Getting pre-tectonic with Gondwanaland

Like I promised, here’s a recap of last Friday’s show at Seven Stages:

Seven Stages invited a few bands to play in the front lobby. The first two bands to play were Ship to Shore and Choose Your Battle. I came to see Gondwanaland. Singer, songerwriter, basist, and guitarist Angelica is one of my friends from high school. She was actually one of the people who introduced me to the stranger side of music and has been writing twisted ballads for years. I finally got to see her play with Matt and Ryan in her latest band, Gondwanaland. Matt leads vocals and Ryan is behind them, beating wildly on drums. Their sound is hard to label. It’s definately rock. They’re self identified a “music that neanderthals would listen to”, but that doesn’t quite cover their peculiar subject matter. With titles like “Schroedinger’s Cat” and “Aphids”, Gondwanaland seems to be one of those bands that could write a song about anything. Especially because that’s what the songs are actually about, although “Satanic Giraffe” is really about a drink that Java Lords makes. They may even go from thrashing and screaming to an occasional beautiful accoustic melody. Overall, Gondwanaland isn’t even on the radar of what most current bands are doing. They’re refreshing in a post-modern, but not pretentious way.

Next week, I’ll be going to see Elevado at the Drunken Unicorn and, later, my Anthropology and Communications class is doing a video interview with the band. Prepare to get Elevado’ed!

~ by Dante DeStefano on August 4, 2007.