Gowanus Duo Continue To Explore Early 90's Deep Cuts With Latest B-Side
Critical Praise for Lightouts:
"...a blast of barely contained rock energy that would make Dinosaur Jr. axman J. Mascis proud."
- PrefixMag
"A glorious return to nineties guitar rock"
- BeaconPass
"...Lightouts make tunes the way all the gods of rock used to..."
- Impose Magazine
The Song:
In their recent burst onto the indie music scene, Gowanus, Brooklyn rockers Gavin Rhodes and Greg Nelson, collectively Lightouts, set out on an early 90's-style project that pairs their new A-side singles with a pair of B-sides: an original and a cover song. Not too long ago fans saw the release of Lightouts' second, riff-heavy single, "And It Comes and Goes," and that single is now being paired with its B-side, a cover of The La's"I Am The Key." "Half of the fun of picking these tracks is exposing overlooked bands and tracks to our fans," explains Rhodes. "The La's are mainly known for their track 'There She Goes,' and only tangentially because it was covered by the crappy Christian band Sixpence None The Richer, which is ironic because it's rumored the song is about heroin. What people don't realize is that in the early 90's, The La's were poised to be bigger than Oasis. Their singer Lee Mavers was a musical prodigy and had more swagger than both Gallagher brothers combined. Unfortunately, The La's only put out one album."
Right from the start of "I Am The Key" Lightouts fans receive the fuzzed out rock bark that seems to be developing into the duo's signature sound. A range of guitar instrumentation plays off the brilliance of the original version as punched out acoustic chords poke through a chunky distorted guitar line. The vocals pay a more strict homage to original, but do receive an added melodic boost from singer Greg Nelson. "I was immediately taken with it," he says of the song, "the melody is very simple and catchy and the lyrics are concise yet poignant." Adding in their own twist, the Gowanus duo threw in a tasty bridge section for acute listeners, "It came about naturally, while jamming on the track before we recorded," explains Rhodes. "We like to think our version sounds like a drunken Wedding Present covering The La's.”
For more information on Lightouts please contact Michelle or Dan at Audible Treats.
The
Background:
Lightouts founder Gavin Rhodes started with a simple question: "Robert Smith/Emily Haines, where are you?" But this appeal to fans of The Cure and Metric didn't appear on Craigslist or in the Village Voice. The flyer was posted near the less-than-picturesque Gowanus Canal. Greg Nelson, a veteran of the NYC music scene, responded to the ad and the rest, as they say, is history. The pair exhibit a rare musical and stylistic cohesion: structured bass lines, waves of fuzzed out guitars and vaporous vocals put a new spin on the moody post-punk aesthetic of bands like Joy Division and Smashing Pumpkins circa Siamese Dream. A loosely linked concept album – Want, a meditation on what it means to follow our instincts – is in the works and in the months leading up to the unveiling of the album, the Gowanus duo is set to release a series of singles. With a tip of the hat to an analogue era in the not-so-distant past, each single will feature both an A-side and two B-sides allowing the band to offer up songs complemented by experimentation into deep-cut covers.
