Ice Cream Man

Born Ruffians with Plants and Animals at The Bell House

Words by Ice Cream Man
Photos by Abbey Braden

One thing I’ve learned from doing Ice Cream Man is that I never get to see as much music as I’d like at festivals. This year’s CMJ is a perfect example. There were shows going on around town for five days and nights yet I got to see less than an hour of music the whole time. Knowing this, I made plans before hand to catch Born Ruffians with Plants and Animals in Brooklyn the Tuesday after CMJ.

Part of the allure of this show was that it was taking place at the new venue, Bell House, between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope. It’s only been open for a month or two yet they’ve already had a bunch of bands play and they got a lot more on the way (AC Newman, Centro-Matic, Ambulance LTD). It’s in a very industrial warehouse part of town which might turn some people off but once you’re inside, it’s quite a nice setup. The people that opened nearby Union Hall are behind it and they did an excellent job of keeping the décor and setting relaxed, yet nicer than the average club you’d find around town. The front half of the large warehouse space is a separate bar which could be entered without having a ticket for the show and I believe that it’s open all the time, even if there aren’t any shows going on. Happy Hour was from 6-8 which meant we missed it by a hair. There were quite a few quality beers on tap and in bottles but I felt like they were missing a solid go-to beer (I eventually did find it in the back just before leaving - $3 Genessee Cream Ale in a can!).

If there were a theme for the night I think it’d be “Three-piece bands which sound like there’re a lot more members in ‘em than you’d think”. The openers were local boys, Mancino which mostly rocked a mix of Rhodes/keyboard, guitar, and drums. They mixed it up a bit getting some bass action in their some but it never really felt like they were missing out on anything. Their songs were rock based but due to the awesomeness of the Rhodes, they had a bit more groove than your average indie rock outfit. With only three dudes on stage, they made great use of harmonies to fill out the songs and they sounded like they’d been playing together for a while. I have a feeling the folks booking Union Hall and Bell House dig the band and will prolly be putting them on more lineups in the coming months.

I’m not sure where or how I ever heard of Plants and Animals but after listening to their album a dozen or so times, I’ve been trying to catch them live. I was surprised to find they were also a three-piece. For the majority of the set it was two guitars and drums. The guitarist closest to us was running his guitar through a bunch of pedals and had some nice low-end bass sound which made me think, like Mancino before, Plants and Animals wasn’t much missing out on a bass player either. Most of the songs from the first half of the set didn’t sound so familiar and oddly those were my favorite tracks. I think the bill for the night actually listed P&A and Born Ruffians as co-headliners which prolly explained why it seemed a large portion of the crowd was getting down and singing along. They closed with a blown-out version of “Bye Bye Bye” which is the first song on their album Parc Avenue and the one that’s most often stuck in my head.

Does anyone else think Born Ruffians is a great band name? I know they’ve got some fans cuz I wasn’t the only one agro-dancing this night. You’d prolly never guess they’re from Toronto. They seemed to come around at the same time as Vampire Weekend last year and when people asked me if I liked Vampire Weekend, I would say “I can dig it but I listen to Born Ruffians a lot more.” There is some sort of African rhythm persistent in most of their songs that somehow, loosely, bind the two together.

Luke Lalonde started out with a solo song on stage then the band broke into “Badonkadonkey” which still amazes me that for two-thirds of the song the bass player only plays one note. With only one full length album out they spent most of the night barreling through tracks off Red, Yellow & Blue. The album hasn’t even been out for a year yet but I’m already itching for more. Fans like to hear songs they’re familiar with and it was evident tonight by the immediate dance parties that would start once they hit the first few notes of songs like “Foxes Mate For Life”. The couple new songs they played were definitely the highlight for me. They were def in the same vein as the rest of the punchy tracks and I can’t wait 'til they finally surface on a new album or EP. Sad to say, we didn’t end up sticking around 'til the end. I’m guessing about two-thirds of the way through we called it a night, and a damn good one at that.