Artist Name: Caveman


Hometown: New York, NY


Touring info: Playing a short tour now, including Chicago this Friday and SXSW, info via their FB here (Tickets for 1/13 Schubas show here)


Album: CoCo Beware

Proof: This video of “Great Life”, caught by YoursTru.ly at the Rumpus Room in Brooklyn this summer

Website: www.cavemantheband.com

In a time when we search and battle over what we like about an artist or a song or an album, there comes such a wonderful peace in finding a band like Caveman. With them, the question really becomes “what’s not to like?”

Their debut album, CoCo Beware starts with “A Country’s King of Dreams”, a fervent opening, announcing their position without being harsh or strange. There is nothing threatening or urgent about Caveman, which actually feels misleading. They sing and play sweetly as if they will always be singing within walls of tiny venues and on unknown beachy street corners with a few helpings of cheap beer. But the truth is, the change upwards is inevitable, their rise is looming and lingering and actually very immediate. Just over the short course of sitting down to write this, I have gotten an email that they have just signed to Fat Possum this morning. Feel the urgency yet? The instrumental “Vampirer” echoes this message more than any other song. “We’re here,” it seems to whisper hauntingly, “and we’re not fucking around.” It appropriately plays as intro to “Old Friend,” a clear and easy to like single. “Old Friend” is a song so well composed to be a hit, it sounds familiar the first time you hear it. Easy, simple greatness it near impossible to achieve, but the gentleman of Caveman seem to achieve it breathlessly.

This album is an undemanding journey, it slides by effortlessly with not one moment of shock or discomfort. You could loop it in your car for hours and never be bored, consistently tuning into things never before heard. The songs are repetitive in nature, like they’ve been written poetically with rehashed thoughts, drawn out and laid upon music, but never leaving the initial singular vision. It’s an album for those impatient for Local Natives to create something new-albeit darker, purging that sound with the way Fleet Foxes uses instruments to tell a grand story. It’s the kind of album that doesn’t just put you on people’s radar, but plants you there.

Songs such as “Old Friend” and “Thankful” will easily appeal to the masses, while they indulge a little more on songs such as “My Room” and a personal favorite, “Easy Water” which is sweet in it’s tiptoeing terror.

Caveman is playing Friday at Schubas, and we suggest nothing higher than that you don’t miss it. In such a small lapse of time, CoCo Beware has become one of my favorite albums of 2011, one that won’t have to fight to be brought to light in 2012. I genuinely look forward to future of these guys, one of the most exciting new indie groups, who we are honored to have join our little Freshman Honors club. Below you’ll find my interview with drummer Stefan Marolachakis, who describes the sound as “ever so dark and vibey”. Obviously I love this band.

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Who are your top three influences? Gene Clark, Fleetwood Mac, George Harrison. 
 


If you had to pick one celebrity to represent your whole band, who would it be? Amar’e Stoudemire of the New York Knicks.


How would you describe your sound in five words? Ever so dark and vibey.
 


Where do you want to be one year from now? Sitting on the beach in Mexico with a margarita, watching the waves roll in. 
 


What is the first record you ever bought? First record: the soundtrack to the Robin Hood cartoon — Roger Miller is all over that one. First tape: INXS, “Kick.” First CD: Naughty by Nature’s first album.
 


Life gives you lemons, what do you do with them? Find some iced tea and make an Arnold Palmer, of course.