The Drugstore Cowboys

I don't mean to harp on you guys, but seriously, go to some local shows at small venues. It's an order! No matter where I go, I always seem to find a diamond in the rough.

The untrodden territory I happened upon Monday night was at Jammin Java in VIenna, Virginia. As I sat there with my beer, watching the little scenesters gyrate to the opening bands, I began to feel as though my friend Ben and I were the oldest people there... until we saw the anxious parents waiting on the sidelines for their sons to start wailing away on their practice guitars. The first few bands were okay, but needed practice. This place was good for them because it was intimate enough to make them feel comfortable, but large enough to give them an idea of what it was like to play a "real" venue. I sat through "Like A Movie" and "The Distance." The former went through guitars like I go through text messages and the latter just kept telling us how tired they were, blaming that for their set being lackluster, which it was not.

I was starting to grow tired of the excuses when The Drugstore Cowboys came out. There was an energy that flew over the ever-expanding crowd and I kind of sat up in my chair, hoping for the best. I wasn't disappointed. These clever stallions decided to set up a projector as their backdrop and treated their guests to snippets from movies. You name it, they've probably sampled it: Bad Boys to zombies, Bruce Lee to TMNT, they created new beats for old classics. When our eyes weren't feasting on Will Smith and Vanilla Ice, they were watching the gyrations of singers Philippe Grenade and Jeffrey Scott as they threw candy and maracas to the crowd and organized stage dives all the while screeching their hearts out to beats reminiscent of the Faint mixed with the Beastie Boys. I don't think there was one person in that room that wasn't enjoying themselves by the end of the show.

Today, I had the pleasure of having an email conversation with the guitarist, Niku Azam. I asked him who their biggest influences were, musically. He replied "[they] range between members. The best part about our band is that we fuse so many different styles and genres of music that you cant really classify it too easily. A couple of the influences that we all share range from The Faint to Marilyn Manson to Dillinger Escape Plan to Movie Scores to Justin Timberlake."

I also asked him how they came up with the idea to have movies playing behind them as a backdrop because I have never seen that done before. "We always try and do something new and fresh with our live show," he wrote. "We came up with the idea of projecting movies not only onto our backdrop, but also onto us when we were thinking of something cool to do that nobody has ever done before."

"When we go to shows," he continued, "we believe that a band should not only be musically appealing but also visually appealing. Thats why we incorporated videos to our songs. We also love getting the crowd involved by handing out various toys such as maracas and things of that sort because getting the crowd involvement is very important to us. We want to be able to connect to our fans. Also, with every tour, we always have a new and crazy show."

Well put. And well done, guys. The Drugstore Cowboys are currently on tour in the Northeastern part of our wonderful United States so even if you're not in the DC area, I suggest you check them out. - Allie DeLegge Of Billboard Magazine Online

magine what would happen if you took parts of various musical genres and put them in a blender. A scoop of hardcore, an ounce of electronica, and a dash of hip-hop. Dump them all in there, leave the top off, hit puree, and watch it explode everywhere. Now you know what it's like to experience The Drugstore Cowboys.

This foursome from Washington, D.C., have created an intense, unique sound that blasts out of your speakers in every direction. There are erratic tempo shifts, staccato singing, and Blood Brothers-esque screams mashed with electronic programming, double-bass drums, and a few samples thrown in for good measure. It's a trainwreck of sounds, and it's stellar.

Beginning slowly with "Horror Flick, Scene 1: Introduction To Chaos," the track builds and builds until launching into "These Clouds Will Never Catch Us," which includes an audio clip of a woman talking about bodies falling from the World Trade Center. This line between dance party and deep emotion is what the Cowboys are so good at straddling.

Even in their more ballad-like tracks, such as "The Elegance Of The Dance," the Cowboys maintain that delicate balance of dance and dark. These are the kinds of songs you know are meant to be seen in dingy basements and VFW halls across the nation; meant to blow the mind of one audience member at a time.

The Cowboys clearly love to see just how far they can push their songs. One can imagine them hanging out at home, deciding how many of them should be screaming here, or where they should put that new keyboard bit they came up with. The lyrics focus on the deterioration of society and often a disgust for the world - themes that fit well with the spasmodic instrumentals. The songs feel organic and complete, yet at the same time one can tell the band must be itching to add more layers to them all. The band has not set any boundaries or restrictions on themselves, and that is what is going to make them so interesting to watch over the next few years. - Average_Jane

When the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 happened, it shocked this nation, the United States of America, out of the comfort zone we had enjoyed for so long. One of the results of this is that that the artists of this world, visual, musical, and literary, responded and a flood of product hit stores in the years following that were essentially artistic reactions to the tragedy. Some of it were works of sorrow, people using their medium to work through the attacks in their own self. Others were the result of how 9/11 brought everyone’s focus to what really mattered, family and friends, and thus their output focused on those aspects of life. For some it was an excuse to start shouting political diatribes, their dissatisfaction with the way leaders run the world breaking free and coming out.

While I have not heard any comment about whether “Chapter 3006...” is a conscious reaction to that day when the United States stopped and gathered, horrified, around our television sets, 9/11’s fingerprints are all over this album. While the cover hints at fear and terror, it is the back of the insert that contains the image that will cause everyone to flash back to that day. Passenger airplanes, with fire streaming from their tails, in a fatal nosedive toward a city skyline.

That picture, combined with “These Clouds Will Never Catch Us,” which is the first song after the introduction track, sets the stage for an album that is as uncomfortable as it is catchy. The track cuts in the middle of the song with something that, whether artificially crafted or real, sounds like an audio clip from a newscast of a terrified bystander narrating a tragedy. It could be 9/11, or it could be some other event that ended up being a nightmare for a certain people. But it is gripping and terrifying all at the same time.

Each song seems to dabble in the broad theme of apocalypse, which the all-too-long album title alludes to. As in “These Clouds Will Never Catch Us” it might be an event like 9/11, or the lifestyles of celebrities, or the dangers of a futuristic society where we “number everyone with bar codes on their faces.” But apocalypse is definitely the sonic and lyrical aim of the album.

Musically the easiest comparison is to mash together The Blood Brothers, VCR, and a dab of indie hip-hop. Though there are any number of comparisons if you think hard enough about it. For example, there are definite aspects of “Throwing A Wrench Into The American Music Machine” era Training For Utopia. But for all the artists that could be used on a “recommended if you like” chart, the meshing of different sounds really works quite well. What little part of you is failed to be captivated by the theme will get picked up by the part of you that is actually listening to the artistic merit of the music.

This is a very well put together album. While the theme may be a stumbling block for many (and as a result, I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who was at the twin towers on the day of the attack, it would just be too intense) this album has some of the better music of the genre on it. - Jacob Gehman