LOVE AS LAUGHTER and OXFORD COLLAPSE at the Pike Room

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 19
doors at 8PM
tickets: $8 (buy tickets)

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LOVE AS LAUGHTER are a trailblazing retro-rock beast of a band that boast the hips of Mick Jagger, the sneer of Richard Hell, and the fervent from-the-margins manifesto of early Sonic Youth. Smart, gritty, solo-rich classic rock 'n' roll music. Informed by Thin Lizzy, T-Rex, and early Tom Petty, their brilliantly disheveled pop gems tell stories of dirty tricks, miscommunication, regret, bathroom graffiti, and misadventure. A band shot through with gritty, intimate, laissez-faire sentiment and soul. With OXFORD COLLAPSE: BITS is album number four for Brooklyn's Oxford Collapse, but it's a first for them in many ways. Some of those ways will be immediately apparent to those of you who've followed their raucous, boyish exploits since their 2006 Sub Pop debut Remember the Night Parties, or from their earlier efforts. Their charming lack of guile, combined with a capable and focused aim towards the better of the '80s college-rock cognoscenti and Trouser Press favorites, has made for music of a mindset that has found its way into backyards and across rooftops all over the city. BITS shows a band artistically riding its own peaks. The tension is still present in their three-way interplay (listen to them firing off of each other, squealing out of control at the end of "Back of the Yards") but the direction and presence in this set is open, flowing against anything they've done before. It's the sound of fun turning into purpose, of a great band writing and playing their best songs, and knowing how great that feels.

 

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