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"We think our album's sweet," says Joe Camerlengo, the 23-year-old singer-songwriter behind This Is My Suitcase.
Camerlengo sits on bandmate Joe Fitzgerald's couch, petting a feline named Chairman Meow, playing me rough mixes of The Keys to Cat Heaven and rhapsodizing about his band's upcoming LP.
This Is My Suitcase devoted most of the past two years to crafting the sort of record they would adore - a little Ben Folds piano, some Andrew W.K. guitar, a smattering of Freddie Mercury falsetto - and boy, do they adore it.
Their enthusiasm is not misplaced. Even in its unfinished state, Cat Heaven is an ideal introduction to one of the city's strangest, most exciting young bands. Atop Camerlengo's whimsical tales of love, death and animals, This Is My Suitcase built a dense sonic wonderland where guitars and keyboards mingle with French horns and string quartets.
"There's things that you can get from it that you're not going to get from a first, second or third listen," Camerlengo said.
Plenty of other folks are wound up about This Is My Suitcase, too. The group's spastic live show wins fans everywhere from the corporate confines of The Basement to the actual basement of DIY haven Monster House.
They've also raised some well-connected eyebrows outside Columbus. Members of Fall Out Boy, Motion City Soundtrack and Less Than Jake are fans. L.A.-based producer Mike Green (Paramore, Yellowcard) let Suitcase invade his studio last summer to record the bulk of Cat Heaven.
"We got to do it exactly how we wanted to do it," Fitzgerald said. "I don't think any label would have allowed us to be as crazy about recording this album as we have been."
Only after completing their concoction did the band sign a record deal with a label to be revealed soon. They plan to unleash Cat Heaven in March then tour for most of the year. Then they'll begin recording their next magnum opus, a set of songs that already has Camerlengo wearing one of his exuberant grins.
By Chris DeVille - Columbus Alive
Discography
Missent to Thailand LP(2006):
1. Chivalry at Her Finest
2. Bless This Mess
3. Some Grand Romantic Gesture
4. Two Explatives Short of a Fashion Statement
5. Going Going Gone (Hollywood)
6. Fifty Five (55)
7. L.O.V.E.
8. I say we stomp him, then we tattoo him, then we hang him, then we kill him
9. The Watermarked Stateline
10. One Little, Two Little, Bad Little Indian
11. Cute Boys are for Kissing
12. Obviously, doctor, you've never been a 13-year-old girl
13. ...
The C Ep(2006):
1. Me and You
2. Manes Visits the Manor
3. The Skin is the Healthy Part
4. Apples and Townies
The C.R.E. EP(2007):
1. Stayin' In
2. Not Bones
3. Bones
4. Cat Sounds
- The Stray(2007)
- Jesusfreak(2007)
The Keys to Cat Heaven LP(2009):
1. Welcome to Cat Heaven
2. Fish and Dishes
3. Crayons
4. Rowboat
5. L.O.V.E.
6. Me and You
7. Jesusfreak
8. See Love, Sea Love?
9. Stay Here
10. Mean Fish
11. Two Explatives Short of a Fashion Statement
12. Less of a Highway
13. Not Bones
14. Confetti
15. Goodbye Sky
Tour Theme Songs:
- The Spring has Sprung, so Sing Until Spring's Sprang(May 2009)
- It Must Be July (July 2009)
Photos
Bio
This Is My Suitcase is the music performed by five friends, scattered throughout their early twenties.
After one show, the owner of the venue approached This Is My Suitcase's members and, unprovoked, offered this statement of support: "I appreciate what you do. I see a lot of bullshit here, but you guys aren't bullshit. I can tell you're actually for real." This instance wraps up the band better than any biography or fact sheet could.
The band's latest full length album, The Keys To Cat Heaven, is their best collection to date. They're certain of it. As with everything else in the Suitcase discography, it was self-recorded/produced/mixed.
As for our new album:
if you are fed up with paying full price for albums that lack french horn featurettes and string quartets; if your record collection feels void of cat and ghost content, lyrically-speaking; if your album art collection feels incomplete without a cat ghost, literally-speaking; if you immediately need your body to build an immunity to a virulent swarm of dancing falsettos and flutes; if you have been digging for records that will highlight that you are both playful and witty; if you want an album that you can stream at an appropriate volume from your apartment window to prove to passer-bys that you are intelligent and ironic; if you have been looking for a solid album to rattle the tiles from your roof while you bang your head; if you wish that Sesame Street sing-alongs sounded more like old Flaming Lips albums; if you wish that new Flaming Lips albums sounded more like vintage Sesame street records, we have the album for you:
The Keys To Cat Heaven.
The actual influences behind This Is My Suitcase's overdeveloped and unbalanced pop music aren't terribly obvious through their songs; however, one week in particular, This Is My Suitcase was compared to all of the following: Queen, The Unicorns, Elliott Smith, Wilco, Ben Folds, Jellyfish, The Flaming Lips... needless to say, it was good week. This unlikely band of rabble-rousers offers their audiences uniquely high-energy performances for offensively low prices, leaving no customer unsatisfied and no frown unturned.
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