Little Joy & The Dead Trees @ Station 4

Little Joy

Rumors that new band Little Joy are the side project for Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti may have been slightly exaggerated. The band, which does feature Fab on backing guitar and vocals, is most definitely led by Rodrigo Amarante – friend of Moretti and leader of the band Los Hermanos. The third “front person” of the band is Fab’s girlfriend Binky Shapiro, who also plays the keyboard, guitar and sings. Little Joy stopped by Station 4 in St. Paul this past Friday for the first show of their tour with Portland’s The Dead Trees.

Little Joy

Little Joy

The first band to hit the stage was local band Spiritual Mansions. The band had a classic sound that reminded me of many contemporary indie bands (a little Spoon, a little Wilco) with lots of classic rock melodies and arrangements. The band kept the growing crowds’ attention and is definitely worth checking out.

The Dead Trees

The Dead Trees

The Dead Trees

Next up were tour openers The Dead Trees. Where Spiritual Mansions were able to utilize the influences that they obviously were indebted to, The Dead Trees often sounded like paint by numbers versions of the bands that they mined for their material. The band, playing straight forward, plaintive alt-country, never seemed to hit their stride and never did enough to draw me into their performance. They also seemed a bit rusty and a few of their songs did not seem to have a coherent ending point. I am all for looseness and not playing every note perfectly, but their sloppiness mixed with their less than stellar songs and listless performance was not what I was expecting, or hoping for, from a band whose CD had made a good impression on me.

The Dead Trees

The Dead Trees

Little Joy

Little Joy

Little Joy

By the time Little Joy stumbled on stage, Station 4 was still only about half full. This must have been a strange experience for Moretti, who hasn’t played in a room this small for years, especially one not packed to the gills. From the moment they started playing, it became obvious that the star of the band is Amarante. Both Moretti and Shapiro seemed to be the perfect looking indie couple along for the ride with their immensely talented friend. Moretti played the role of clown prince and he kept the crowd loose and seemed to be genuinely having a really good time up on the stage (he was probably just happy to be out from the drums). Shapiro played the role of the all too serious Nico like female muse and was not nearly as energetic as the two male leads were. When she was not out front singing, she occasionally seemed a little uncomfortable being up on stage and never seemed to find a role within the dynamic of the band. She took over singing a couple of songs, which ended up being some of the weaker tracks that they played. She has a good, but not great, voice and the songs she sang on were simple and predictable slow tempo numbers. The band’s strongest tracks were their upbeat, Strokes-doing-Bossa Nova tunes where Amarante really nailed the free flowing feeling that the band projects when it is at its best.

Little Joy

Little Joy

The crowd seemed to really enjoy the performance and cheered the band up for an encore, which they had to sheepishly deny as they said they played all the songs that they knew. Being good sports, Moretti and Amarante sang happy birthday to a random crowd member and thanked the crowd again for their support. Being as this was their first show of the tour, they definitely have some things to iron out, but it was still a pretty strong show. They would benefit from trimming some of the less energetic songs from their live set, as they excited the crowd about as much as elevator music, but that is also hard to do when you only have one album out. Between the handful of great songs, the immaculate singing of Amarante, and the crowd favorite party boy antics of Moretti, the band has a bright future and has a pretty nice safety net… if their other bands end up not working out.

Little Joy

[Review by Josh Keller, photos and video by guest contributor Brody McCoy.]