31 December 2007

All the cool dudes

My family celebrated New Year's Eve early this year, and it was pretty awesome.

So there's this really cool jazz club in the cities called the Dakota. (My mother, the non-musical one in the family, has been on stage there, as she would tell you if she had the chance. She officiated at a wedding there a couple years back.) There's also this really cool band in the cities, called the New Standards. I might have mentioned them before.

Basically, the New Standards is made up of three guys: John Munson (of Semisonic), Chan Poling (of the Suburbs) and Steve Roehm (of some other band I can't remember the name of). Everyone always plays 'the old standards', but there are some more recent songs that they think are pretty cool and worthy of attention. They play them on (stand-up) bass, piano, and vibes. They are extremely cool.

I'll try to remember what they played:
- Toxic (Britney Spears)
- I Will Dare (the Replacements)
- some song by T.Rex
- Man, Oh Man (Curtis Mayfield)
- The New Pollution (Beck)
- All the Young Dudes (Mott the Hoople)
- Oh Yeah (Roxy Music)
- London Calling (the Clash)
- Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera) (Doris Day)
- Under Pressure (Queen/David Bowie)
- My Favorite Things (Rodgers/Hammerstein)
- Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
- Heaven (the Talking Heads)
- Hey Ya (Outkast)
- Bring It On Home To Me (Sam Cooke)
- Love is the Law (the Suburbs)

I know you might be skeptical about their ability to make Toxic, Hey Ya, or the guitar solo on something like I Will Dare sound good, but trust me, it is quite possible. They're starting to play in some other cities more frequently, so if you end up with the opportunity to see them, I would highly recommend attending.

1 comment:

Dave said...

The T. Rex song was "Bang a Gong (Get It On)". They were huge in the UK, but it's the only real airplay they got on this side of the pond.

I only remember one that you missed in your set list: the very lovely "Snow Day", a Trip Shakespeare tune (Munson's band before Semisonic) that might be my favorite song on the new EP. Their cover of Joni Mitchell's "River" is great, too.

If a New Year's Eve Eve outing becomes a family tradition, we've certainly set a very high bar.