eastern grip

Eastern Grip / Saturday, October 23

Just because a band has good taste in influences is hardly a reliable indicator that they've digested them in a manner that fuels them in a flattering light. But in the case of Eastern Grip, Niko Burt, Rory McAuley, Michael Welke, and Joe Woods do an admirable job of taking their overt love of angular rock, pop, and punk bands from the '90s (Archers of Loaf, Steel Pole Bath Tub, Fugazi, Guided by Voices) and running it through their own skill set without compromising either their own voices or the spirit of their inspirations. Why Eastern Grip isn't a bigger draw has always been a mystery to me, but they certainly deserve more recognition. Besides, you have to love a band with a song entitled "Josh Hartnett Can't Act for Dick." With The Dandelion War, You May Die in the Desert. Café Venus/Mars Bar, 609 Eastlake Ave. E., 624-4516. 9 p.m. $6. HANNAH LEVIN

- Seattle Weekly

A hard rockin’ 4-piece garage band from Seattle who take traditional indie rock songs and turn them on their heads. Band members Nick Burt, Michael Welke, Joe Woods, and Rory McAuley have been playing together since around 2004 and have been involved with local acts such as Harvey Danger, Rocky Votolato, Ghost Stories and Heather Duby. All those different influences definitely stand out in their sound, but Eastern Grip has a new approach. While most of their music is an attempt to mess up perfectly good pop songs, they also have enough hard rocking guitars and vocals going on to give them a lot more punk rock than indie cred. In a sea of familiar sounding Seattle bands though, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, we think Eastern Grip is a refreshing new change to what you might hear, and today is all about discovery. Today’s selection “Every Day We Walked a Little Farther” is a prime example of these guys simply rocking out the new material from their EP, The Flailure. It could just as easily be a punk rock anthem. You decide what it sounds like to you.

You can find out more about the band and listen to additional tracks on their MySpace page. The band also performed live at KEXP in December which you can find on our Live Performances page here.

- KEXP.org

Their bio on The Stranger's Bands Page makes it clear: Eastern Grip are "just rock." Their songs are strong and played with plenty of talent, but their guitar-heavy sound is delivered without fancy flourishes. They're not unmemorable. The drumming is sharp and hard, the guitars are sometimes jarring, and the bass and vocals both have a little bit of raw, post-hardcore edge. But that's about all there is to it, and that's okay. Sometimes that's all you want to do—without shticks or gimmicks, sometimes you want to "just rock."
- The Stranger

On their MySpace page, Seattle foursome Eastern Grip refer to their music simply as “messed-up pop songs.” What do they do to mess up the straightforward melodies they come up with? They poke, pull, twist, and pummel them with guitars that sometimes twang country-like, and other times crunch angularly in an early ’90s indie-rock kinda way, and still other times feed back with vigor. Then they kinda bash them around with clattering rhythms, and sing and yelp in ways that will never get you onto American Idol. Other times, they hardly mess ’em up at all – like “Boots On,” a classic slab of rollicking power-pop with a Pavement-ish edge that only has a little bit of weird noise in the choruses. This show celebrates the release of the quartet’s new full-length, Griptheria, which I’m sure they hope you purchase at the show before you spend all your money buying beer and getting messed up yourself.
- Seattle Weekly