I used to really love Weezer. It might have just been growing up with them, being of that age where there geek-rock jived with actually being something of a geek or an outcast. They sang about simple things, like playing in a garage band, going to shows, dreaming about girls, and Buddy Holly.
They were everywhere for a little while, or so it seemed strange when their bass player, Matt Sharp, showed up in a video with a band of robo-nerds called the Rentals on the Weezer-with-Moogs-on-overdrive single “Friends of P.,” a song so idiotically catchy just writing this sentence has ensured it will be glued to my subconscious for the rest of the evening.
Meanwhile back in Weezerville, Pinkerton came out in 1996 and it was a little weirder, a little less accessible than their debut, and for a while it seemed like that might be all we hear from them. Sharp left the band two years later to focus on the Rentals, however their sophomore effort, Seven More Minutes also suffered from disappointing sales.
So the Rentals went away and it was six years before they reemerged with new music and tours and multi-media projects the latest of which, the recently released Lost in Alphaville brings them to the Stone Pony tonight, 9/26.
This is their first full-length album since 1999, so if all you know of the Rentals is the record-skipping chorus of their biggest hit you might be surprised how fully developed these tracks are—which will make it all the more interesting to see how it plays out live.
The Rentals at the Stone Pony
Friday, September 26th with
Hooray for Earth and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
Doors at 7pm
$22 in Advance | $25 at the door
For tickets, head here.
