Make Lisa Rich play the kind of heads-up pop-rock that has you singing along before the first chorus. One part Bay City Rollers, one part Tommy James and the Shondells, one part smartly placed Ramones-style power chording. From the snappy hand-claps and falsetto back-up vocals of the instantly hummable Show Me This Morning to the Raspberries-influenced Fits Like a Glove, Outsmarted plays like a quick spin through the AM radio dial circa-1975, all smartly crafted songs and pent-up teen angst. Even when the band loses its classic pop poker face and reveals a penchant for Paul Westerberg-style ditties (So Peculiar) and Elvis Costello bittersweet griping (Wilted Rose) the happy vibes never ebb. This is the kind of band that can sing now I'll have to kill you with a neon, pearly white smile. Singer Bo Barringer has that happy-snarly down pat. Make Lisa Rich take all that was priceless about the golden age of meaningless pop and give it a nice current twist, proving that a good song is a good song is a good song; ad infinitum.
Together, Make Lisa Rich burst at the seams, a nervy jumble of precocious energy. This was a band that couldn't wait to set their songs free. Outsmarted, their self-released debut, captures all the bratty smarts of an outfit whose songs bow deeply to the heyday of late 70's/early 80's cool kids like Elvis Costello, Look Sharp-era Joe Jackson, and Television, while sounding like a fresh blast of garage-wave clatter. Barringer says that the band's engineer, always imagines a particular scene when he puts on Outsmarted : There's a 14-year-old girl in her bedroom, which is plastered with Brad Pitt posters, and she's jumping up and down on the bed as our music's playing, Barringer says, smiling. And her parents are yelling at her to turn it down. And she doesn't care.
Music
Shows
- Boston USA · Oct 27 2000
- Somerville USA · Sep 22 2000
- Boston USA · Sep 15 2000
