Monday, October 19, 2009

Dos Hermanos, Bar Pink, 10.18.09

A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail about a band coming from Germany to play at Bar Pink. It's one thing to get a U.S. band on tour to our fair city, and obviously there are plenty of British and even French exports, but it isn't often that we get German bands outside of some oom-pah-pah band here for Oktoberfest (which I love, by the way), so I paid attention to Dos Hermanos.

This is the e-mail:
Senor G.Rag:
megaphone, no singing, git, mülleimer, blech, hi-hat, harp, shaker, organetta
José aka the black rider:
singing, bass drum, git, snare, harp, kazoo, slide guit

Mitglieder des legendären caribbean trash orchesters 'g.rag y los hermanos patchekos'.

Country Trash, patcheko songwriting, lost ambient trash, y mucho mucho these two brothers shout, rock, whistle, blow harps, sing funny and sometimes sad songs about.....

There are people all over the world who say: ah oui oui, c'est pas mal. Others say: it's shit. And that's what we want. So if you like both: Country and a good mighty mezz .... you are right.
Minimalisme pure

you can hear more or less percussion, noisevoice and a spooky drum set.
You can feel trash at his best and on the other side: no it..s more like....................” heeee i can see tears in your eyes”.
It..s a strange respect for country in times he used to be cool and rock ..n roll was still angry and goddamn hot. (subterranean homesick blues, von hinten, drugstore cowboy).
Or takes Trio a friendly look over the hermanos shoulder?(foto foto, lala, lady -o- lady)

Their own compositions are mixed in a funny combination of german/english/french/or
whatever lyrics with or without use of an old megaphone.
The strange click clack dong you can hear in the background makes definitley more
space for charme.
Read it and think, "huh?". Yeah. Me, too. But they sent me a CD and I knew there was no way I was going to miss this show. We all know how I like my intense and moody indie music, so it isn't often that I see a band that has me smiling a toothy grin for their entire set, but Dos Hermanos do just that. The guys later told me that many Americans describe them as 'funny' and wondered if that is a veiled insult. It is not. They were infectious and hilarious and with their drumkit fashioned out of hardware store goods like beer buckets, pots, pans, and door handles, Los Hermanos were so engaging and entertaining that even if people were only at Bar Pink for the cheap drinks, they were hooked by the performance. One of the doorguys described them as "a two-man one man band".

I recorded several songs because they just kept pulling me in, and they did a video introduction, too. Read and see more if you 'keep on reading'.






I pretty much recorded most of the show so you can see for yourself better than I could describe how it went down. I should also go into the fact that Dang had tweeted that Dos Hermanos were looking for a place to crash while in San Diego. When I found out that nobody had ponied up a place, I offered up my humble abode. Before the show I introduced myself and I have to admit I was a bit intimidated approaching them. Here I am, some random chick, offering two foreign men a place to crash. For one, I didn't know if we'd have a language barrier, second, I'm letting total strangers into my home, third, my place is really small and not the best space for visitors, and last, I don't usually just walk up to two incredibly good looking men and invite them to sleep over. (I usually get them drunk first ;) But that's exactly what I did and they said they were still in need of a place, there was no language barrier, they were incredibly polite, and that was that.



Dos Hermanos came off as shy and quiet when I met them, but their onstage personas were certainly not so. As I mentioned, they were quite engaging and I loved that they had little quips and stories before and after every song. There really is no comparison to draw from as their songs were a little bit of this and a little bit of that, drawing from many influences from all decades and all genres.





They played for nearly an hour and the crowd grew throughout the set. The more they played, the funnier they became and they were completely endearing. The crowd ate them up.



I love the next video because someone from the crowd was trying to crack a Ron Burgundy "Whale's Vagina" joke and it completely went over their heads, which was funny simply for the fact that so many bands come here and use that recycled material so much it's become like yelling "Freebird" at a show. Later the guy explained it to them but they still didn't understand whale's vagina but instead thought it was "made in china" or something like that. "No, VAGINA," I explained when we were back at my house. "What is this word?" I don't know if they were pulling my leg, but had to point to my female region to which I got a resounding, "ahhh!", and they finally got the joke.





After the set, Jeff was ready to go so I chatted with them about their plans for staying with me and agreed that I would just come home with them. I ran into an old friend and sat at the bar as we watched Joey Harris and The Mentals. After the show they packed up and we came to my house, had some Stellas and I got to know them better. They talked about their tour, about the heat of Phoenix, about driving off the 8 so that they could take a picture of the Calexico sign (because they love the band), about how much they loved the banda and ranchero music on the radio as they drove west, about their girlfriends and there excitement to hang out with them in San Francisco, about bands they love and are influenced by, and about life in Europe, which was funny because my friend in Bern came online via Skype to chat, so we talked about Switzerland and how I need to go there and how it's their favorite country to tour.

We went to bed around 4 am and I insisted that they take my bed as I cozied up in my living room with my dog. Come morning they quietly showered and got their things together as I made coffee and we looked over the videos I shot so we could give them proper titles, they checked their emails, and around noon they left and I was sad to see my new friends go. I have my issues with The Royal Dive, but if I didn't already have plans on Tuesday night, I would make an effort to catch the band again in Oceanside. It is my hope that in sharing these videos that anybody who gets the chance will go see these guys as they make their way around California. I know I look forward to seeing them again, perhaps in 2010.

Here are the rest of their tour dates if you get a chance to catch them.

Oct 19 2009 avec the Honkys Huntington Beach, CA, Bar or Grill
Oct 20 2009 avec the Honkys Oceanside, CA, Royal Dive
Oct 21 2009 avec the Honkys La, California, Redwood Bar & Grill
Oct 22 2009 San Francisco, California, Club Amnesia,
Oct 23 2009 Santa Cruz, California, Streetlight Records
Oct 23 2009 Santa Cruz, California, the Parish Public House
Oct 24 2009 Monterey, California, Jose`s Lounge Underground
Oct 25 2009 Berkley, CA, Bay Area, 924 Gillman Street

1 comment:

doc patcheko said...

Thank you for this. They probably told you about the other bigger band they got back home. Well, we're sitting here in cold munich, quite envious about our friends' adventures (but wishing them all the best, of course). I'm glad they're being recieved well. Thanks for sharing this and for letting them crash at your place.