Live: Cheap Girls @ Knitting Factory 3.6.12

God bless the Midwest. America's Heartland has been ponying up the quality rock of late and Cheap Girls are close to the top of the heap. Hailing from the wilds of Lansing, Michigan, said Girls (who are in fact, three dudes) make the rock in the power trio format, paying homage to a host of pop and punk predecessors like the Lemonheads (Deily more than Dando) and Dinosaur Jr. They have a new record called Giant Orange out on Rise that is pretty solid, albeit a little over-produced. You would do well to own it in virtual or actual form.

I rolled into a maybe half-full room as Cheap Girls were setting up, having missed the much buzzed about (and to these old ears, not especially remarkable, on record at least) Sidekicks. The set (pictured above) featured a little over half of the new record, with some choice dips into their previous releases. Ft. Lauderdale popped up at the end of the set, but sadly the new On/Off Switches did not. Cheap Girls may not have a ton of stage presence, but they have songs for days and play their asses off. They'll be on the road a good bit in the coming months, hopefully not mid-carding for some horrible Warped Tour band, so keep an eye peeled here for tour dates within range of your ear and/or eyeholes.

R

Cheap Girls - Giant Orange

Ah, Cheap Girls! The Lansing threesome have been recent faves at JS-NYC HQ in recent history. Anticipation has been high for a new full-length, and wonderfully Spring has brought the thaw as well as the aces new Giant Orange for our pleasure. This one is the first for new label Rise and for better or worse sports the production of Mr. Tom Gabel of Against Me!. That will doubtless appeal more to the Asslight Anthem set more than lovers of genuine unaffected rock goodness, but even his silly ass can't sink this ship.


He do try, though. Giant Orange certainly sounds a little overproduced in places (see the ZZ Top meets Boston guitar tone of Manhattan On Mute), but regardless of questionable engineering, the The Force continues to be strong with our heroes and songs are definitely still there. Six of the ten tracks on Giant Orange are damn solid and the other four ain't all that shabby neither. I'd say On/Off Switches is the current fave, but Giant Orange gets a lot of play around the JS-NYC corporate HQ and the front-runner changes by the day. Share our problems and get Giant Orange here from the Cheap Girls web presence. Lavish us/them with thanks later.

R

Live: Ian Cheap Girls and Mikey Erg with Dave Hause @ Cake Shop 5.1.11

As regular readers may surmise, I was in this for Ian Graham of the exceedingly awesome Cheap Girls. Beyond that, I wasn't sure how the evening would present itself. Given the three parties and their usual go-to instruments, I thought we might have ourselves a little ad-hoc rock band with rotating singers, but I came in to a fourth dude doing a Rocky Votolato kind of thing with another dude on electric. As it was a school night, I wasn't all that enthused about the addition, but he was decent enough and Ian appeared soon after, knocking out twenty minutes of fucking great tunes that I have a not-great but decent recording of if anyone wants. E-mail me.

At this point I was pretty stoked. It was still early, so I figured I'd catch a couple Mikey Erg tunes and bail. Post-Ergs, I've grown so accustomed to seeing him play drums in almost every band that would allow him behind a kit that I forgot what a great songwriter he is. His half-hour set featured the cream of his namesake's output performed on solo electric, as well as a pretty aces run through your favorite Cee-Lo Green chestnut. Yannich is one talented dude, and perhaps one who has moved back to NJ? Off-hand banter seems to suggest as much. It's hard not to see him, but see him sing sometime soon, if you can. I got a recording of that set, if you are of a mind, so holler if you'd like a link. I didn't stay for Hause, nor did it seem a lot of others, but I did see Franz on the way out and still made it home early with embarassingly rudimentary recordings in tow. If you missed this and are going to find yourself in the Northern climes this summer, Mikey and Dave Hause are doing a Canadian spin later on this year with Tony Sly, so keep an eye out.

R

Cheap Girls/Lemuria split 7"

In the midst of a bleak late winter in Gotham City, it was a pleasure to get a fat mailer of the punk rock from the good folk of Southern Living. While this wasn't inside, in popping over to the No Idea web presence, the pot was sweetened considerably by news of this little bit of vinyl delight.

Now Lemuria I like generally, but Cheap Girls I like a whole big bunch. As my god is a cruel god, there is but one Cheap Girls track here, paired with two new tracks from Lemuria. The CG track is the great mix of Lemonheads and Gin Blossoms you've come to expect from the Lansing threesome. Called Pure Hate, it might be accused of being a wee bit long, but its still pretty damn good. The Lemuria tracks are sparkly little gems, especially Lemons. The other track is a little saccharine and deals with falling in love with a single mother. I'm not going to play it every day, but it's a fair shake better than a lot of stuff, even if there appears to be xylophone on the track. Check out their new full-length Pebble.

I'd like to see some dates with Lemuria and Cheap Girls behind this little slab of delight. With Cheap Girls out with the nightmare that is Against Me!, I'm not sure when this might could happen, but keep tabs at No Idea HQ here and grab a copy of this split while you're there. The Lemuria web-presence is here. Cheap Girls is here. Enjoy!

R

Cheap Girls comp at besidesasides

In this world of ambiguity, there are two things I can state unequivocally: I love Cheap Girls and that whoever runs the Besidesasides blog is a true man among men. The two combining makes this bitter old fuck just a little bit happier. Well, someone's looking out, as there is currently an awesome new Cheap Girls collection that collects pretty much all of their early 7" and comp stuff available for the downloading. Just get it. Here's a link.

R

Live: Cheap Girls with Laura Stevenson and the Cans @ Europa 10.23.10

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