Seattle Subsonic

BEND Is Your Friend

June 16th, 2009

Every once and a while in Seattle a wave of artistic goodness saturates the community and envelopes everything we deem great about music in this city. We all have our faves. Some of us like hip-hop, some of us indie, singer/songwriter, alternative, etc… the list goes on and on. But one thing we all agree on is good music, and we strive to go out see, hear and support our local favorites in hopes that one day they’ll make it huge and we can say “I remember when I saw those guys play in the back-yard at a house party.” Well guess what, one of those unknown musical gems still exists and I watched them play in the back-yard at a house party last night. They are called BEND, and they are probably the best unknown local group I’ve seen in a long time.

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Never heard of them? Well neither had I until about 3 months ago when I was at a fund raiser at Fuel and saw them play. The sound guy had the vocals turned down but the songs shined through. I was really impressed by the writing and having never heard of them I tried to exchange information to do a write up but I lost the info. Little did I know 6 months later front man Jay would be the bartender at Shadowland next to my house and guitarist Ben is the co-owner (great happy hour by the way). Then I show up to a house party on a Monday night with a six-pack of high life tall cans in hand and watched BEND throw the fuck down for about 2 hours. Here we are in a residential neighborhood, soccer vans and SUV’s with family’s all around, and nobody called the cops. And do you know why? Because they are that fucking good that’s why. Several of the neighbors came out onto their lawns to enjoy the show, it was a brilliant day.

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Describing them? Well that’s a little tough since pigeon holing a band like this won’t do them justice till you see them yourself. But imagine watching Mookie Blalok in the early 90’s and knowing your on the verge of something great. The band is simple, vocals, guitar, bass, and drums. And when you think you’ve seen every variation of that recipe a band like this comes along and reminds us, that’s all you need if its good and done right. Jay’s voice is strong and passionate with great range that embodies the power of the songs. No need for shticks, no need for antics, only really good writing with a group of guys literally gelling musically on stage right in front of you… Its a great thing to see.

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Special shout outs to Sara Starr, Monica, Simon, and Emily for throwing a great house party on an epic sunny Seattle day… fantastic!