June 18th was my birthday, and after a day of booze-cruisin' and backyard BBQ drinking, I was moving slowly out of the gate during the evening shows of NXNE. Luckily, Lee's Palace had a staunch bill, and I decided to spend most of my night there with the rest of the bloggers that were in town. Unlike most of the people that attended this show, my fixation was on Richie Follin's Guards. Richie Follin (and his music) remind me an awful lot of people I went to high school with in the mid-90's. Straight long hair, hippie tendencies, no doubt a collection of Grateful Dead, Pantera and White Zombie ticket stubs stowed away in some back closet. His father was actually involved in the creation of White Zombie. In retrospect, after seeing the Lee's Palace show, it all makes perfect, and albeit exciting and delicious, sense. I want to drink beers with Richie Follin and I'll also be buying his records as long as he'll put them out. On my facebook page, I described Guards as gorgeous 90's power pop as performed by Black-Sabbath lovin' hippies. While this is a complex description, it is not far from the truth – The top to bottom 7-song run of Guards EP, paired with the more juiced up live performance, is well worth the listen. As far as I'm concerned, Guards stole the show at Lee's from the more highly polished performances of Twin Shadow and Wild Nothing. Follin is that good.
The "doom" portion of the band's description on their bandcamp site is the part I identify the most with. Ultimately, Guards is a rock band, and this is all fleshed out in a live setting. Even during the sound check, Follin was meticulous in setting things up, struggling with the sound guy to get the vocals adjusted properly. Smoke machines and a nearly pitch black stage added to the darker vibe. If you've been listening to the EP for the last year, then you know full well that the songs are more power-pop, but driven by huge arcing hooks and 60's throwback arrangements. These are just great songs. However, at Lee's Saturday, the live show brought these tunes to life and allowed the band to jam and turn up the volume of those more rock-based undertones. "Resolution of One" and "Don't Wake the Dead" were even better live than on the recorded work; Follin's guitar-soloing had more room to breath up on a stage. The keys, dreamy synths, and crunching axe-work had me up and dancing around. The band rolled through each of the 7 tracks on the EP with velocity and passion. No gimmicks, no pretension. Just a damn good rock show – one of the three or four best shows I saw during my whole stint in Toronto this weekend.
Follin's sister has a good thing going with Cults, mainly because she can weave two different genres together into an encompassing mixture. Richie Follin does the same thing, but in a vein that a guy like me can understand. I "get" rock n' roll music. I understand showmanship, and so does Richie Follin. I'm excited to see the next phase in Guards' growth. Ultimately, this is a throwback rock band searching for the right formula – my opinion is that if they continue to hit that live show aspect, there will be a lot of elder music statesmen lining up around the block to catch them.
