"Meet the Channels," beckoned the brochure accompanying J. Robbins' new satellite dish. As if "the Channels" had been waiting to meet him. As if, once met, they'd be friends for life, steadfast and true. Having been raised in large part by 2 television sets in the landscaped suburbs of the world's double-speak capital, Washington, DC, he couldn't help thinking of Fahrenheit 451.
But he also couldn't help thinking of Meet the Beatles.
And so a band name was born.
There's nothing so ironic or post-modern about the band itself, though. Here's a timeline:
1990's: Darren Zentek moved to DC as the drummer of (the now-legendary) Kerosene 454, providing the rhythmic push behind their tsunami of guitar power. Post K454, Darren continued into more atmospheric and dynamic territory with K454 singer Erik Denno in the obscure but amazing 5-piece band Oswego. J. Robbins, then singer/guitarist of DC proto-emo workaholics Jawbox, was just starting his new career as a record producer and engineer, and was totally blown away by Darren's playing while he engineered virtually all their recordings.
Fast-forward a little to the turn of the century: Robbins, slogging through Europe with new band Burning Airlines, met future wife Janet Morgan while she was playing bass in UK indie heartthrobs shonben. And the various bands played on ...
Millennium arrived, Robbins and Morgan tied the knot, Burning Airlines disbanded, Oswego broke up, Darren got married too and even bought a house ... and they all gently segued
into "real life" ... right? Right ... only if "real life" means rediscovery and reinvention of what drove you all along; only if "real life" means starting a new band that builds on the best of all the music you've made before and pushes it to new heights of invention. Other bonds aside, the 3 members of Channels are bound by a shared love of weird, "un-pop" music that still thinks it's pop; by guitar, bass, drums and vocals that act together as if the combination was still new.
Open is an exuberant, melodic, weirdly rhythmic racket that revels in its own sheer cussedness, with inspirations running the gamut from the players' previous bands, through the Ex, Siouxsie and the Banshees, old XTC, and anything else you can think of with an "X" in it.
Opener "Disconnection Day" posits 9/11 as a not-too-distant future holiday wherein we all learn to celebrate our submission
to the official truths, with a hook-laden vocal that makes its own key. "Chivaree" is a punk-rock love song to all lovers and dreamers ... even though it begins with the word "kill." The band's take on John Cale's 70's cult classic "Fear is a Man's Best Friend" builds from an acoustic whisper to a shout-along power-pop finale, with Morgan's lull-a-bye soprano softening you up for the beat-down. "To Mt. Wilson From the Magpie Cage" celebrates well-intentioned madness with a whirlwind drum pattern that identifies the beat by omission. And Morgan gets the last word in the hypnotic "Win Instantly," her singsong vocals carried away on waves of chimey, tremolo-bar Marshall guitar.
Channels' assured debut e.p. is a bright and strangely colored sign beckoning both the familiar and all newcomers, and it's an exhortation to forget pedigrees, official truths, and easy categories and remain ... open.
Listen
