the kissing club

in keeping with my attempt to post about all of the bands i saw at the sbl show, today i think the spotlight will do well to shine on the kissing club. i already made mention of this one man band, aka jake miller, when i talked about the stevedores. i think what i said about him was "jake miller is so sick on his guitar i have no words." hard as it may be, i'm going to try to find some.

just listening to jake on tamuawok. (the stevedores) or his myspace is impressive, and seeing him enhances that many times over. if you watched the vid of the stevedores like i told you to, then you've already seen him flip out on his guitar, complete with head thrashing and body spazzing. what came after that during his solo set had a different tone and feel, but was still equally amazing and exciting. he came in jamming to a song about locomotives and went out yelling about dancing all night to the water in the pipes. oh, and he also made a cameo appearance during tin tin can's set on the bongos. anything you can't do jake? no? i didn't think so.

jake got started by playing "the displaced persons song" with ben johnson (100 monkeys) on the bass and zach arlan (drew & the medicinal pen) on the drums. can i just say, i absolutely love this song. it's one of my favorites for a couple of reasons, the first being the guitar break in the middle. secondly, the lyrics by thomas pynchon are really, really well written and continue building until reaching my favorite line. "we were made for song and sin" are the words that close the song, being sung over and over by a gravelly voice deep with conviction. the first time i heard that i thought it a good definition for humans, and to me song and sin translated to praise and depravity. i realize there's a slight error in my revelation - we weren't actually meant for depravity, but for praise. but God knew the fall would happen, and still used our sin to bring glory to His name.

a "message on the moon" later came "linden tree", which is absolutely one of the sweetest songs in the world. when i saw jake perform "linden tree" in birmingham it was done as a solo and i loved it, but the addition of molly mcdonough makes it that much better.



then came "i can't tell," followed by an amazing and heartfelt cover of spencer bell's "nerve damage." getting to hear spencer's songs played is something i always look forward to when going to see 100 monkeys, and i was so happy to see other bands perform some as well. i also really appreciated the seriousness of the moment amongst everyone there. towards the end of the song is when 100 monkeys comes out to join the kissing club, and usually there is screaming and cheering right in the middle of the song. the afternoon sbl concert was different - the lone song of spencer's that jake sings was finished uninterrupted.



after the monkeys came out, missy liu (drew & the medicinal pen) joined them for a party during "water in the pipes," which was an excellent ending to a rocking set.



how appropriate that today's music monday is about the kissing club, as just a couple of hours ago jake posted a new song on his youtube channel!!! it is from his upcoming ep hooks, which is due out in july!



i know it's a lot of videos today, but if you're a music lover you'll really be doing yourself a favor by watching all of them. you can also watch the kissing club's entire set from the show lindsey, tori and i went to by clicking here and skipping to 00:49:00. you're welcome.

-meghan