The Sleepy Jackson + Robbers on High Street

Contrary to a good many claims that rock is dead, Robbers on High Street and the Sleepy Jackson epitomize, in a fresh and tangible — but respectively different — way, the spirit and energy that has characterized rock and roll music since it first came into being. Take a little from here, slap it on that, draw bits from the ether, toss it all together, and shape it into a distinct expression. In this spirit, it is only natural for these bands to have immediately detectable influences — I defy anyone to find an artist in any medium without them. At this point it seems the challenge in making music, certainly in making pop music, lies in the artist’s ability to creatively distill these influences into a singular, original art form, not necessarily in creating new styles altogether — although on occasion this does happen. So when Robbers on High Street come along with a surf-rock/Pixies guitar line, or the Sleepy Jackson lift George Harrison’s trademark wah-wah, and both are reinterpreted as part of their broader idiosyncrasies, hooray for them that they do it so well. Cut partly of a similar cloth as many bands forming the so-called new New York rock scene with all its post-post-punk, moody atmosphere, Robbers on High Street resist falling prey to the same posturings by allowing themselves moments of straight-ahead guitar-rock which nicely scuffs up their coolness. Not afraid of good beats and melodies, all their songs have the fluidity of pop and the incessant energy of punk, but sounding little or nothing like either — although “A Night at Star Castle” and the perfectly named “Hot Sluts Say I Love You” do at times cross into that early ’70s Bowery sound which brought the Strokes such fame (or infamy, depending on your point of view). Keyboardist and sometime-guitarist Ben Trokan leads the music into many different directions at once, both in style and mood. In “Opal Ann”, apparently about a deceased girlfriend, Trokan pushes his initially stark and dreary piano line into swells of grinding guitars and heavy cymbals — like a grave digger with a twinkle in his eye. The band’s look is pretty unassuming, so it’s clear their focus lies beyond their image. Instead they allow their music to do most of the talking. Lead guitarist Steven Mercado (in addition to his usual woo-oo-oo-s) at one point began to sing unabashedly and jarringly like Peggy Lee of all people. Amazing. Drummer Tomer Danan punctuates the other instruments very simply and provides the binding agent, along with Jeremy Phillips’ bass-line, that these multi-directional compositions require. Their stage presence gives the impression they’ve been doing this for years — the outlook is good for when they actually do have some years behind them. The Sleepy Jackson take things even further and span the chasm of popular music over the past fifty years. They are as much a rock band as they are expert selectors and arrangers, plucking pieces from as many genres that suit their compositions, impressively hitting the mark with nearly every eccentricity — like kids in a candy store cramming as much as possible into their pockets before making a break for the door. Wearing dark, smudged eye makeup and proudly brandishing his “New York Fucking City” tourist shirt, Sleepy Jackson mastermind Luke Steele steps out onto the stage. Opening with the undulating first track on their debut album Lovers, “Good Dancers” is dominated by the lushness of a guitar doing its best sitar impersonation, unmistakably like George Harrison’s psychedelic excursions. But as soon as all the dishes have been laid out, they swipe the tablecloth from under them, still wobbling and twirling as a shiny one is slipped beneath to underpin an electro lounge track like “Rain Falls For Wind”. Then perhaps some gingham replaces that as they strike up a country-rock tune like “Miniskirt”, featuring the brilliantly silly lyrics “If I was a girl I’d wear a miniskirt into town.” Wouldn’t we all. Steele’s open vocals and the bouncy acoustic rock in the Replacements-esque “Come To This” are unavoidably infectious. But forget about the band staying in the same vein for too long. The music turns on a dime so it’s perfectly appropriate when suddenly Steele dons a flashing electronic panel on his chest, turning knobs and flipping switches, as his distorted voice rises unintelligibly above the experimental din, his mouth pressed against the microphone like some sort of apocalyptic dictator. “Vampire Racecourse” vigorously answers the question: how would the Velvet Underground have made disco music? If the question is, how would the Sleepy Jackson do California country rock by way of the Beach Boys, look no further than “Old Dirt Farmer” — fiddles and doo-doo-doo choruses all the way. Traversing each richly textured, patch-worked layer is the sneaking suspicion that perhaps the whole thing is a put-on — that maybe Steele is seeing how far out he can push things before people realize it’s all a farce. With the slight aid of lighting changes and other such mood creators, but owing primarily to their incredible versatility, the Sleepy Jackson are many different bands all at once, yet throughout maintain their own defined identity. Robbers on High Street and, to a much greater extent, the Sleepy Jackson, are precisely the kind of musical innovators that we need right now. The latter has an uncanny ability to extrapolate coherence from disparate styles and influences, not unlike the complex pop orchestrations of the Flaming Lips, while the Robbers’ achievements are more modest in comparison — as their sights are set on much nearer shores — but they’ve done an excellent job of lifting the gauze of pretension that seems to plague their forebears. If these two bands are any indication of what’s in store for rock music, there is hope yet.