Listen Localy: Rant Globaly

It was hard to cop a buzz from most of the northeast collegiate bands in the early oughts; the music was by and large unexceptional, and most of the musicians spent as much time in front of an easel--or wrapped around a bong--as they did practicing. But then there were the rumors coming out of Harvard: the college's most convincing band had a retro, jammy thing going on; they performed cheeky pop songs while wearing Bermuda tuxedos; their lead guitarist had a Trey-worthy tone but played with his back to the audience, Miles Davis-style, too aloof or too shy to give a proper rock 'n' roll performance.

A year later, I saw Chester French play a stuffed, sweaty Harvard venue known as the Fishbowl, and the guitarist had transformed. He gamboled about the stage, wagging his tongue at the audience and coining a curious update of the Chuck Berry duck-walk. Shredded, too. Their songs were generally OK, their stage presence above average, their ODB cover insolently upper-crust and a total slam-dunk.

An occupational hazard in music criticism is the inevitable blurbology: over-hyphenated elevator pitches in favor of a new run of B-sides that "totally could have been A-sides" from a band seemingly defined by the number of genres it inhabits.

This was also the case in college. For example: someone mentions a group called, say, Dr. Pain and the Smooch of Death. "They're pretty cool," this person shrugs. (The shrug is always a warning sign.)

"What's it like?" you ask, bracing yourself.

"Oh, I dunno...it's, like, post-Punk-core with a dash of jizz-rock thrown in," this person will nod. You too will nod, and this person will endeavor to ply you with the grainy tracks in question; if there's weed in the room, you soldier through.