The Damnwells.

I just had to go out and do something that might resemble fun in Manhattan. I've been cooped up pretty well at my friends' apartments, not having a lot of money to blow on fun things and goings out.

So I went to the Bowery Ballroom last night to see Tift Merritt. Not that I think I'm a big fan, but her name is familiar from Nashville. Jay Joyce, a producer/songwriter/guitarist extraordinare I worked for had written some songs with her, and I had to call her once to get the publishing info. Now that I think of it, I don't think she ever called me back. Well, I wasn't real excited with her show, and I left a couple songs in. But one of the opening bands was called The Damnwells. And they rocked pretty hard. Highly recommended. I would buy their record for my big brother, whose the most critical of connoisseurs of middle American rock 'n' roll.

Here's what Rolling Stone had to say:

Based in Brooklyn, the Damnwells are about as far from the Midwest as they can be, yet their emotional pop-rock is sonically rustbelt -- where the husks of empty factories look almost pretty in the fading light. With spare Americana instrumentation added here and there to an organic guitar-bass-drums sound, the Damnwells brood in the no longer-imaginary place where Pete Yorn, the Goo Goo Dolls and drummer Steven Terry's old band, Whiskeytown, all hang out. Bastards of the Beat opens with a propulsive, sloppy barroom rocker with a vocal hook that's pure drunken Westerberg. Later the Damnwells steer toward Replacements-worthy goose-bump pop with singer-songwriter frontman Alex Dezen sounding delicately wounded and utterly real throughout. Throbbing psychedelic guitar opens "Sleepsinging" -- a haunting indictment of music business sharks, "Electric Harmony" sets a Beatlesque melody to a wistful waltz, and the dark "Star/Fool" out-pretties Petty's "Last Dance With Mary Jane" with plenty of dramatic white space and the chilling repeated threat/promise "I'm coming back for you."
TODD SPENCER
(April 5, 2004)