The tunes from the California-based band He’s My Brother She’s My Sister are so sun-drenched and punchy it will make you want to burst out your front door in skivvies, popsicle in hand, and declare to the neighborhood that “Summer is here!” OK, it’s January in Oregon, so put a robe on already, flick on your sun lamp and drop the needle on their 2012 EP Nobody Dances in This Town. But I couldn’t possibly describe their music better than LA Weekly: “Their voices mingle like glamour in the desert,” and “party music for coyotes drunk on champagne.” Who doesn’t want to party like bubbly-swilling coyotes?
The band’s name is actually very accurate, or at least it was at the beginning when it was just siblings Rachel (vocals and a mean tambourine) and Rob (vocals and guitar) Kolar. But now the band could be called “He’s My Brother She’s My Sister He’s My Landlord He’s My Friend She’s My Friend” after adding friend and landlord Aaron Robinson (slide guitar), friend Oliver Newell (upright bass) and friend Lauren Brown (tap dancing drummer — yes, she wears tap shoes and busts out beats on top of a drum). With unique takes on rockabilly, folk, punk, psychedelia and vaudeville, the troupe has described themselves as “glam-a-billy,” “flamboyant folk” and “vaudeville blues.”
On “Let It Live Free,” brother Kolar sounds like a raspy, rockabilly version of Jim Morrison or Edward Sharpe (the band toured with Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes in 2012). Sister Kolar’s voice has strands of Patsy Cline and Iris Dement on the catchy “Slow It Down” and the twangy “Tales That I Tell.” If you want to hear some foot-tapping percussion à la apple crates, listen closely to the aptly named “Clackin’ Heels” (see Brown in action in the music video). When this bohemian-mod-glam carnival of a band plays at Sam Bond’s, unlike their album title, surely people will be dancing in this town.
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister plays 9 pm Wednesday, Jan. 23, at Sam Bond’s; $3-$5.