By: David de Young
 |
|
The Hang Ups at their CD Release Party at First Avenue - Photo by Anna Lee (click for full size)
|
I started out by saying that because I think it's the highest compliment you can pay a musician, to tell them their music inspires you to make more.
It's been a real pleasure doing the research (which mainly involves listening) on a band that's been lurking around the Twin Cities music scene for somewhere around 13 years now. I'd been playing a preview copy of the Hang Up's new killer self-titled CD released on Pete Yorn's Trampoline Records for a couple weeks prior to its release and looking forward to this show for longer than that. I also buried myself in as much of their earlier music as time and my limited budget allowed. Listening to the Hang Ups almost exclusively as companion to my activities of this past weekend was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
As long as I'm heaping on praise, The Hang Ups CD Release show at First Avenue Friday night was one of the best release parties I've attended in the Twin Cities since Faux Jean's own at the same club in May. Friday's bill included quirky and talented popsters The Chris Danforths who opened up the evening. Rob Skoro played a solo set in the second spot. Though Skoro is always good, many people who had not seen him before should definitely see him with his full band before thinking they've seen what he's capable of. Skoro does a better job than most of keeping the attention of the First Avenue crowd with just himself and his acoustic guitar onstage. Faux Jean just plain kicked butt. Sober listeners (like me that night) could really appreciate the tightness of their sound. Of course the sad news was announced at the end of the show that Jean Angel and Faux Wayne will be leaving the band. I'm sure you will hear more on that later.
The Hang Ups took the stage around 9 p.m. Opening up with the bouncy "Little Blue" from their new release I was glad to experience this song with the punchy full-pop volume of the large club as opposed to the softer sound I heard at Roadrunner in-store the preceding Sunday. (You can hear this one on their website at http://www.hangupsmusic.com/music.html.) While its Baby You can Drive My Car era Beatles-like riffs flew by, I remarked to my friend (Craig Grossman) that boy does front man Brian Tighe have those McCartney/Lennon head moves down.
After another new one, "Like It Used to Be," they dug into "Caroline," from a release I don't have. This was one of many songs of the night that for lack of a better description just had a good karmic feel to it and made you feel good.
The Hang Ups lead singer and chief songwriter Tighe thanked the audience at this point before breaking into "Top of Morning," one of my favorite all time Hang Ups songs, this one coming from their 1996 Twin Tone/Restless album "So We Go." When asked Sunday night on KQ's Homegrown program which album a newcomer should get, a few band members chose this one, although I'm sure either the new one or this one would serve as a great introduction. They're both equally good and different enough from one another to create an interesting musical tension between the two. If I had to speak to a chief difference, I'd have to say the newer album is both more consistent and more derivative. Ah heck, just buy 'em both.
"How do you like our collection of guitars?" Tighe remarked while starting up the next song "Annie Walks." "Annie Walks" has this brilliant retard in it live that is even more exaggerated than on the disk, rocking in the middle when played live like any great ballad should. And speaking of rocking, that is not something the Hang Ups generally do, so it's all the more to their credit that they could keep us energized and pumped up through nearly an hour and 20 minutes of near perfect pop.
A country song "Light Green Sails" was next, kind of a Beatles meet the Jayhhawks number. Then "Your Deep Pool," a perfectly slow tempo song sung by bass player Aaron Lundholm who wrote the song.
Tighe say down at the Kurzweil piano now for "One of These Days" while thanking the opening bands. "One of These Days" sounded a little John Sebastian-y (Lovin' Spoonful, Welcome Back Cotter theme song) live. Again that's to Tighe's credit as he knows how to mine the best writers in pop music history to create his brand of sweet but not overly sugary.
"Fool" had the sound of Magical Mystery Tour Beatles sound live. Tighe remained at the piano for the next song, the up-tempo "Wildflowers," and I wrote in my notes that this was a rockingly solid set with an exclamation (!) point at the end.
Done with piano, they took it down a bit with the acoustically-based "For the Worry." In "Blue Residence" again I felt echoes of our own Jayhawks. Then came the super strong album leadoff song, "It's all True."
It was five past ten but as the set proper ended with one of the Hang Ups best known earlier tunes, "The Entry," from 1996's "So We Go," and yes it's a song about the little music club attached to First Ave. Keyboardist Marcel Gelang emerged from behind his keyboard playing tambourine and walked over to guitarist Jeff Kearns while keeping the beat and the band left the stage at the end of this song.
They were back with a wave for the encore, starting out with Nick Drake's classic "Pink Moon" which took on a much more rocking feel than it did when they played it at Roadrunner. The song got so guitar heavy at one point I thought they might even segue into Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall, which is a somewhat surprising sound to be hearing from this band. I also noted that Tighe pauses an extra few beats that Drake doesn't before going into the "Pink, pink, pink, pink" part; but no matter. This is a tough and dangerous song to cover well, and the Hang Ups succeed.
"So We Go, "the title of the 1996 album had more good karmic feel to it. The band thanked Brad Kern on sound (and producer of the new album) and thanked First Ave, Conrad the stage manager, and their friends Ally and Jen at the merchandise desk.
The set ended with a perfect goodbye song, the traveling song "Greyhound Bus," the song incidentally that got them re-noticed by Pete Yorn for a Trampoline Records compilation that ultimately led to that label releasing their new full-length.
And unless something extraordinary happens in the next four weeks, that new Trampoline release is not only in my top 10 releases of 2003, but it's probably in the top 2 or 3.
Location Info:
First Avenue
Artist Info: Faux Jean, Robert Skoro, The Danforths, The Hang Ups
Share this story:
Article comments powered by Disqus