Team Band are a curious new town animal in a not-so-gilded cage. The Chicago quartet seem to have emerged wholly formed from the same unholy womb that gave birth to Robert Johnson, Led Zeppelin, the Dead Kennedys, the Dead Milkmen, and Art Brut (with whom they have shared a stage), and have gigged around their hometown for what seems like years. As lead singer and lyricist Greg Drama sings on the Team Band Fight Song, “Rock ‘n’ roll—fuck yeah/Team Band!/And we know who you were when you came in the door/Team Band!/And we knew just what you came here for/To rock the motherfucker out.”
While it’s generous to describe their attitude as juvenile, the sophisticated perspective and the deeply bitter sardonicism more than mitigates the worth of lyrics that appear so sophomoric on the surface. With a stated objective to “kick indie rock in its ass,” the quartet has dropped their full-length debut Vodka Thieves (it’s technically a re-release) on an unsuspecting public, and largely accomplished that goal. Through nine riff-driven diatribes in the most un-PC (but never mean for no reason) terms, Team Band distills their alcohol-fueled version of glam-punk and art-blues, and the tracks virtually crackle with energy, and never fade out, always crashing and burning instead.
Live, the band are greeted with chants of “Where the fuck is Team Band?, Where the fuck is Team Band?” until the band takes the stage, fronted by Drama, sporting a Team Band uniform coverall and launches into the “Team Band Theme Song.” Lead guitarist and former Northwestern philosophy professor Chad Belfour is the band’s raison d’être, and Drama is one of his former students, although Belfour omits those facts from their newly revised biography (but adds “they’re super nice guys”). Rich Harper and Max Rust hold up the bottom end and rocket the rock through what turns into something like the Sex Pistols playing King Missile, or Blink-182 playing Art Brut, to choose a more contemporary analogy.
Their new take on the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Cherub Rock” thumbing of the nose to the indie-rock cognoscenti is best summed up in the lyrics of “Fixed Gear”: “Honestly, it was never that great to begin with/No matter what your e-critics said/’Cause all those days pickin’ out the vintage trends/Pushing through crowds through your so-called friends/All those nights knocking back cheap beer/When turning 30 was your greatest fear/Well, you won’t see me around here another day.”
Just as Billy Corgan was begging for the indie rock scene to “let me out,” Team Band are throwing down the gauntlet and saying they want no part of the cardigan-wearing horn-rimmed glasses sporting, wimpy, mope-rock they consider an imminent threat to the Chicago scene.
In case their off-kilter sensibility isn’t clear, readers should know Team Band have also recorded I Don’t Speak British… Team Band Plays the Music of Jens Lekman and a version of “Here Come the Hawks,” the Chicago Blackhawks theme song, both of which are available on their website.
Belfor has played with members of Red Fang, the Eels, and the Nels Cline Singers, and Team Band have played with bands ranging from Future Of the Left, The Virgins, Rival Schools, Black Kids, The Dirtbombs, Cheeseburger, and the aforementioned Art Brut, with whom they play (along with Reptar) at Schubas on Wednesday, June 15. They also play on the bill at Memories the next night with UME, The Earth Program and Fleshbroker, are slated for a slot at West Fest in July, and have recently booked a recording session at Coach House sounds, so they clearly have a busy summer in the works.
Where the fuck are Team Band now? Hopefully on their way into heavy rotation on everyone’s mp3 player, and coming to a stage nearby soon.
