Reviews:
Rude Rock rocks on second
album
By Matt Pelkey
The new album had been out only a week,
but when local favorites Rude Rock Family played at Rae's in Sperryville
last month, the crowd was ready and waiting for the chorus to
explode on "SubAtomic Man." When it hit -- at about
a minute into the song and then again a minute and a half later
-- feet left the floor and hands pumped in the air.
"No No No... Yeah," the long-awaited second album from
Rappahannock's Rude Rock Family, is a chance for the band's true
blue fans to take home all the songs that they have broken a sweat
to at shows. It is also a chance for the uninitiated to taste
a home-grown mix of rock, ska, reggae and a genuine love for music.
Cooked up over the span of three years
at Rude Rock's practice space and studio in Castleton, the album
somehow carries the impression of late night jokes and song-writing
sessions for the tight-knit band. The songs hint at an array of
influences, with variety that reveals a disregard for the comfort
of a unifying genre.
The first song, "Shovel Head,"
opens with western-tinged guitar intertwined with subtle trumpet
notes, evoking deserted Mexican towns or lonely saloons. The theme
is sewn hauntingly into later tracks "Best Western,"
"Drained" and "Santos," and serves to beg
Rude Rock's trademark explosions of cymbals, distortion and raucous
vocals.
Reggae and ska are infused into a number
of the songs. A ragged bass line and rim shots set the rhythm
for "Muddy River," while guitar chucks and a dark trumpet
line reminiscent of the Specials create the mood in "SubAtomic
Man."
Much of "No No No... Yeah" feels
like you're at a pot luck with the members of Rude Rock and they've
ladled dish after dish onto your plate, with all of the food mixing
and overlapping deliciously.
But a number of the album's songs embrace
boundaries. "New Wop" is an unabashed doo-wop tune,
with "doo-wop" actually sung in the backup vocals. There
is also a cover of Dick Dale's surf version of "Misilou,"
made famous by the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. "Me Gustas"
is a straightforward drum-and-bass fueled dub track, and "In
Your Head" could easily have come from a Clash album.
Granted, you won't often find four songs
spanning those genres on a single album.
Rude Rock's punk and ska influence is easy
to pin on Noah Waggener and Mark Reiter, who played in the well-known
punk band the Daycare Swindlers. But that would be too simple.
Each of the band's five members brings his or her personal tastes,
and all of them stress collaboration.
"There's a little more variety to
the songs when everyone can give their input," said Waggener,
the lead vocalist.
He and guitarist Chris Moyles started the
band modestly, playing their first show to the accompaniment programmed
drum beats on a laptop computer.
"It wasn't even supposed to be a band,"
Waggener said.
By 2003 the duo were playing out with a
full line-up.
Rude Rock has kept busy lately, playing
five weekends in a row starting in December. They have two shows
lined up for February and March, one of which, a Valentine's Day
bash, will be at Rae's this Friday.
And live performances are really where
Rude Rock's energy comes through.
"People come up to me and say: 'You
guys look like you're having so much fun'," said Trista Scheuerlein,
who plays trumpet for the band.
She readily admitted that they do have
so much fun. As did bassist John Whissel.
"When there's a big crowd and a lot
of energy, we feed off that," he said.
Live performances allow the band to stretch
out the grooves that get cut short on the studio versions of the
songs. They will read the audience, and play as long as there
are feet moving on the dance floor.
"We just like having fun," Whissel
said.
E-mail the reporter at mpelkey@timespapers.com.
Times Community © 2007 | Rappahannock
News
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Rude Rock releases CD
In & Around
Katie Dolac
Media General News Service
Friday, January 11, 2008
Northern Virginia indie band Rude Rock
Family’s new release “No, no no … Yeah,”
may sound familiar to its loyal sect of followers.
It features many songs the Family has performed at its shows for
many months.
The five-piece set releases “No,
no no … Yeah,” the long awaited - three years to be
exact - follow-up to its debut “For the Masses … ,”
at the big Pietasters shindig Saturday in Warrenton.
At the group’s last gig - which included
belly dancers - in a smoky bar in Culpeper, band members handed
out $10 advance copies of “No, no no … Yeah”
to an intimate gathering of its most loyal of followers, who snatched
them up within minutes.
The music, which the band describes on
its MySpace.com site as “dancehall to dance club, punk rock
to electro-funk,” has the power to pull even the shiest
of bar folk to the front of the stage. Infectious tunes like “Subatomic
Man” and “N’Arnge” that have kept fans
traveling are finally captured on one convenient portable disc
for continuous listening pleasure.
And it hardly disappoints, when it oozes originality unheard since
The Pixies.
“[The songs were] formatted so it
could fit on the stage in a live performance,” said trumpet
player Trista “T-Pet” Scheuerlein. “Each of
us would come - mostly Noah - would come with zygotes of songs
and we would flesh them out together.”
Scheuerlein called the album more “collaborative”
than the first. as “For the Masses ...” was a small
recording project led by lead singer Noah Waggener, of late-’90s
punk band Daycare Swindlers, and guitarist Chris Moyles.
The two started playing together in their
rural, hippie hamlet homes in Rappahannock County, pulling musicians
to fill parts as needed.
Ultimately the project evolved into The
Rude Rock Family as a quirky live performing band in 2003, with
bassist John Whissel and Scheuerlein. Former DCS drummer Mark
Reiter came aboard in 2006, the second album came this month.
“This is the first real album I was
part of the creative process on,” Scheuerlein said.
Katie Dolac can be reached at 703-878-8075.
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Rude Rock Family Melts
the Walls off the Kettle Club
I've been "around" for quite a long time, so long in
fact, that I remember my senior class booking a new band called
"Aerosmith" to play in our high school auditorium for
600 bucks. My mom used to hang with Brad Delp's sister and was
actually in the maternity ward when the lead vocalist for Boston
was born. (God rest his soul). And I was the first kid in my class
to own that new Zepp album with "Stairway to Heaven."
But in all my years, I can't recall being so impressed by a band
as I was on Saturday night by Rappahannock faves, Rude Rock Family.
While their reputation preceeded them,
RRF was still a "local band" and because I receive literally
hundreds of emails and phone calls every week in which I am told
how great "Band A" is and how huge of a fan base "Band
B" has, I tend to reserve my opinions until after I've seen
'em play. Ninety percent of the time, the bands are good and have
what one can only describe as an average following, but Rude Rock
Family delivered on all fronts. This was no hype -- this band
was, and is, the real thing.
Not that I was skeptical... because any band that lists "Camper
Van Beethoven" as an influence is pretty cool in my book,
and their MySpace tunes were professionally recorded and performed,
but it's the people in a band who gel to make a band great, and
these people are great. They are the genuine article. They are
fun, personable, multi-talented and probably don't have any use
for the word "pretentious."
For you bands who are trying to make it out there, this is what
you should be taking aim at. It's not about how cool you are,
or how fast you can shred a guitar neck, it's about being true
to yourself and your fans. Rude Rock Family is a real as they
come.
By not trying to be cool in any way, they come off way cooler
than the bands who try so very hard to force it upon themselves.
(Hey, we're a rock school, so watch and learn!)
I am grateful to RRF, not just for playing for us and the financial
support it brought along with it, but for the lesson in "Professional
Band 101" that they administered to an to an impressionable
audience.
www.myspace.com/culpeperrocks
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Rude Rock Family,
with Two Man Advantage, Supreme Commander, Rally Vincent and K-Series
If any people have any doubt that Rude Rock Family is one of the
best bands in NoVA, then they need to apply some grease to their
necks and see if they can pry their empty heads out of their own
butts. Last nights show as one for the ages, as The Rudes kept
their adoring audience in a massive frenzy almost until the stroke
of midnight. And this Punk Rock Prom wasn't just for or about
punk rockers -- I witnessed an incredible mix of cynical metalheads,
emo whiners and even a smattering of the classic rock dudes mixed-in
with Punk Nation. It was like RRF had brought world peace to a
small patch of land inside the building on West Culpeper Street.
And hot?
At 11pm last night, National Weather Service stats recorded the
outside temperature in Culpeper at 55 °F, but inside the ol'
Rock Academy, with the air conditioner working overtime, it was
81-degrees. That's a 26-degree difference you could experience
by walking less than 20-feet.
So yeah... Rude Rock Family is hot! :)
But almost nobody was opting to hang outside. Instead, they were
dancing, jumping and screaming. And if water is any indication,
we went through over 100 bottles of the stuff!
We're a "rock school" and we
try to teach kids how to use their talent and stage dynamics to
impress their audience, thus building a loyal fan base. Rude Rock
Family took the head of the rock school class last night and led
by example. They are a classic illustration of how hard work,
years of practice and performing, plus working as a team and not
as a group of individuals, will create the ultimate show band.
There are no individual rock stars in Rude Rock Family; they all
are.
www.myspace.com/culpeperrocks
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