((Tan Dollar)) Band Profile and Upcoming Chicago Concerts - Oh My Rockness

Tan Dollar is a beautifully noisy trio (Chris Throne, Chris Balingit, Liz Suh) from Irvine, California that rock two keyboards and one set of drums to make loud, blissful, experimental goodness. From what I can tell, this is what the kids call "lo-fi." I guess. I'm going to call it "good-fi" though. You know, for a "hoot."

Now, I'm not going to spend time analyzing and deconstructing the meaning of Tan Dollar's lyrics for you because a.) that's never really been my thing... blame not going to Grad School and b.) I can't really hear any of the lyrics anyway. There's too much distortion and stuff going on to make out what these guys/girl are singing about. But it sure sounds like they're singing about something, well, experimental. Maybe it's just about donuts.

When I listen to Tan Dollar, I do hear crazy falsettos over all this wonderfully blown-out distortion, and those always sound nice together. And I also hear really pretty keyboard solos that give these songs some solid melodic overtones. Melodic overtones rule. But yeah, I keep listening to these guys and keep finding new things to like about them. It's... what's that word? Oh yeah, interesting. When I first put Tan Dollar on the old player, I thought I heard a little bit of Blank Dogs. I don't think that so much anymore. I don't know what I think. I think I need to see them live.
Published January 28, 2010
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