TODAY: 02.28.2013 |
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Nature Boy Explorer will join the Crypts on Friday. Matthew Wood View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place |
BY RYAN BROSMER
FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR
The librarian. The tattoo artist. The gymnast. The professor. The former substitute teacher. This isn't the list of heroes for the next 'Avengers' movie. These are the everyday alter-egos of the members of Fredericksburg's The Crypts--a band of mad professors, aliens and monsters.
Craig Graziano--along with husband-and-wife duo Kristen and Mike Tscirn--started playing together as The Crypts after Graziano's other band, Humungo Ginormous, ended its run.
Since they were already friends, Mike Tscirn said the decision to recruit Craig was easy.
"Humungo Ginormous had broken up," Tscirn said, "And we said, hey, it'd be fun to play in a band with Craig."
This would certainly make sense to anyone who has seen Graziano perform live. Music can barely keep up with his energetic, spastic performances. Often decked out in a thrift store suit, bow tie, and sunglasses, Graziano squirms, shoots, and swaggers, daring the audience not to dance along with him.
The Crypts have been around since 2008, and between a baby, college, another baby, and the demands of the members' professional lives, they have managed to release two full-length albums. Their latest, "Discover Science," is currently available free online and will be available on CD beginning with the release show at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, at 909 Saloon.
The nine tracks on "Discover Science" cover subjects from ghosts to physicists to pizza. Musically, the band draws from a range of influences, but strives for a frantic punk rock 'n' roll sound without boundaries, save for a couple simple rules.
"It had to be fun," Mike Tscirn said, "and I had to be able to play it really well when I'm drunk."
"That doesn't mean we don't have obstacles when writing songs," Graziano explained. "Sometimes it's uphill, uphill, uphill, and if a song isn't fun we scrap it."
They wrote some of their best songs in fifteen minutes, recorded the album in a matter of hours, and aren't ashamed by a bit of sloppiness.
"I think the sloppiness is a tribute to a lot of the bands that we love and we aspire to sound like, in a way," Graziano said, referring to bands like The Sonics, The Cramps and The Gories.
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What: The Crypts 'Discover Science' CD release show with GTI and Nature Boy Explorer
Where: 909 Saloon, 909 Caroline St., Fredericks-burg
When: Friday, Nov. 30 at 8 p.m.
Info: myspace.com/cryptsparty
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