Named after a bar in Bristol, pale (Irish) band La Rocca call Los Angeles home now.
The people just weren’t full of enough crap back home.
Amongst empties of Jameson’s, Guinness, Heineken, Taddy Porter’s, Bailey’s…Tylenol PM, that green cough syrup and Producer Tony “Knows more magic than Keith Barry” Hoffer (Belle & Sebastian, Supergrass, Beck, The Kooks) La Rocca recorded the four tracks that are their EP, “Sing Song Sung”. La Rocca is the Brothers Baillie – front man Bjorn and bassist Simon, keyboardist/Englishman Nick Haworth, and Alan Redmond as Bam Bam.
La Rocca are meeting all the requirements-
Indie hipster band checklist:
Song played over montage on the O.C. – check
Make friends with Beck –check.
Work with your favorite producer, Tony Hoffer – check
Sign with small yet respectable label - check
Yep, La Rocca were on the O.C. (“If You Need The Morning”). Beck is their MySpace friend. So is Amoeba Music. As are their label mates the Silversun Pickups. La Rocca and the Silversun Pickups are signed to Dangerbird, but La Rocca is not part of The Ship collective per se. They didn’t want to wear the jacket.
Title track “Sing Song Sung” is so awesome – one of those perfect two-minute pop songs that every band strives for, that could have been written by The Boss and Elvis Costello’s man baby.
After “Sing Song Sung” anything lesser could make one hit the Skip button. But second track placement isn’t the reason “Sketches (20 Something Life) doesn’t work. “Sketches (20 Something Life)” stirs one’s memories of “Friends” episodes…and theme songs gone by. I think the word is, “Anyway.”
Thus far La Rocca has unsuccessfully tried to duck comparisons to that other Irish band. But third track “Home” is so U2-ish, in a “Where The Streets Have No Name”/”Sunday Bloody Sunday”/”Walk On” kind of way. Is that really a bad thing though - a good song is a good song.
Ah, the fourth song, “Cambodia” (has it been almost ten minutes already?) It’s easy to imagine why “Cambodia” is one of the bands favorite songs to play live. It’s got that Boss-Costello-ness, the whole band gets a low-impact aerobic workout. And Baillie gets to sing pretty, then sing loud, then yelp - Brian Aubert style. Is “Cambodia” about the Far East. Or is it about his band mates. Or is it about distilled liquor. Like most songwriters, Baillie is none too eager to explain himself. And why should he. |