The Filename of This Photo Is "headshotr.jpeg," Which Gives You a Good Idea Just What Kind of L.A. Band We're Dealing With Here
It was senior year of college, graduation rapidly approaching. It was maybe February, and I'd started hanging with a couple girls who came by Tuesday nights to take stale bagels from me as my shift at the coffee shop ended.
When I got off we'd hang in the food court at the student union and I'd mostly listen to them talk to one another about their days: papers turned in late, boys affronted, their love-hate relationship with my friend Scott.
After a fashionable time, one of the girls, named Pheebs, called me up.
"Hey Mike my friend's band is playing at the 9:30 Club. I have tickets. Want to go?"
"Sure."
"I don't want you to think this is a date or anything."
"Of course not."
The show was Kings of Leon (yo Leon! These guys are the Kings of you!), and the Kings of Leon are alright I guess but Pheebs knew the openers, a little supercool L.A. band called Vagenius. They reminded me of a band that played at my high school called Loserface, who called me and another geeky white dude onstage to freestyle rap (I can hardly believe it either, but rapping was once part of my life).
Vagenius reminded me of Loserface because the lead singer of Vagenius had dyed-black hair, was a girl, and played the keytar, kind of like the lead singer of Loserface had real-black hair, was a girl, and played the keyboards. Both girls were hot in a Joan Jett kinda way, but the comparison isn't as obvi as you might think by the photo. They had moves and could belt it out pretty, not like Joan who bless her heart is a yeller (and a good one). They guys who backed them up just looked like guys I went to high school with.
So Vagenius played some gay-wave (you knew that, though, keytars and all), but good gay-wave, better even than The Killers or Interpol, because it wasn't synth-y and they played the keyboard like a keyboard and guitar like guitar and didn't play either like the other one (maybe my main objection to the Aughties-Eighties vein of music).
The tunes were crisp by definition and the singer had a whispy voice.
When the Kings came on we got to go upstairs to the VIP section and meet Vagenius. I didn't say a lot but I remember the singer telling a story about how Kings of Leon heard their tape and asked them to tour with them, and Vagenius'd never heard of Kings of Leon so they had to listen to "Trani" pretty avidly so they could pretend they really loved the Kings. (Why not have a band just called The Kings? That's a great name, right? Also why not have a band called the Beetles? I've wondered about that a lot.)
This was pre-Youtube post-Napster so it was probably pretty hard for this woman to make time to like the Kings of Leon, but Pitchfork was doing the damn thing so it couldn't have been that bad.
I guess it worked out okay because about two months after the show when I got over myself and the "What am I doing with myself now that college is over," I came back to their Web site and started banging Vagenius tunes on the regular, actually more like on the constant. The delivery is nostalgic, and whereas the timbre is different, they kinda remind me of Jane's Addiction (see post below).
Well as songs are wont to do after 10,000 plays, the early Vagenius wore out, and I ditched it for some "Don't Like the Way" and some joints by this group Guided by Voices.
The reason I'm remembering all this is because I'm going to San Francisco to visit Scott tonight and he mentioned via Gchat that Pheebs might be around. Some memory triggers got pulled and before I knew it I was back at Totallyvagenius.com and they have this new album called "Hello Stranger," the lady singer is still there, she speaks Spanish, and not much has changed in the way of this music still being moving.
So check out some Vagenius. The embed is a little short and weird but that's okay.
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