Jeff Love is whining about how people in the city are too uptight about their kites. To be fair, the kite he’s running around with in a Northern Liberties courtyard legitimately belongs to a girl who lives upstairs. After a few minutes being sweet talked by National Eye’s two principle front men, Doug Kirby and Rick Flom who explain to her that they’re in a band, she’s more than happy to let us borrow it. She even helps Jeff, running in front while he shouts, Faster!
It’s hard to tell with any of them whether they are joking (always) or being serious (never), but that charming inability to keep their sarcasm to themselves was what landed National Eye their first record label, Feel Records. Flom, along with bassist Will Baggot drunkenly guerrilla-mailed demos to different record labels, using the cover letters to mock the names of the labels and their executives. According to Feel, the insulting letter was the only reason National Eye’s demo made it through their door.
Each of the five members of National Eye has his own version of deadpan wit, but they are all complementary, and the assortment of personalities is what makes the group’s rich, multicolored approach to Indie-rock so remarkable. Spiked with faltering staccatos and whirled with swiveling guitar gusts, A Roomful of Lions, National Eye’s most recent oeuvre took five singular characters to create its contradictory yet concurrent vibes, and defies those who say that musical flavors within a band have to match. The hour-long album is styled with the light touches of Kirby and Gianmarco Cilli, whose songs have an older sounding, banjo-plucked, hollow drum slapped feel. At the same time, they push the confines of modern tones into something prophetic with Flom’s psychedelic guitar and keyboard effects and the dizzying, distant, Talking Heads-channeling vocals of Jeff Love.
National Eye’s gentle racket is meant for bigger venues; it wanders deliberately through empty spaces, and the larger the room, the more vivid the sound. Each element of the cacophony becomes more distinct when the individual movements of the fuzzed bass, cavernous drums, remote vocals, and wailing keyboards, while still emanating from the same stage, have room to expand out on their own paths The songs find their resolutions in separate corners.
Developing organically for almost a decade since they met at The Colorado College in Colorado Springs, National Eye’s journey has resulted in more than just prodigious albums. When a copy of the 22-song double disc National Eye had been giving out at shows prior to signing with Feel got into the hands of Shai Halperin from Philadelphia’s The Capitol Years, the bands became the heart of a city-wide support system that has grown over the past five years to include dozens of other bands including The Teeth and Dr. Dog, whose record label Park the Van Records adopted National Eye when Feel dissolved.
Breaking from their droll facade, all five musicians showed a sincere sense of encouragement on the road. As they toured with the Teeth to the South by Southwest festival last month, each night they would join the crowd of fans watching the Teeth perform, nudging whoever was next to them and screaming out requests. With their capering put aside, National Eye showed they an earnest enthusiasm for music, and that child-like world wonder gives their songs their rare charm.
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April 3rd, 2006 at 11:14 pm
is that how it happened? national eye was adopted?