Cheap Girls have been one of my favorite new discoveries of 2010. The sons of Lansing, MI ply their trade in the time-honored power trio format, sporting two brothers and a shit hot guitar player. Think Dando-era Lemonheads with a healthy dose of The Figgs. This I like, so when said Girls were announced to be passing through town on their way to The Fest, I went out of my way to make sure that I was in attendance, even if it was in the midst of CMJ.Europa was the venue for a second day in a row. Doors were at 5, so I packed a book and rolled up at 5:15 to the obvious strains of a band playing. It was pretty obviously not Cheap Girls, but I hightailed it in to be greeted with the schedule to the left. What was once a three band bill starting at 5 had morphed into six bands with a shuffled lineup. Good times. Back to JS-NYC HQ for a couple hours. I got back in time to catch a healthy amount of Laura Stevenson and The Cans. They sounded pretty decent, kind of a Brooklyn Jesse Sykes/Christina Wagner vibe. She can sing and the band sounded pretty decent, even more so given the replacement drummer. The crowd was pretty good-sized and seemed way into her, especially the hot lady set. I picked up her records, so look for some JS-NYC coverage soon.
As pleasant of a surprise as The Cans were, their biggest shortcoming from where I was standing was their not being Cheap Girls. The Girls were up quickly, perhaps owing to the hardline Europa curfews, launching into 40 minutes of quality rock that I thought would have garnered a bigger response. Of course I was right in front of the drunkest 'that guy' superfan, but he was almost easily avoided. Not a lot of crowd work from Team CG, but not too much left off my list of CG favorites, save for the somewhat impractical Her And Cigarettes. All My Clean Friends was a high point, but all-around it was a pretty strong showing and not nearly as disappointing a first time as the Samiam show previous. Of course, I'd like to see them play longer and drunker, but Cheap Girls are as good a time as their namesake and you won't be on the fence about being seen in their midst afterwards. I'd call that a win. You would do well to, in the parlance of Suburban Home, celebrate their entire catalog. Do so here.
Bomb The Music Industry were the headliners, inexplicably maybe covering a Weezer record in its entirety? I can't condone that really even if Drew claims they are solid people, and beat a hasty retreat back to the shack for a ramen repast. Hope it was good.
R
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