By: Spencer Doar
Apparently it is pretty damn tough to find a good bagel in Texas.
In the end, that’s a good thing for punk band Parquet Courts, which has three members from the Lone Star State.
Vocalist and guitar player Andrew Savage ended up bonding with bass player Sean Yeaton over this predicament one hung-over morning after Yeaton’s band had played at Savage’s house.
Yeaton, from Boston, just wanted a bagel, but all the places Savage could think of were donut shops. This experience eventually turned into the song “Donuts Only.”
Savage, his drumming brother Max Savage, guitarist Austin Brown and Yeaton serendipitously re-acquainted in Brooklyn, forming Parquet Courts.
“If nothing else, the bagel situation is a totally different son of a [expletive],” Savage said.
It isn’t just the bagel situation that’s changed. Parquet Courts released critically acclaimed record “Light Up Gold” in 2012, were named a “band to watch” by Rolling Stone in April and last weekend found themselves playing for a raging crowd on the small stage at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.
Other than the sound check anxious fans had to sit through — an unfortunate byproduct of Pitchfork’s scheduling setup — Parquet Courts wasted little time, playing fast and loud with next to no banter except for a few cursory words of thanks.
Yeaton nodded his head to the pounding of Max’s drumming so hard it’s a wonder that he didn’t give himself whiplash.
Max uses Ahead sticks, made with durable, replaceable polyurethane sleeves that last longer than any wooden drumstick — they’re used by the hardest of players who break a lot of sticks.
Andrew’s rapid-fire verses are true-blue punk, and their group choruses have the “anthemic” quality that makes the youngsters go nuts, fists in the air and singing along.
That was exactly the case with their catchy track “Stoned and Starving,” which details just such an experience while also serving as a perfect metaphor for the unsatisfactory drudgery that life inevitably contains.
They’re serious but with the glib, humorous side of a group that is exploring more than just anger or disenfranchisement.