At ABC No Rio, early evening on Saturday, Claire's Diary's lead singer and guitarist Sophie Rae introduces a cover with "This is by one of our favorite bands, the Shangri-Las", "Give Him A Big Kiss" and knock it out with a slightly shambolic rave up, which honors the call and response and gets all of the conversational tone. It is good humored and exciting, and let's face it NOT "He Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss". The sound uses the shouted in unison and pairing away, the playing off tangent melodies and scrumming together like post-rock vaguely loud ambient sound merchants, and a flippant joy in creation. In other words, it does what a good cover should do, it introduces the band with a song you already know. And it is unique. Sophie and drummer Isadora Schappell were two thirds of the pre-teen rock and roll phenom Care Bear On Fire, and despite the do it yourself aesthetics at the Claire's Diary record release party and despite, as keyboard player Kiri Oliver's mother warns me, the show being essentially friends playing for friends, the only way to listen to them is as a real rock group.
Since "Girl Next Door" made my top ten songs of 2012 I've assumed Claire's Diary were a cusp band, one to watch, and at a dynamic too short 30 minute, nine song dash through the new album, Claire's Diary was at least that. On record, it is Sophie's band, there is a serious (sullenness) to songs like "You Should Know By" and "Cat Space Jam" that defy their poppiness surfer feel. It is uneasy listening, with everything about Claire's Diary's sound on a certain level, as though it is all one sound, all beating forward, even the keyboards and especially the rhythm section. Voices rise together and subside.
That's on record, on stage the drummer Izzy is magical, she bangs away like a young Dave Grohl and her long brown hair flays from side to side. and a wide smile covers her from side to side -she's like a fulcrum. The band is a foursome again with the return of Joey Koneko after a two month sojourn. Joey may well be the most energetic bassist I ever seen. The man has good moves and falls back to the drums and forward again to the front of the stage. Of all things Claire's Diary do, what they do first is move. Kiri Oliver also plays for Amy Klein's band Leda and appears to be something of a "Permanent Wave" superstar and she doesn't add coloring but force of personality to the line-up.
Unlike the rest of the bands at this showcase (I plan to write about the "Fake French" afternoon at a later date), Claire's Diary doesn' t need a "friends for friends" caveat before reviewing them. The album is terrific. I plan to send it to rock nyc's Mary Magpie, who has been writing for us since she was 12 years old and now at 16 years old sings for Winter Of Discontent, I would like to hear her take, though I think Mary is too snobbish to get down on just a sweet rocking album.
I think that is what I love most about Claire's Diary -they first and foremost do their job. The band is a strange hybrid band. Part of the feminist underground but not really. Unlike the three other bands on the bills, they are not Lesbian signifiers and unlike their Riot Grrls ancestors they don't sing about sexual politics or political politics and what there is, "Girl Next Door" for instance, is subjective to the point of being open to interpretation. Their best song last night, "Western Mass" is about taking the fall for a guy, and the best musical moment was Sophie's solo on "Cat Space Jam" -a fast and clever lower string finger picker. Nothing is over done, everything is fast and fun. Oddly enough they didn't play their fascinating identity crisis, "I Didn't Want You", perhaps the band's most ambitious moment and a tour de force for Joey on bass and Sophie's singing.
As far as the set goes, the first two songs were last years EP so they had the audience interested from the get go, and the fourth song was "Kiss" and so they kept em tight for the next fifteen minutes. To put it simpler: the set worked.
Kiri's mom also told me Sophie and Izzy are off to college this year (yes, that young) which leads you back to the friends playing for friends. Me? I think it just makes you wonder if the band will be touring and when so I can see em again… maybe get Mary down….
Grade: A