Bicycats, The

"The Bicycats' lone Bicycat (essentially), Zachary Bernstein, celebrates the birth of his new CD "How Could You?" while also celebrating the 25th anniversary of himself. The CD opens up swinging all Redbone and Tin Pan with "My Heart Belongs To Dixie" before veering back to the tight 'n' sweet pop that the last Bicycats platter, "I Love You For Your Mind," teemed with. With quirky lyrics about killing spiders, a waitress who's actually a bird on her way down south, and a serenade set in a cemetery, this album is more acoustic and jazzy than the last, but just as much fun for oddballs and evenballs alike." - Rochester City Paper

The Durham-based record label 307 Knox is known primarily for local releases, but recently the label has stretched farther up the East Coast to release albums from New York’s Bicycats, and a forthcoming release from Boy/Girl.

The Bicycats, the act in question here, is the project of Zachary Bernstein, a graduate of SUNY Purchase College.

With I Love You For Your Mind, Bernstein has assembled an album’s worth of light-hearted pop rock all chock full of unabashed goofiness. He’ll sing about a certain “Girl With A Very Subtle Moustache� in no uncertain terms. He’ll assert that “The washer goes on the left/And th edryer goes on the right/Your pants go around your ankles/And everybody’s feelin’ all right.� And all the while he’ll sound as earnest as he does sarcastic.

It’s a fun dynamic to ride out a record with.

But where The Bicycats seem to be at their peak is on songs such as “Every Time We Say Goodbye (Not A Cole Porter Song)� and “Living Situation� (which features Celine George on lead vocals) because of the way those songs take a simple structure and build a sweet, almost cutesy melody atop the no-frills foundation.

-Bryan Reed

http://apps.dailytarheel.com/blogs/dive/?p=718 - The Daily Tarheel

The Bicycats first release, i love you for your mind, is a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing. Keep in mind, however, that the wolf is clever and jaded, and the sheep is a campy lighthearted hipster. Zachary Bernstein is The Bicycats. He wrote, performed, and produced each song. Initially, his simple, bouncy melodies disguise themselves as harmless. These melodies are like a new best friend, who is relentlessly trying to get you up off your heartbroken, melancholy ass, and go out for drinks, on a night when you're hell bent on sulking. His "aw c’mon man I SWEAR we won’t even think about her� tactics eventually win, and you submit. The next thing you know, you're at the bar with this offbeat guy, and the painful subjects you were purposefully avoiding have come up. Thing is, you're not mad. This guy is damn funny. It turns out; the searing pain of heartbreak IS kind of absurd in this lighting, and man you needed to get out of that stale old house anyway. Such is the case with 'i love you for your mind.' The Bicycats trick you into meeting up during recess, and then serve up intelligent, weighty subjects using form and lyrics that are just silly and random enough to not leave you full of regret for having tackled such lofty tomfoolery. Bernstein gets away with it because clever fun is contagious. Don't fight it.

Directly tied into this cleverness, is a mischievous, almost stylish self -deprecation that appears in songs like “Every Time We Say Goodbye (Not A Cole Porter Song).� Lines like "Every Time we say goodbye, my heart sinks to the pavement…we seem to be developing a thing here, where we say everything we wanna say, then one of us decides that we are tired, and the other person sadly walks away" are tongue-in-cheek followed by the afterthought, " I think we all know who that guy is." In the context of the song's infectious nursery school-esque keyboards, this admission is half precocious- nerdy -adolescent; half friend-of-a-cousin you're completely relieved shows up at Thanksgiving. Oh thank god, an unexpected and welcome goof, just when The Fear was beginning to set up house. And this goof just might be gay. But you don't think so. But you're not sure. And this makes them intriguing. There are perfect, odd, even flirty songs like the remarkably short "Very Subtle Moustache,� or the delightfully hostile "Dance The Night Away" will certainly find themselves on carefully thought out mixed CD’s, for those of us who make such things for those ‘people who matter.’ The not so subtle queerness of these songs, as opposed to the aforementioned moustache, is refreshingly surprising, and again just further celebrates The Bicycats' richly textured "Otherness". Even though you swore you didn't feel like celebrating, dammit. Well then. Bernstein's hooks stick to you like red mud on your corduroys after the kickball game at recess. With effort it will go away, but for now there is proof that you like to play, even if it gets messy.

--Beth F. (the kid)

S/R (307 Knox Records)

http://9poundchihuahua.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=4&id=16&Itemid=27 - 9 Pound Chihuahua

The Bicycats - "Every Time We Say Goodbye" - When I need to enjoy someone's simple melodies and straight up honesty, I turn on Ray Lamontagne's "Trouble". When I want to listen to someone who makes me laugh because his simple melodies and straight up honesty are so simple and straight up they are poetic, I can always count on Zach "The Shark" Bernstein's concoctions. This one gets a special shout out for the well-placed marimba.

-Dan Costello - Urban Folk Magazine

The Bicycats: On his record, he played all the instruments himself, but
for his live shows, Zachary Bernstein has a vision for his keyboard
and ukulele-tinged pop which he hasn't quite managed to realize yet.
"I'd like to think that the music is, overall, quite charming," he
says timidly. "Since I'm just one guy right now, I can't sound too
poppy. I'm still a singer-songwriter type until I get a band." For
now, touring buddies Julz A and James Vidos will have to do.

The Bicycats, Julz A, and James Vidos at the Twisted Branch Tea
Bazaar. 9:30pm.

-Vijith Assar - The Hook (Charlottesville, VA)

The Bicycats is an absolutely brilliant outfit. It's real tough to be odd and appeal to those who may not cotton to odd all too well. The Bicycats play pop music with doses of mania and a Young Fresh Fellow sense of unpretentious cool. Zach "The Shark" Bernstein appears to be the only official Bicycat, though the CD "I Love You For Your Mind" has a few folks joining Bernstein as he bounces between ukulele, guitar, piano, and some sort of organ.

At a glance, The Bicycats is a fun group that mixes pop and dry wit; however, the songs shouldn't be dismissed due to - or despite of - their random, matter-of-fact subject matter (girls with moustaches, lost love, melting Ferris wheels, making the bed) and clever arrangements. In a word, the music is fantastic. Different never made better sense.

Before taking off to tour the States, The Bicycats play with Kelli Rae Powell and The Soups Of The Day Saturday, August 11, at Daily Perks Coffee House, 389 Gregory Street, 271-2340, 7 p.m., $5, all ages.

-Frank De Blase, Aug. 8th, 2007 - Rochester City Paper

From scary kids and poor bastards to plastic chords and crochet’d machetes, whether you like quirky music or just quirky names, the music around town this weekend has you in mind.

For instance, NYC’s The Bicycats hit up Mother Fools at 8 p.m. on Friday with a repertoire of songs including “Salad Van” and “Very Subtle Moustache” tweaked out by poppy keyboards and an intermittent ukulele. (Imagine Belle and Sebastian teaming up with Harry Nilsson.) The Bicycats are joined by the also ukulele-friendly “old-timey albeit timely cabaret-style bad girl,” Brooklyn singer-songwriter Kelli Rae Powell, and local Doug Pahl. - Dane 101, Madison, WI