Most Epic employees use the month long sabbatical they get as a reward for five years of employment to travel to a foreign land. And why not with the stimulus Epic gives them- they pay for airfare and lodging if it is somewhere you haven’t been before. Not Dan Hardgrove, the August Teens’ lead singer and songwriter, he’s using his to finally finish up the long awaited Teens’ debut record. No, really, they all swear that it is coming out and there’s a CD release show on the calendar to prove it.
I’ve been hearing about this record for as long as I have known about the band. At first, it was going to be an EP scheduled to be released around the same time as the Motorz’ two albums. I was waiting for those records to come out to write my first cover story for Rick’s. The terrific All Day Long and All Night Long finally came out in 2008, more than a year after the paper ceased publishing. Then the Teens record had become a full length called I’m Selfish and So Is My Cat (or something like that). Now I hear it’s called A Kiss in Wisconsin, but I won’t believe it until I actually have a copy in my hands.
August Teens shows don’t happen that frequently. They often seem to be last minute, and half the time it seems like I have something else going on. In fact the only guaranteed way I seem to have of seeing them is to have them play here. Their last show was November 1, the same day I had a house concert. Tonight’s show had been booked as a Blamm-O/Shazy Hade bill, but apparently Shazy Hade broke up and the Teens took their spot, making this a much better bill. They have perfected the art of the power-pop song; every one is ridiculously catchy, begging for a sing-a-long by the last chorus. The place should be packed every time they play. It wasn’t, and that’s too bad because it was another highly entertaining show.
Their secret weapon is probably guitarist Dave Esmond, who tonight was sporting a Santa hat and Christmas shirt and somehow didn’t look ridiculous. In fact, he looked pretty adorable, which is true of the whole band. Bassist Kyle Motor has all but permanently shelved his awesome band the Motorz as he is always happier playing in a band that isn’t his. The always smiling, disarmingly handsome Josh Motor is the other half of the rhythm section. Hardgrove’s shy charm offstage turns into a magnetic presence onstage and he sells their three minute anthems convincingly, It will be a strange feeling to actually be able to hear their songs more than once every couple months. Mark your calendars for March 12.
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