Archive for the 'Indianapolis' Category

Thunders

One of the most rock n roll moments of my life - and there have been many - was when one of my elderly neighbors went ballistic during a band practice in my parents’ garage. This was back in the high school days, when we had more volume than talent. We would practice every weekend in the garage while my folks were out running errands or just generally keeping their distance. They did so with good reason; I’m told that you could hear our smokin’ hot version of “White Light/White Heat” from several blocks away.

Most of the time we tried to keep the garage door closed to limit the noise. But it would get pretty hot in the summer months, and after an hour or so we would roll up the door a few feet to let some air in. It was on one such occasion that we were confronted by the ire of one particularly crotchety old man. He must have come from a few blocks away, because he was in his car. He came screeching into the driveway and part of the way into the garage, the hood of his car just barely fitting under the half open door. He jumped out of his car and launched into one of the most hilarious tirades I or any of my teenage band mates had ever heard.

Fortunately, we were recording our performance on a cheap boom box, and we captured the whole exchange on tape. It’s been a few years since I’ve heard that recording, but I will paraphrase for the sake of this article.

Loud sounds of distorted guitars and amateurish drumming. All of a sudden the singer stops mid-song and says, “Holy shit!” A car door slams and an elderly voice can be heard in the distance.

BAND: “What are you doing in my garage? I’m pretty sure this is trespassing…”
OLD MAN: “You guys have been making this goddamn racket for months! It’s horrible! You have to stop this noise right now!”
BAND: “Um, what?”
OLD MAN: “I can hear you from three blocks away! Shut it off! It’s too loud!”
BAND: “Maybe you’re just, uh, too old…?”
OLD MAN: “Show some respect! Other people live in this neighborhood. Nobody wants to hear this racket!”
BAND: “Fuck you!”
OLD MAN: “What!? I’m calling the police! They’ll shut you down forever!
BAND MEMBER #1: “Good. When they get here we’ll tell them about how you drove your car into our garage door.”
BAND MEMBER #2: “Old people can’t drive.”
BAND MEMBER #3: “What if we play a cover of ‘Moon River?’ Would you like that?”
BAND MEMBER #4: “Will you buy us some beer?”
BAND MEMBER #2: “He’s old.”

It was around that point we broke down laughing and the old guy drove off frustrated and even more upset than when he arrived. We immediately listened to the exchange on playback and decided it would be the perfect interlude for our first album. We congratulated ourselves on our collective ability to stick it to the Man. In our minds we were the coolest 15 year olds on the block.

Eventually we all found our way to different bands with legitimate practice studios. We learned to play our instruments and eventually our sharp edges softened a little bit. Some might argue that our music got better, but we definitely lost some of the raw energy that we had back in the garage days.

In this context, the label “garage rock” starts to make a lot of sense for that genre of music. Bands that play under this banner may have more skill than we did back in the salad days, but they still embody the energy and insolence that we were so proud of. Take the band Thunders from Indianapolis. Their new EP “The Sympathetic Oscillations” sounds like the reverb was pounded into it with a baseball bat. The songs bristle with the spirit of a teenager high on whippets. When singer Ryan Reidy yelps, “There’s a party in my brain and it won’t end” you get the sense that this band has turned (the) garage into a platform for taunting all the party-poopers and angry seniors in their neighborhood.

You can put this theory to the test by setting up some speakers in your garage. Open the door, throw on Thunders and turn the volume up to 10. If anybody comes complaining about the volume, remember the classic rock axiom: If it’s too loud, you’re too old.

MP3: ‘Gonna Heal Everyone’

MP3: ‘Magicsick’