{"id":2004,"date":"2009-02-11T00:42:12","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T05:42:12","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-02-11T00:46:40","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T00:46:40","slug":"here-he-comes-shawn-kilroy-lemghessian-l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/here-he-comes-shawn-kilroy-lemghessian-l\/","title":{"rendered":"Here He Comes: Shawn Kilroy, Hessian Love Songs<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This Saturday \u2014 AKA Valentine\u2019s Day, for all you lovers out there \u2014 Shawn Kilroy & The Dream Queens<\/strong> (Mike \u201cSlo-Mo\u201d Brenner, Jamie Mahon, Jenny Prescott, and Mark Landlord) debut Hessian Love Songs<\/em>, the final installment of a trilogy of albums that started with 2004\u2019s Neon Gate<\/em> followed by Thai Stick Dragon<\/em>, at Philadelphia’s Tritone<\/strong>. As might be expected of Kilroy (that’s Townsman shawnkilroy<\/strong> to us!) – whose bio counts him as a \u201clover\u201d along with the usually lonely combo of musician, singer, artist, film-maker, and thinker – ladies will not be charged admission.<\/p>\n

Lover that he is, Kilroy\u2019s never shied away from proclaiming his affection for England\u2019s proto-goth, mid-\u201980s, moody pop \u2014 bands like Depeche Mode<\/strong>, Orchestral Manuevers in the Dark<\/strong>, and Love and Rockets<\/strong>. Much of that time and place scared the bejesus out of me when I would go upstairs at Revival<\/strong> to take a piss, making sure not to knock anyone\u2019s line of coke off a urinal. Revival was a mixed bag in Philly\u2019s rock and dance scene during the late-80s, but I loved it. Downstairs, in a big, open, noisy room in what used to be a Swedish sailor\u2019s church, Revival put on underground rock shows: Camper Van Beethoven, The Mekons, The Godfathers, Tuxedomoon, Pere Ubu\u2026 Flaming Lips played there in support of Oh My Gawd!<\/em>, when they were three barely known, hippie Okies playing teenage garage-band Floyd and Zeppelin soundalikes with bassist Michael Ivins operating a smoke-and-light machine with his feet. The sound pounded off the room\u2019s exposed marble, plaster, and tile\u2026in a good way. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
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\nUpstairs was another big, hard-bodied room that was even louder. Upstairs at Revival was another world, welcoming or threatening you, depending on your musical persuasion, with the persistent BOOM! of an electronic kick drum. All kinds of hot, long-legged men and women would be dancing to that mindless electronic twaddle. Downstairs as the typical indie rock mix of underground rock fans \u2014 record store clerks, bookstore clerks, recent college grads and dropouts, mysterious older guys who seemed to be at every show and who must have done something to pay the bills \u2014 nodded along to a band\u2019s encore, the Lost Boys and Girls would be making their way upstairs. After a show, the rock kids would sometimes sneak upstairs to have a peek at the after-hours scene, but rarely did the twain ever meet. One night after a show I stood in the middle of that mess and tried to figure out if there was any way I could fit in, if there was any hope for getting laid. It didn\u2019t go well. After 10 minutes, I had to get out of there before I gave into the overwhelming urge to go Travis Bickle on the joint. What was that Dead Milkmen parody of late-\u201980s club culture, \u201cYou\u2019ll Dance to Anything?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the light of day I would sometimes run across with people who actually liked the music from that scene and heard it as more than a cue for a toot and a quickie in the bathroom. Bauhaus<\/strong>, for instance, recorded its share of actual rock \u2018n roll, spooky mascara and all. That post-Bauhaus crowd, in particular, knew how to construct some pop hooks, and I could hang with that crowd without wishing for a hard rain to fall. It\u2019s those rare, reasonable music fans who used to get their kicks upstairs at Revival who come to mind when I listen to Kilroy\u2019s Hessian Love Songs<\/em> \u2014 the tuneful, romantic side of that scene as well as late-\u201970s Roxy Music<\/strong>, with the dark corners tucked away neatly. I wish the album\u2019s production could have shined a little more light on those corners, bringing out some of the \u201cSister Midnight\u201d sleaze lurking in the arrangements, but Brenner\u2019s prominent lap steel and guitar work on songs like \u201dHaunted\u201d and \u201cFull Moon\u201d drive home the big hooks nicely. On \u201cThe Wizard of Dance\u201d Kilroy shines his black light on the album\u2019s most dance-heavy track. Kilroy\u2019s insistent delivery on this ode to a goth Tony Manero<\/strong> is both lovingly joyous and tongue in cheek. At times, as on \u201cYour Island,\u201d with the drum machine turned down and the band gettin\u2019 kinda mellow, Kilroy provides that welcome moment when the slovenly indie-rock dude and the goth chick might have seen each other from across a crowded Revival and shared a brief, flirtatious moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Saturday \u2014 AKA Valentine\u2019s Day, for all you lovers out there \u2014 Shawn Kilroy & The Dream Queens (Mike \u201cSlo-Mo\u201d Brenner, Jamie Mahon, Jenny Prescott, and Mark Landlord) debut Hessian Love Songs, the final installment of a trilogy of albums that started with 2004\u2019s Neon Gate followed by Thai Stick Dragon, at Philadelphia’s Tritone. […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}