The Boo Hoos/Datagun/The Teddy Boys – The Yacht Club 6/11/2010

Friday night was the CD Release party for Samuel Locke Ward and Darren Brown’s LP “From the Privelege Of The Grave” (Grotto Records). The show opened up with the heartfelt midwest pop of Cedar Falls’ Teddy Boys. They were followed by Datagun, playing their delightfully mournful mechanistic dirges. Samuel Locke Ward and the Boo Hoos is well-nigh unclassifiable. The Boo Hoos generate a guitar & drums onslaught halfway between punk and heavy metal, and Sam singing goes quite literally from a whisper to a scream. Cutting broad gestures as though he’s channelling Freddy Mercury, with a slightly less svelte physique, Sam projects what can only be termed comical savagery.

Let me say again (if I haven’t before), as a room to hear music, the Yacht Club is by far my favorite. Not only was it the first place in Iowa City I ever played live (when it was the Coffee Grounds), it has great ergonomics. The low drop ceiling keeps the sound from bouncing around, it has that remarkably comfortable wrap-around oak benching, and if you stand next to the bottom of the stairs, you get blasted with the full force of the industrial-grade air conditioning. It was constructed by owner Scott Kading as a labor of love, opened up despite a long, drawn out battle with the City. I wish it a long and fruitful run.

Standard disclaimer: I regularly help Sam out with mixing and mastering, and did the mixing on Sam & Darren’s LP. I had lunch with Craig and Andre from Datagun the day of the show. The ways in which Little Village’s writers are embedded directly in the local music scene deserves an article in and of itself. Suffice it to say, I make no claim of journalistic objectivity. And besides, I never went to J-school, and I don’t get paid to write this stuff, so caveat lector.

At any rate, you can listen for yourself!

Photos of the event by the lovely and talented Adrianne Behning