Prabir and The Substitutes

Reproduction

Making your mark for future generations.
by Kate Bredimus

Hand claps. Like the cowbell, more is always better. When Prabir & The Substitutes were recording their self-titled debut EP, they clapped copiously. They shook their shakers and tambourines like Polaroid pictures. They made their four-piece band sound like a garage-pop choir by adding layers and layers of vocals. They went for a “muddy-drunk-rock-’n’-roll” production, front man Prabir Mehta says. And they nailed it from the comfort of their own practice space.When you’re a band or a solo artist looking to record, there are several roads you can ramble — from full-scale recording studios to smaller home studios, mobile workstations and computer programs.

Mehta thought his band’s songs called for a lo-fi, hazy garage feel. “The idea was to get a very humble and honest sound for this recording,” he says. To achieve their vision, Prabir & The Substitutes asked their friend, Robbie King, to bring his recording equipment over to their practice space on the South Side. There, they hammered out five songs over a couple of weeks in February and March.

“The upside is that the songs ended up sounding exactly how we wanted them to,” Mehta says. “The downside was the room limitations. If we wanted to do more or go for a different sound, we would not have been able to.”

Case in point: For their single “Slow,” to be released on a 7-inch vinyl, Prabir & The Substitutes looked beyond the borders of the rehearsal space and sought guidance at Sound of Music, the elder statesman of Richmond’s recording scene.

“The advantage [of recording at Sound of Music] was to get that high-end, glossy pop sound,” Mehta says. “The disadvantage was the time. Since we had limited time, we had to stick to what we had planned and split.”

Since it opened more than a decade ago, Sound of Music has become Richmond’s largest full-scale recording studio. Rates start at $50 to $70 an hour, which, for musicians with limited funds, makes every minute count. But Miguel Urbiztondo, who co-owns and operates Sound of Music along with partners David Lowery and John Morand, says the studio tries to accommodate as many musicians as possible. “I like to think we can work with any realistic budget,” he says.

Urbiztondo’s introduction to Sound of Music was as a paying artist with the band Tweaker in 1994. “By the summer of ’97, I was a partner,” he recalls. “I’d come from a DIY music scene and was a huge fan of the stuff Sound of Music was recording. I quickly realized the staff had more to do with our success than the price or the equipment we used.”

With three venerated musicians at its helm, Sound of Music has established itself in the national market, bringing in such artists as the Black Crowes, The Kills and The Cardigans’ Nina Persson. Jason Molina, the prolific indie rocker behind the bands Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co., recently recorded some new tracks at Sound of Music for an upcoming release celebrating the 10th anniversary of his label, Secretly Canadian.

“I had just finished recording and writing the new Magnolia Electric Company LP here in Chicago at Electrical Audio,” he says. “We were on very familiar ground working here in my hometown and with Steve Albini, who has recorded our last three full-lengths. David and Miguel approached me with a few dates they had open at Sound of Music and wanted to see if I’d like to come out to Richmond and work on some new songs. … I decided it would be worth the experiment.”

Ask Urbiztondo to sum up his mission statement for Sound of Music in just a few words, and he’ll tell you, “Capturing creativity in comfort.”

- Style Weekly

Richmond's foremost hair farmer, the princely pompadoured Prabir Mehta, has sidelined his (in)famous Rachel Nevadas for the time being to form the poptastic Prabir And The Substitutes. Mehta's M.O. is still the same, however: heavenly harmonies and Rickenbacker hooks big enough to snare the Great Grape Ape. - Creative Loafing, Charlotte, NC

Prabir and The Substitutes

There are a few things that make Virginia
underground pop outfit Prabir and The Substitutes
so darn loveable: One, they sound like The Apples
In Stereo; two, they're completely under the radar; and
three, they'll rock their asses off live in front of any
audience, no matter how small. Rough yet tuneful,
unrefined yet immediately catchy, the group slaps
together rock in the pseudo-Brit-pop fashion, almost
like the original wave of American bands in the
60's trying to rip off The Beatles but, with no-frills
hooks and full band harmonies, it's a completely
genuine revisiting. Previews of songs from the
upcoming Five Little Pieces (including "The Kiss"
and "When Was The Last Time?") are straight-up fun,
suggesting the band is finding its sound

- The Onion

Pop

written by John Miles
Chat-Beat
Chattanooga, TN

For those of you who missed the show last week at Midtown Music Hall let me sum it up with one word, Pop. For years we've said good things about J-Roddy Waltson & The Business and once again the boys delivered the goods. However, this time one of the other acts stood out a bit more to me. Opening act Prabir & The Substitutes (from Richmond, VA) came on and dazzled the crowd. This band combines the jangle of Neil Young but fills it up with Beatlesish harmonies. In the middle of the set there was even a barber shop style acapella song. They provided more energy to their set by actually putting down the instruments instead of turning it up. Pop music. That's the Chat-Beat pick of the week.

www.prabirandthesubstitutes.com
go listen, you'll be hooked. - Chat-Beat

PRABIR & THE SUBSTITUTES
Self-Titled
Pop Faction

"The goal as stated by Prabir Mehta was to create pop music the way that it used to sound and when I read comparisons to my favorite band, The Beach Boys, I couldn't wait to hear this. For the first time in a long time a band that had the intention of creating oldies influenced pop-rock has delivered. With an obvious influence of the Beach Boys more out there records like "Smile" and "Wild Honey, " this is defiantly an EP that will make Beach Boy/Brian Wilson fans warm and fuzzy inside. If you were digging the direction that Wilson and crew took with Pet Sounds and into the albums like "Surf's Up" then you will love this record. Thank you Prabir and the Substitutes for this EP. Good, solid, oldies influenced, pop rock music for the masses."

-All Ages Zine - All-Ages Zine

Wouldn't It Be Nice?

From the multilayered instrumentation to the downright angelic vocal acrobatics, countless bands have been influenced by the "teenage symphonies to God" that Brian Wilson wrote and performed with The Beach Boys. But few bands wear that inspiration on their sleeves as clearly as Prabir & The Substitutes, who've gone so far as to title one of their songs "Brian Wilson, I Love You." Even without that direct statement of devotion, the Richmond-based band would show its hand to any listener quick to pick up on its sound: a flattering ode to the sun-drenched '60s, with just a hint of dark clouds on the horizon. Prabir & The Substitutes, The Keyons, Waking Clifford and North Elementary play Nanci Raygun on Saturday. Tickets are $5 and the show starts at 10p.m.
- Richmond Times Dispatch

There’s something remarkable in how keenly Prabir and his boys grasp and embody the essentials of rock ’n’ roll that we all know and love, but that most bands fail to grasp. Combining a classic ’50s rhythm-and-blues foundation, ’60s pop harmonies, and the showmanship of a heavily caffeinated ’70s soul group, The Substitutes capture all the freshness of the British Invasion by injecting just enough modern quirk to make it sound new. Still managing to keep the momentum, the group even stepped off the stage mid-set to favor us with a barbershop-style a cappella number before returning to their instruments to bring the first leg of the evening to a crashing close. - The Nashville Scene

With no label to fund them, no global audience to fuel them, and — according to the album's most explicit track — no die-hard groupies to, erm, befriend them, Prabir & the Substitutes are one of America's numerous under-the-radar bands working on a shoestring budget. The story line is familiar to anyone who's dreamed of the rock & roll lifestyle while playing music in a converted garage, but there's something different here. The Substitutes' records are gritty, their instruments crunchy, their harmonies trebly, and while those are telltale signs of an under-financed band, they also work to the group's advantage. Share focuses on a vintage brand of rock & roll, one that would've found a nice home among British teenagers in the early '60s. Capturing that sound on analog tape gives it some sort of validity, and the fact that the Substitutes can sing — and we mean sing, in the same way that the Hollies and the Zombies could really, really sing — only adds to the effect. It's often hard to hear all of the band's three- and four-part harmonies, but they're still there, populating the mix alongside Hammond riffs and quick blasts from two guitars. The songs bounce between acoustic neo-oldies ("Take My Girl Home"), power pop numbers ("Oh Marie"), and scream-your-head-off blues ("Heart Attack Machine, Vol. 1"), none of which waste any time in delivering a hook. Only "Do You Love Me Like I Love You?" lacks any real pop meat, since it's essentially a mash-up of the album's earlier tracks, complete with what sounds like someone stomping all over Charlie Glenn's organ. But even that song is endearing, all 79 seconds of it, as it shows a band that's young enough to take risks (and, if it sounds right, go a bit crazy). The party comes to a nice close with "These Old Eyes," a Beach Boys homage that pairs a solitary guitar arpeggio with a cappella vocals. While the group croons its way through the final verse, there's a tiny disruption near the microphone — the quick sound of a chair creaking or a pen being dropped to the studio floor. Many groups would edit out the resulting clatter, but the Substitutes leave it in — perhaps because the vocals were recorded live with only one mic, or perhaps because "mistakes" are what make rock & roll fun. And Share is definitely, definitely fun.
- All Music Guide

The great demigods of rock were smiling upon the 9:30 Club Friday night.

Prabir & the Substitutes warmed up and won over a sold-out audience for main act and Beatles cover band, the Silver Beats. The hyper-energetic and ultra-talented boys from Richmond, VA introduced their renovated old-school sound with quick, oldies-influenced riffs before plunging into their set list. Songs like “The Kiss” and “No More Pretty Girls for Me” were like neatly wrapped presents for the ears. Formulaic lovelorn melodies were optimistically tied up with shiny harmonized vocals and hopeful Major chord progressions.

The edgy, if not borderline-brassy, voice of frontman Prabir Mehta updated the band’s early pop sound with punk rock vocals. Suave-handed bass player Adam Thompson rounded out the edges with steady, warm, and funky bass lines that were featured in organ-laced ballad, “When Was the Last Time?” and the sexually frustrated “Everybody’s Got Someone.”

Meanwhile, the group’s unsexy and innocently playful cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” put Jessica Simpson and her daisy dukes to shame.


- Brightest Young Things.com