Goodbye Again – Rum and Coke
Genre: Garage Rock, Emo, Alternative Rock
What’s the greatest street band or artist that you’ve heard? If you’ve taken my question seriously, you’re probably just shuffling through your memories trying to figure out which cover of the Beatles or Prince, best-case scenario, was performed most like the original.
There are few street performers willing to take chances. Performances are more predictable than Coldplay asked to perform at the Super Bowl. And, unlike Chris Martin’s pop quartet, there ain’t no security to save you from angry or disappointed fans.
Goodbye Again sounds like very good street performers that prize sentiment over execution. They do not intend to thrill you with their would Idol audition. They’re screaming and banging away freely and wildly on their instruments on the ramshackle tune Rum and Coke. It all sounds like the taped recording session of a new, great band that hasn’t quite learned how to record themselves yet. And, possibly, precisely because of this, it sounds thrilling.
Cong Josie – Margarita
Post-Punk, New wave, Alternative Rock
Rock n’ roll singers that can’t dance, yet move as if the whole Universe’s existence depends on it are to be the greatest frontmen that there. I don’t particularly have any trust in the performers that popped up in rock at some point who had struggled to learn coordinated moves, or who would bring complex gymnastics into the mix.
Bands like Suicide, the Cramps, or the Birthday Party were immensely excited. Not only was the music good, not only did the live shows run the risk of turning into fistfights at a moment’s notice, but all those groups had amazing performers who moved as if trying to make a mockery of dancing altogether.
Cong Josie’s Margarita sounds like a night out on the wrong side of town. This is music played on an excellent sound system in an abandoned warehouse where people are dancing wildly and all have blank stares and despair in their movement. The singer leads the charge with moves learned from techno-junkies of the 1990s. It’s new-wave music with the colour sucked out of it. Cong Jose provides both the thrill and chills with this one.
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