The Waves – Podcast 52
Recorded at the Mohawk Place March 16, 2007
The Waves were the third band of the night at the St. Patricks eve triple bill. Before this, I hadn’t really heard much
about them.
I had seen their MySpace page, and heard a couple songs ther and I liked them, but hadn’t seen them playing a lot of gigs.
But when I was setting things up to record Floozie and The Transonics, I asked them by email if I could work on a podcast for them too. I was happy to receive the affirmative response!
The Waves are a tight group with a sound all their own, yet with influences that will make you feel comfortable with their music instantly. They cite surfing as an influence, but if you’re thinking Beach Boys or Jan and Dean, you’re way off. They may get inspiration from surfing (windsurfing, actually) but their musical influence is more modern. Yet, there IS a twangy, ringing guitar sound that might just remind you of Dick Dale a bit. My favorite quote from their web site calls their style “The Beatles meet The Clash and go surfing.” They also called it “Velvet-Surf-Pop.” Whatever you call it, it’s great stuff.
The Waves is a three piece and they’re a bit mysterious about their identities. I did find out this much:
Steve Elliott – sings, plays guitar and surfboards. He’s a world traveler, who met Mustang in med school.
Joey Trebble Maniaci – plays Bass and sings. He’s also owner of Allentown Music.
Mustang A. Leavens – plays drums and sings. He credits Jerome Agustyniak (10,000 Maniacs) for a lot of his drumming skills.
I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how much of their names or stories is real.
I don’t have titles for all the songs, just a few of them, so just go with the flow, or the waves, and enjoy.
http://www.artistlaunch.com/thewaves
http://myspace.com/thewavesspace
[This podcast audio file has been moved to the Internet Audio Archive]
Doc Wu said,
April 26, 2007 at 12:28 pm
The Waves were recently finalists in the Artvoice BOOM (Best Of Original Music) competition. They were narrowly edged out by Constant Climax, but we were rooting for The Waves!
Kelly said,
April 29, 2007 at 11:36 am
The Waves played an amazing show at the Mohawk for the Artvoice competition. Unfortunatly the judges would not allow people to vote after they heard the bands play. There were many of us that were never given ballots at the door and we wanted to vote after hearing the bands and were denied. I think the Waves could have beaten the band that played music from an ipod had the audience been able to vote after the show. Regardless, it was a great competition and the Waves did an awesome job.
Thomas Chad said,
May 17, 2007 at 11:34 am
I saw The Waves play at the Mohawk Place for the BOOM. They were awesome. It is so nice to see a band which is entertaining and sounds good. They came out with these all white suites and you could tell they were having so much fun while they were up on stage. I recommend them to everyone I know. If you haven’t seen them, you should. In fact, bring your grandmother. She needs to get down every once and awhile too.
THE WAVES ROCK!!!!