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Week In Review: Pree, Roz & The Rice Cakes, The Greeting Committee, & Keeps

Ben Begas
March 29, 2016

This week I was lucky enough to see some great bands from all over the US. On Thursday I was over at Songbyrd Music House in Adams Morgan, one of my favorite venues in DC. I have seen some of the more talented local bands at Songbyrd, so when I found out that a band I liked was promoting the show on Thursday I looked into the bands on the bill and realized one them featured Ben Schurr and Ben Usie who are part of an awesome DC band, Br’er.

Pree “Two Feet Shy”

Pree (usually a foursome) included May Tabol on vocals and guitar, Ben Schurr on bass, and Ben Usie on drums. All the songs, written by Tabol, are very colorful and definitely enjoyable to listen to. Their art pop style could have been influenced by bands like Pavement and Stereolab. This type of music usually falls into having a somewhat predictable drum pattern, but, with a drummer like Ben Usie is apart of the band, the beat never got boring. His free-flowing drumming technique is a show in and of itself. Pree will be performing at Above The Bayou this Friday April 1.

Roz & The Rice Cakes “CastleÛ

Roz and the Rice Cakes are made up of keyboardist and vocalist Roz Raskin, bassist Justin Foster, and drummer Casey Belisle. They identify as a math pop band, but they are really all over the place. At times they felt like synthpop and other times elements of R&B would show up. Their musical style is just as experimental as it is catchy. My favorite song of there’s, “Castle” includes both Roz and Casey on vocals.

The Rock and Roll Hotel, although not my favorite venues, is still pretty reliable when it comes to the types of bands they bring in. The band that I wanted to see was unfortunately not headlining. I had seen Keeps back in February at the Black Cat, so I figured they would be awesome to see for a second time. The actual headliner, who will stay nameless, was not really worth seeing and we’ll just leave it at that.

TGC “Hands DownÛ

The Greeting Committee, made up of a group of what seemed to be high schoolers (what have i done with my life?), opened up the night with some pretty good indie-pop/dance-punk sounds. Although I was not really in love with their music, I still thought they were very talented and enthusiastic. There were times when the lead vocalist, Addie Sartino, would start doing her own thing. At one point, she walked down from the stage to the middle of the crowd, crouched down, and began pounding her fist to the ground. Their first EP was released back in October 15 and is titled It’s Not All That Bad… it’s pretty good.

Keeps “EverythingÛ

This was Keeps second time playing in DC this year. This time around they added on a fifth member to play the keyboard and guitar. Gusti Escalante, lead vocalist and Rhythm guitarist, reminds me a lot of Mac Demarco in the best way possible. Their dream pop sound is soaked with reverb. The lead guitarist, Robbie Jackson makes their performances even more amazing. Their song intros were quite drone-y and melodic, eventually leading into the beginning of the actual song. All the songs they performed were off of their new album Brief Spirit. This album is one of the better albums I have heard this year. I spoke with Gusti after their set about touring the last 6 months and even being apart of SXSW…. He’s a pretty rad dude.