By Jack Daniel Betz

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get this up sooner because of problems with the Free Press blog but last Tuesday, Here We Go Magic and White Rabbits both played an excellent show at Walter’s and I thought it was worth sharing. Here We Go Magic (hailing from Brooklyn) has been a band I’ve liked for the past few months and let me just say that their show at Walter’s only cemented my love of their music. Most of the songs were entrancing melodies bathed in soft synth strings and played over the clicking and thumping of two drummers with affinities for playing toms and playing on the rim. The lead singer was a tall guy, looking very slightly to me like Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo (don’t ask me why), wearing a straw hat. His vocals were refreshingly eccentric as he sang out in a quirky falsetto tone. I loved how each song would almost invariably descend into a little 1-2 minute jam once the main verses were finished. The three best songs of the set were “Fangela”, “Only Pieces”, and “Collector”. Collector is their newest single and it has an upbeat, infectiously catch chorus of “I’ve got a mild fascination for collectors” and the song leads me to believe that the band might be taking their music in a different, more organized, poppy, direction with the upcoming release of their new album Pigeon. Here’s there new single, I love it:

White Rabbits were a little less whimsical-sounding than Here We Go but one thing that the bands did have in common was their use of multiple drummers and those drummers’ affinity for tribal-sounding tom beats. The other thing that really stood out about their sound was their use of an actual piano rather than keyboards. People don’t do that as much as they used to and I appreciated the touch. Their music was dramatic and even a little brooding at times (probably because of the toms and loud bass levels), especially when the piano rang out loudly. The music wasn’t dark but there were lots of cool unresolved notes that often created tension which is something that a straight rock band doesn’t normally do. It was a nice surprise to have such a cool headliner play after Here We Go given that I didn’t even really come to see Rabbits. They’re awesome and I totally understand why someone would come from Mexico to see them (as one band member announced about a guy up front).

Here’s the official music video for one of the best songs they played that night: “The Plot”.