Gamble House Rocks
Indie pop band translates tunes from the bedroom to the stage with two shows this week
By Bliss 05/27/2010
If you figured a band named Gamble House hails from Pasadena, you guessed right — sort of.
Native Pasadenan Ben Becker started as many artists do, alone, playing numerous instruments for the four walls in his bedroom. Like the historic Greene & Greene landmark that inspired his band name, Becker’s music is deliberately crafted, with a poet’s eye for detail.
Becker’s project began back in Brooklyn, where he was a lit/music/philosophy student at NYU. Returning home to the West Coast, he started recording the music he’d written himself. He eventually brought in other players and recently released “Gamble House” the album into the digital universe. He’s also expanded Gamble House the band to include other musicians: guitarist Ben Cassorla, bassist Keith Karmen and drummer Brian McLaughlin.
Perhaps as a result of those solitary beginnings, there is an insular quality to Gamble House’s music, though not in a narcissistic, navel-gazing way. Rather, Becker’s intelligent pop tunes often seem to float in a dream chamber of his own making, where his oblique lyrics echo against windows that offer a broad view without letting too much of the outside world in.
Live, Becker & Co. tend to favor the kind of bottom-heavy rock sound with expanded solos that clicks with club audiences and spikes the communal energy. Which is all well and good, especially since it’s hard to recreate the cinematic build of something like the nearly wordless intro to “I Came Home”; that kind of mood virtually demands the spaciousness of a studio. But Becker’s use of flute, banjo, glockenspiel and cymbals to augment various guitars and keyboard greatly enhances the intimacy of midtempo musings like “Central Park,” “On Guard,” “My Brother” and “Rising Tides” (charmingly accented by a toy piano that gives the song much of its personality). Hopefully as time goes on their stage shows will incorporate a larger instrumental arsenal that will better enable them to flesh out the sonic layers that make “Gamble House” such an intriguing listen.
Easter Everywhere launches a monthly series of performances with a show by Gamble House, Mystery Claws, Sleeping Bags, Princeton and more on Saturday, May 29, at Pehrspace, 325 Glendale Blvd., Echo Park. Call (213) 483-PEHR for info. Gamble House will also perform (along with Friendo) at Spaceland, 1717 Silver Lake Blvd., Silver Lake, at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday; call (213) 833-2843 for details. gamblehousemusic.com.
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