Eiffel Tower
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Eiffel TowerNovember 5th, 2010
Eiffel Tower – Billy Joel
So I’m just going to put this out there right off the bat. I am friends with the guys in this band. They are excellent fellas, and I enjoy them immensely on a personal level. However, they also happen to be one of my favorite bands in the world right now, and have managed to put out what I think is one of the best albums of 2010.
Wait, let me say that a different way.
Eiffel Tower is kind of like a disorientingly raw combination of Pavement, The Flaming Lips, and Weezer with a bit of The Beach Boys thrown in there for good measure.
Is that something you might be interested in?
Their self-titled debut EP (Download) is messy and beautiful as it tells tales of robot love and delusional thinking. Sure there are some magnificent mistakes and overly fuzzed out bits, but this is an album that unabashedly embraces its imperfections, and is immeasureably elevated by its rough shod aesthetic. I absolutely love the muddy compositions and the dirty tones that are set throughout. I’m guessing that you will too, if you sit with it for any length of time.
It’s cassette tape rock in the best possible way. Songs with titles like “Billy Joel” and “Choose Your Own Adventure” hint at a dilapidated sense of humor that runs through the entirety of the project. They list their influences as Frank Sinatra + Bad Brains + The Feelies + Stephin Merritt and describe their band name by saying:
“We settled on the name Eiffel Tower, after the French monument. Upon its completion, the tower had widely been considered as a mistake and an eyesore. Guy de Maupassant, who reportedly hated the tower, was known to have lunched in it daily. When asked why, he remarked that it was the only place in all of Paris where he could not see the awful structure. The band Eiffel Tower celebrates the grandiose courage necessary to pursue seemingly foolhardy ambitions.”
Needless, to say it’s an awesome project from a superb group of guys. I am very much looking forward to seeing what else they can come up with, and you should definitely check them out as early and often as you can.
In the mean time, they are playing Double Door on Tuesday November 9th with Black Taxi (Buy Tickets). You need to check this out, not only because it’s going to be a great show, but also because I know you have nothing better to do on a Tuesday night.
Also do yourself a favor and download the Eiffel Tower EP, and check them out on the Facebook.
- simplesinger.com
Our friends over at Chicago music blog Simplesinger have been raving about the hometown gents in Eiffel Tower for months, but until recently we didn't grasp the true genius behind the haphazard production and deftly constructed, contagious melodies. Audiophiles won't get the obviously basement-quality recording of their recent self-titled EP, but that's part of the charm. Anyone looking for refuge from the overly self-indulgent "indie rock" that's been oozing out of the Near West Side for far too long will surely find themselves clapping along to jaunty, irreverent tunes like "Billy Joel" and "Vicky."
Formed by three friends ("Peter, Matthew and sometimes Alex") interested in how music can interpret psychological states, Eiffel Tower plucks the best and most unselfconscious turns from early movement college rockers like Pavement, The Feelies, Apples in Stereo, The Flaming Lips and Superchunk. The lyrics, simple on the surface, are self-deprecating and deceptively smart ("I made you a mixtape, you said it's not the '90s/I threw rocks at your window, you said it's not the '80s"). Themes of crappy relationships with girls and robots, the front and back ends of psychosis and life's harder decisions are brought to life by the brain-infesting sense of timing and wicked melodic ear cocaine.
If you haven't heard of these guys, it's probably because you don't know someone who is friends with them - they aren't the most self-promoting band out there. But luckily they're starting to let their kind of weird magic loose on our fair city, so catch them while they're ripening.
- chicagoist.com
Discography
Debut Self Titled EP released over summer of 2010
Billy Joey, Vicky played on WLUW 88.7 in Chicago
Photos
Bio
Eiffel Tower was born at a psychiatric hospital in the Chicagoland area where Alex (bass), Matt (handclaps) and Pete (bells) were working as orderlies. The three were in a seclusion room holding an aggressive patient who, in a last-ditch retaliatory effort, took the liberty of urinating on the floor. With the patient somewhat subdued, the three made a gallant dash to exit the room before the patient, hot on their heels, could egress. Things only went further awry when Alex lost his footing and slipped three feet across the slick, linoleum floor through the puddle of tepid urine. Matt and Pete instantly tumbled over Alex and found themselves equally soaked. The three spent the rest of the shift donning patient pajamas and questioning their chosen career path.
The three bonded over their work with psychotic patients and obsessively collecting their clients’ personal narratives. They found the coping mechanisms of the patients not far removed from many of their own misguided efforts to make sense of the world around them. They came to treasure these stories as the stuff of myth and legend. As the band began to write music, they focused on how alienation often leads to obsessive or delusional thinking. Musically, the band’s exultant energy was been characterized as “Frank Sinatra meets Bad Brains,” and as “marr[ying] the jangle-pop of Feelies with the playful self-loathing of Stephin Merritt.”
The trio quickly settled on the name Eiffel Tower, after the French monument. Upon its completion, the tower had widely been considered as a mistake and an eyesore. Guy de Maupassant, who reportedly hated the tower, was known to have lunched in it daily. When asked why, he remarked that it was the only place in all of Paris where he could not see the awful structure. The band Eiffel Tower celebrates the grandiose courage necessary to pursue seemingly foolhardy ambitions.
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