Trillions of Eights

pic: thetrillionsband.com

I went to 37th and Zen Saturday night to see 1888's reunion show. I recently took pictures as Hannah interviewed them for AltDaily if you're into their brand of Alt Country (or as my friend Mike likes to say, "alt-cunt"--yeah, I know). They were good. The lap steel was piercing and they meshed nicely with new addition Gordon Bradley (aka: the blonde, curley haired Taphouse bartender who either loves you or hates you depending on whom you're sitting with). I've always dug Gordon's particular brand of snarkiness, so it added a fun little punch to 1888's show. They were rocking the house and everyone shared in a collective head-nod for forty minutes or so. That's always nice. My only real criticism would be the sound guy--the vocals were really loud. Luckily lead singer Brad can sing, but it was distracting.

What I didn't expect to be writing about today was the opening band, The Trillions. However, they're really what's still standing out in my mind two days later. Maybe because I'd never heard of them, so I paid more attention? Maybe because my friend Heather (whom I never see) was at the show and had a connection to them (they're from RVA). Maybe because they draped Christmas lights acrosss their instruments, which then blink in tune to the music? They call it the Trillion-ator and my husband is in love with it.

In sweet and simple terms, they sound like Richmond. If you're reading this and are from anywhere East of Roanoke, I hope you know what this means. In slightly more broad terms, they sound like Detroit. If you listen to FM radio least out of all your musical orfices, you'd better know what this means, or you need to go ahead and kill that radio altogether. And for those of you who stumbled upon this post, never to read jESiO again, they sounded like dizzy, dirty poprock--danceable and scene and airpunch and American.

After their set, out in Zen's backyard (Zen Garden?), I chatted with two of them--the two who decided not to take the guaranteed ride back to Richmond and to instead see where the Norfolk scene took them for the night. I don't know whose house they ended up at, but I'm confident they had a blast. We talked through all of Astropop 3's set, so I missed it entirely. We discovered shared affinity for asking West Virginian rednecks for directions (their accents are tight), and Heather got them to admit they are orignally from Short Pump (the Town Center of Richmond), and are greatly saddened by the chainmall their town has become.

Anyway, that's all beside the point. Check out their music online--it's good. Definitely check them out live if you get the chance, because it's better than the rest.