On December 5th, I made my way to Baba Budan's, a college campus bar/coffee house within a convenient three minute drive from Hot Half Life HQ, to see The Guitars and The Harlequins. The funny thing about that is that I had written about it and queued it up to be posted today. Only, fellow Cincy blogger Zach of Random Old Records beat me to the punch! When faced with the conundrum of still posting what I'd written, altering the post, or abandoning the ordeal all together, I decided to do what my editor over at Radio Free Chicago taught me months ago and play the game of reformatting and repurposing.
Despite brushing shoulders with The Guitars at the CEA's, I hadn't heard the band play until the 4th and to say I was impressed is an understatement. I'm sure that soon, the fact that such solid bands keep popping up in my Cincinnati life will stop surprising me but as I'm not to that point yet, I'm going to enjoy my optimism. The 4th of 5 bands to take the stage, it was logical to think that energy would have died down by the Guitars set but the audience was feeling the folk-to-folk-rock-to-rock-rock progression of the night and the relatively small, cluttered floor of Baba Budan's was rife with Cincinnati's finest hipsters dancing in place, the way hipsters do when they want to dance but don't want to spill their PBRs.Equal parts humor, '50's era rock and roll, and sheer awesome, Random Old Records put it best when he said the Guitars are the best '60's inspired garage rock band you've never heard. Perhaps the most refreshing thing about the guys is the fact that not only do they play fantastic music but they enjoy playing that fantastic music just as much as I enjoy hearing it.
It was my second time seeing the night's headliners, The Harlequins (The first was at Mayday's Earthquakes, their newly started monthly dance party that's held on the last Saturday of the month, making it a nice precursor to Nothside Tavern's first Saturday of the month soiree, Dance MF.), and between the atmosphere created by the larger crowd and the fact that I was more familiar with the tunes this time around, they sounded better than ever... Or, well, at least better than the last time I saw them, which isn't because they were bad last time but rather because they were just so dang awesome this time.Dimly lit bars seem to be the place for drunken dancing but the over 21's at Baba Budan's got surprisingly into The Harlequins. I would go so far as to say that a few kids up front were attempting to "thrash". Can you "thrash" to a 1970's throwback band that combines equal parts influence from grungy early '90's music and Pet Sounds? If you'd have asked me in November, I would have said "No, sir!" Now, however, I'm not so sure. If Cincinnati's taught me one thing, it's that anything is possible. Even post-bingo parties that involve alarmingly naked dudes. (I escaped unscathed so let's never speak of it.)
To say The Guitars and The Harlequins make for a perfect night, musically, is an extremely apt description. In fact, it's my hopes that the bands blow up, do a national tour together, and then eventually form a Cincy-supergroup called The Guitarlequins. If you thought the Raconteurs were sweet, just wait until you hear The Guitarlequins.
If you missed the bands play at Baba Budan's, it's not too late to see them. Both The Guitars and The Harlequins play Northside's Mayday tomorrow with a band from my old hometown, Detroit, the Sights. Be there or be square.
Note: All the live photos here were taken by the wonderful Tiffany Nicholson, who, in addition to being an all around awesome girl with a sweet haircut, is the latest addition to the TRACER collective! She's been wingman-ing me the past few days by taking some exclusive shots of some great bands, the first batch of which will be hitting TRACER within the next week!
