I was made privy to some info about a friend who was having a show at local venue The Fine Line, a few days ago. I was there a little bit earlier in the year to see some other band that I again can’t remember. The parking was fucking atrocious the cost was astronomical (you can park right behind the venue for 15.00, thats all my booze money for the bar!) and the closest spot that could be found was about a mile away. With the weather turning for the coldest I say fuck all that noise and I’ll just lobby for more accomadating parking.  

I walk in bust out the ol ID tell the bored gentleman behind the glass I’m there to see “Sleep is the enemy” and make a bee line for the bar. I order a Red Stripe and was flabbergasted at it being 5.75, but when the nice bartender brought me 2 you better believe it was Christmas in September!

There were 3 bands playing but, hey, them dudes blew. Sorry guys I just didn’t appreciate anything you were doing and I don’t remember your names. So I have no way of protecting my readers from your crappiness.

BAND: Sleep is the enemy

Ok, so here I go again breaking my first rule of reviewing. What rule might that be? Well, this is a new band and since this is Barista Girl’s dusty old music revue there is most certainly nothing dusty about these guys.

Sleep is the Enemy is a 3 piece hard rock/alternative/metal/ band from St. Paul, MN. The band was formed in March of 2008 by 2 former members (Dave Pickerign, and Josh Nickleby) of the grunge alternative band, “Emergence Entombed”. Whom, upon having jacked this little ditty off of MySpace I have no friggin’ clue who the hell they are. Were that is. Anyways they made bedroom eyes at a 1 Joe Radke ala a drummer fixing to get his rock on for serious ad and rounded the lads group out. These boys have been all over the Twin Cities, and I think Iowa aaaaand Madison, Wisconsin?

The influences of this band are as follows but not limited to:
Seether, Breaking Benjamin, Tool, Mudvayne, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, AFI, The Misfits, Goo Goo Dolls, Silverchair…The 1st song has a lot of potential, 2nd left a little to be desired, which I was most certainly ready to let it sort of set my opinion of the band. But with open ears and an open mind I press on. Whilst they might be emo I think that if they stay the course in their sound they might really contribute something worth listening to, to my little Minneapolis music scene. Ya know, for the kids. The vibe I get would be something along the lines of dare I say actually good screamo? No I don’t dare. I can’t fucking stand screamo, but I know some people that really REALLY dig that sound and I swear to all of you if you like any of the influences of this band you will not be disappointed. I think they have a lot to offer. The theatrics however? I’m not sure what to think, everyone loves to play dress up but I find that a somewhat cheap means of getting the attention of the crowd. I don’t think HONESTLY they need it…They’re good enough as is. I base this on seeing them practice at profile quite a bit before this show. My current, as of this very moment, thoughts; they’re good. They could OBVIOUSLY use some work (the band is still just a baby!) but they’re someone to check out. 3rd song, somewhat can I say swing meets thrash? I think I can. Dave the lead singer has a good report with the audience I notice that this is a bit of a lost art, oh, as they progress to the 4^th song it reminds me of…incubus. I personally enjoy the soon to be easy listening sounds of them but I imagine others beg to differ, the Gogol esque scream (I say that only because I can’t even reach that octave) in the middle might change one’s mind on that but I stand firm. Definitely incubus-y 4th song, slower, reminiscent of something along the lines of slipknot…but still DO NOT be deterred, if this was on a cd it’d be a welcomed change of pace next to the first couple of tracks. 5th song holy shit its pop punk. But against the pop punk bands of today they stay true to the a sort of west coast style, still keeping the thrash sound nice and growly but with better clarification on the lyrics, this is the penultimate pop sunk song, if you dig on that style of music that can be used in a skate video soundtrack you’ll be fucking set. I gotta say though despite my disdain towards such things I did really enjoy this song. Final song, I like this song, It’s faster and has something to it that I think is a sound that this band is making all their own. Seether’s cover as an adieu, what can I say? I think that I don’t like seether, I fucking abhor seether. But their rendition was worth listenin’ to… A toe tappin’ hit, maybe? For a fan of Seether, I digress, this is actually (for a Seether song) pretty damn good. I’d say they covered it almost brilliantly, just as a tribute or cover should be, in YOUR style, they did it expertly. I’d say from personal experience this might have been the 1st song they learned how to play together as a band. Which I heard sets the tone for every song they make after. Tonight though and even if Seether is listed as an influence all of their songs sound uniquely their own. Not all slathered in Seether. Very nice, I gotta say I’m glad that the 1st song they played together as a band wasn’t fuckin’ “Satisfaction”…I’d say that based upon what I overheard the lead singer talking about they could’ve busted out with a stirring rendition of…insert Danzig song here and it would have been one of the better concerts I’ve been to in a long while. My advice to them is to work out a rocking cover of a (OLD) Misfits song and you’ll have all the kids in town at your next show. They have the skill they have the vibe SHIT as much as I hate to say it they even have a look that is most certainly worth keepin’ an eye on.

Check out their MySpace and listen to some of their songs, as of 10/01/08 they DO NOT have a demo an EP an LP an RbGHT, nothing. Yet. But when they get something ready for distribution I’ll be updating you all, whether you like it or not.

To finish our night we went with the drummer to local shit hole Mickey’s diner for the best omlette’s on the planet when who should walk in? Perhaps Weezer? They had a show in St. Paul at the Excel and came to Mickey’s for a late night treat. However, since I hadn’t seen any recent pictures of them I was unsure and too much of a wuss to ask. Well, upon further inspection it was infact Weezer sitting next to us.

Next time.

Down to bidniss,

Sleep is The Enemy

UPCOMING SHOWS!!!

10/10/08 @ The Rock Night Club (St. Paul)
10/16/08 @ Big V’s (St. Paul)
10/30/08 @ The Terminal Bar (Minneapolis)
11/01/08 @ The Revival (St. Cloud)
11/12/08 @ The 620 house (Des Moines, Iowa)

Anyhoo.

Thats all!

Cheers

-R-

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 11:34 am and is filed under Barista Girl's dusty old music revue, Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.