gillis] wrote his own songs.")

Mark Mallman of Ruby Isle - Montour

In that podcast, I myself had mentioned that, Mark Mallman, known for his over the top stage antics tones it down and becomes a band member when he performs with Ruby Isle. That does not mean he tones it all the way down. By the band’s third song he was already standing on his chair and later in the set he could be seen crawling out the backstage window of the Kitty Cat Klub while singing. Meanwhile, it was Geller who leapt from the stage during the set and began break dancing on the KCK floor. (As an aside regarding Geller’s floor moves, press materials indicate that Dan Geller is “one of America’s few break-dancing DJs with a master’s degree in Biological Engineering.”)

Ruby Isle's CD is called Night Shot and features a song by the same name that features guest vocals by Tay Zonday.  That song was performed Friday Zonday-less.  The disc also features a cover version of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" which was not performed Friday at all.  The disc's official release date is September 16th and is available on Kindercore.

Ruby Isle's engaging but seemingly short eight or nine song set followed up with a faithful, not at all tongue in check rendition of “Separate Ways” by Journey that I must say in many ways improved on the original.

Set List:

Hey Hey Hey
So Damn High
Blow Up
One Trip
How It Hurts
Night Shot
Aly Walk With Me
Into The Black
Atom Bombs

Related links:

• http://www.myspace.com/rubyisle
• http://www.myspace.com/espionagempls