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Last Updated:
Mar 19th, 2008 - 07:43:02 |
Thirty seconds after I first met The Esperantos they were setting up in my living room to play a rock show.
Generously, they’d agreed to play a free show at my shack before even meeting me. It wasn’t capriciousness that brought them from Bay City to a massive, disheveled house in East Lansing (wherein I once lived), rather their pure adventurousness and a tremendous dedication to music.
“My interest in music came directly from my boredom,” lead singer/guitarist Phil Roth said. “My salvation came from punk rock. Nihilistic aggression was, and still is, the only thing that makes any sense to me.”
I’ve lost my mind (and spilled a few drinks) at every Esperantos show I’ve seen (including that fateful first one), much due to their massively magnetic riffs and deep-hooking melodies that set in motion an explosive inner eureka at this trio’s stripped down, straight-forward rock: hook-heavy and a bit trashy but incredibly precise. Their approach is simple and their demeanor quite humble, but their performance is pure energy.
The “’rantos” are: Roth, bassist Aaron Cianek (two Bay City rollers still yet under 21 and new drummer Cody Osterhout stepping in to replace former ‘ranto Joe Jacobs.
“Aaron and I started hanging out skateboarding,” Roth explained. “He got me turned on to a lot of bands and I got him turned onto a lot of things too. We would go record shopping and stuff as well. It only made sense to us that we should start a band. Our passion for music, especially punk and garage rock was strong. Plus, we had been taught how to play the guitar by our parents.” (Cianek’s mother is a music teacher.)
Their arsenal contains relentless jaunts of rock stampedes with the legs of danceable percussion that bob and weave under primitive, surf-inflicted riffing and catchy choruses. They’re straightforward and raw; the true torchbearers of real swaggering and exuberant punk rock.
Stuck in a satellite scene in the pit of Michigan’s thumb, Roth and Cianek juggle steady appearances in Detroit with recording, life on a label (Boston-based Red Car Records), school and jobs. “Day to day life is the same really,” Cianek said of being signed. “I’m still more or less broke, still drive the same car, work crappy jobs, go to school, etc. On the other hand, they’ve really helped us out with our album and promoting our music. Without Red Car, I doubt we’d be going on this tour ...” (Launching from Small’s on Feb. 28.)
They’re a young band with great potential setting out on the unpredictable environment of the post-internet music world. Appreciative though they are to things like iTunes: Cianek: “For bands who don’t have their CDs for sale at Best Buy, it’s really the way to get your music out.” But reprehensive of the fashion it promotes: Roth: “These people are more interested in having the most obscure names show up on their iPod or be the first ones in a group to respond, ‘Oh my God! I love Frank Zappa! Have you ever heard Bobby Brown?’”
“I listen to a lot of music,” Roth said, “Any late-‘70s punk, ‘60s garage rock, ‘50s rockabilly or Chicago blues you can find … it’s like all these different songs are lodged up in my brain, so I rearrange them and spew them all out to make some interesting combinations.”
“People seem to listen more now,” Cianek said. “I think that we’re starting to lose the stigma of ‘kids playing in the bar before they can drink in the bar’ — even though we still can’t drink in the bar.” | RDW
The Esperantos • February 28 • Small’s
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