Harangue, Mr. Honeybunch & Jeremy Jay @ Gooski’s

First up last night was fellow New Jersey native Julie Sokolow’s band, Mr. Honeybunch. Maybe I’ll rename my imaginary solo project ‘Oats’ so I can tour with them. Some young’uns were there to support them. My friend remarked that it was like Pittsburgh: The Next Generation and she was too right. I was in a bizarre world where everyone was younger than me but the kid on stage was dressed like he was from the 80s and buckled his knees like Elvis. They were fun and had an unpolished sound. They all switched up instruments at some point and my favorite song was the last one where the drummer sang, “Every time I take my broke ass to Gooski’s I know I’m gonna have a good time.” During one song, my bud Suzy asked, “What’s that Velvet Underground song that this sounds exactly like?” which at first sounds like a criticism of their originality, but is also a bit of a compliment.

I realize this blog is becoming an account of all of the same things I do all of the time, but whatever. I love seeing Harangue live, especially while waiting for their album to come out. While they were setting up, I was encouraged to try to get a candid photo of two of the guys under a lamp because it looked kind of artsy, but then I got scared because Taichi saw me, so it came out like this:

This can add to the mystery of them on the internet.

They then performed in a practically pitch black room, save for these lights:

At one point, Matt got up from behind the keyboard and was singing in the corner. I’m not sure if it was because I was ridiculously tired, but I felt like I was watching something really amazing. They had some technical problems (Tim said, “Earth Day can be unpredictable”) that nearly cut the set short, but worked it out long enough to play one more song.

So finally, Jeremy Jay, this dude from Los Angeles with his French drummer graces the stage. This arrogant guy was full of ‘tude. He kept complaining about his vocals not being loud enough, though to my untrained ear, I thought it sounded fine. The way he whined, “Matthew, please!” to fix it made me want to slap him on Matt’s behalf (no offense to Matt, I know he likes this guy). Let’s examine his stage banter:

- “We’re a band called The Muffled.”

- “Where’s the sound guy? Awful!”

- [Imploring the few people left in the room to come closer to the stage] “We want to love you! Show us what ‘Pittsburgh’ is all about!” Hey, maybe no one wants to get closer to you because you’re a condescending jerk!

- [In response to some other unperceivable sound problem again] “At this point, whatever.”

I would have enjoyed his set had I not been frustratingly furious throughout it. Despite myself, I liked the song “Love Everlasting.” I was also shocked to find out that he performs the song “Airwalker.” I have heard this song before and really liked it and didn’t know who sang it. Ugh.