I checked Millionyoung out at Circle Bar, somewhat on a whim. I was pointed to this South Florida act a couple of weeks ago, so I downloaded an EP. It was straight up Electronic, with a nice ambience, which, let’s be honest, is pretty easy to do these days. Because of this, nothing really jumped out at me about the EP. But like I said, it was pretty good, and they were playing right by my house, so I figured why not check them out?
For the opening act, we were treated to some pretty morose Witch House/Killyourself Wave provided by a DJ who appeared to enjoy it much more than we did. Though no one should be surprised that a small-but-growing number of tone-deaf losers are trying to make this a viable genre of music, part of me is still astounded that this noise is getting ink.
My friend Oliver’s thoughts: “I don’t know if this guy actually likes this stuff, or if it’s just avant garde garbage.” I think it’s the latter.
So basically, the night involved my friends Oliver and Matt, and myself hanging out by the bar and drinking some beers waiting for Millionyoung. Judging by the opening act, I got the slight impression that Millionyoung was actually just going to be one or two guys, pushing buttons and hoping people dance. I was worried because that is very difficult to do at the Circle Bar, which is about as large as my bedroom, and shows there tend to only draw a handful of people. The crowd tonight looked to be maybe a dozen deep.
When Millionyoung finally did take the living room “stage” (there is no stage, just a literal living room since the place is a converted 1900s-era home), we were pretty surprised to find a full-service band: four members, two of which were on guitar, one on drums, one on bass, and an assortment of keys and computers riddled among them.
One of the for-better-or-worse things about electronic music and its hybrids these days is that when you come upon a band that has a live drummer, you’re usually surprised to find that the drums are very high-end, finely-tuned, and perfectly-mic’d. The result for me is always, “Wow, this sounds just like the album, I thought they were using drum machine.”
The most noticeable difference, right out of the gate, between this phenomenon and Millionyoung is that their drum set was rough. The kick drum had a real muffled, just-starting-out garage band sound, and the drummer’s timing wasn’t always perfect.
I loved every minute of it. It was one of the most “rock n’ roll” things I’ve seen in a long time. The lead singer, Mike Diaz, was reimagining Thin Lizzy on lead guitar while his pre-programmed drum and synth loops led the rest of the band into low-key basslines and crashing symbols.
The whole show was sort of anomalous though. Oliver said to me, “If I want to get nitpicky, I think my only gripe with these guys is that my favorite parts of every song are pre-programmed.”
I agreed with him to a certain extent. There were incredible synthesizer riffs in the mix, yet I constantly noticed how much the keyboards and synths were being neglected. On the other hand, it wasn’t like the band members were standing back while the computers did all the work: every single member was playing an instrument the entire time, and they were trading instruments between some songs; and they were wailing.
That’s the conundrum that was Millionyoung. One of the most live electronic bands I’ve ever seen, and we’re standing there discussing, critiquing, that specific element of their performance.
Matt: “I kinda wish that someone was actually playing that synth line live…Or do I? Do I really? Does it really matter? I mean, the dude at the computer is shredding on guitar; the drummer is drumming; I can see humans playing instruments.”
I don’t really know what the answer is, because I’m not an electronic aficionado, and I’m certainly not riding every new “wave” as it comes. All I know is that the guitars, bass, and drums weren’t going to play themselves; the same couldn’t be said for the synths and computers.
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