Endless Boogie jamming and jamming some more at Nublu, from left, Jesper Eklow, Mike Bones, Paul Major and Matt Sweeney, with Harry
Druzd on drums, hidden behind Major.
Endless Boogie live up to their name
BY BOB KRASNER
Imagine if the Velvet Underground and Iggy and
the Stooges had a kid who had a habit of eating
lead paint when no one was looking and you
might begin to understand the musical experience
that is Endless Boogie.
There’s really no point in analyzing or intellectualizing
the band. Attempts by fans to describe their
sound usually start with, “Wow, I don’t know… .”
The group, formed in 1997 by a combo of Matador
Records employees and record collectors, is
a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. The full house at
Nublu, at 151 Avenue C, on a recent Sunday night
loved it.
It’s all about immersing yourself in the guitars.
Jesper Eklow cranks out a riff that Ted Nugent
would kill for. (Don’t get any ideas, Ted.) Paul Major
solos inventively and relentlessly, while rocking
to the hypnotic rhythm section — Harry Druzd and
Mike Bones — for as long as the band feels like
going on.
And they do go on. The fi rst song — which comprised
the entire fi rst set — was an hour-long improvisation.
“It was ‘Sister Ray,’ sort of,” said third guitarist
Matt Sweeney after the show. Singer/lead guitarist
Major confi rmed that, adding, “It was all one chord
— we just improvised in the key of G.”
The tempo changes, the volume rises and falls
— mostly rises — while Major pours out notes worthy
of the man who wrote the book on psychedelic
outsider music, literally. Check out his “Feel The
Music” from Anthology.
A few fans noted that there was a fair amount
of Creedence Clearwater Revival “chooglin’ ” in
the mix, but there was also a whole lot more. AC/
DC, John Lee Hooker (where they got their name),
NEU!, Canned Heat, Rolling Stones, Captain
Beefheart, Acid Psychedelia, ZZ Top, Can, Lamonte
PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Young, Kraftwerk, Blues, Boogie… . The list
stretches on longer than some of their songs.
The second set was more of the same perfect
hypnotic jamming — but with shorter, original
songs — punctuated by bursts of Eklow’s wah-wah
pedal and Major’s yowling vocals.
“I wanted to be a poet but it took too much fi -
nesse,” Major said from the stage, before going into
“Vibe Killer,” played in tribute to the band Suicide.
“One of our heroes,” Eklow noted, of one of the
most notoriously noncommercial bands to come
out of the city.
Endless Boogie carries their stubborn aesthetic
into the present, doing exactly what they want to
with little regard for current trends — or hairstyles.
“They are,” said musician/fan Matt Mottel, “one
of the last remnants of the New York sound.”
26 February 28, 2019 TVG Schneps Media