GOOD SPORT: Matthews is releasing his first album since 1997, and even working again with his old partner in Cardinal, Richard Davies.
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It was a couple of weeks ago, at a party at South by Southwest, that LA’s hot indie-tronica band Something for Rockets played the first show of their first national tour. The show was filmed — as was everything the band did at SxSW — for MTV. The same night, an interview with Elvis Costello for MTV was cancelled, but the band weren’t thrown: the next day, after a brunch of migas, the eggs-and-peppers Austin staple, they headed to the club La Zona Rosa in their 2002 Blue Dodge Caravan (named "The Chairman," in honor of Frank Sinatra) to interview Kaiser Chiefs, one of the most talked-about bands at SxSW. This was their way of celebrating singer-songwriter Rami Perlman’s 26th birthday, but though he’s looking forward to the tour, which hits the Middle East on April 6, he’s not in the best spirits. SFR are worried they might be "selling out," and Perlman’s thinking that they may be making the wrong sorts of compromises — so much so that he says he "had a freakout about the [MTV] cameras yesterday." This is, of course, ridiculous. The cameras are controlled by the band, who talked MTV into letting them host a documentary on the festival for "You Heard It First," a regular MTV feature that not so long ago did a segment on Something for Rockets. There is no manager at breakfast, since the band (who also include sample/keyboard player Josh Eichenbaum and drummer Barry Davis, formerly of Boston’s own Mori Stylez) don’t have a manager, and neither is there a publicist (one of the band’s old friends handles that), an agent (nope), or a label rep (what label?). There’s no room to sleep in the Chairman, so SFR have been crashing with friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. Most bands in this position don’t have to worry about selling out. But SFR know — or at least are coming to realize — that they’re not just any old band. For starters, Rami’s father is Itzhak Perlman; that assured them crowds and a buzz amid the notoriously difficult LA music cognoscenti almost as soon as they formed. Rami’s a smart guy (he and Eichenbaum met while attending Brown), so he knows what got people’s attention. "It was an absolute door opener to articles [like the huge one that ran in the LA Times before the band even had an album to sell] because it’s an easy thing to write about," he admits before the eggs arrive. But, he adds, "once people get the record and realize it’s its own thing, then it’s their decision whether they like it or not." It is — and they do. Something for Rockets (available on iTunes and at insound.com) embodies a world somewhere between the Postal Service and the Strokes, where disaffected melodies float above computer-soul beats and minor-chord distorted guitars. The single "Might As Well" includes not just the familiar sounds of bass loops and gutted drums but something that sounds like a glockenspiel. Live, its groove takes on a dancehall air. "We think music snobs will like it, and the masses will like it too," says Perlman, still waiting on those eggs. His best example of a band who recently made that kind of breakthrough? The Killers, who found a common thread between ’80s glam looks and the hipster mentality that’s also propelled Modest Mouse and Franz Ferdinand to stardom. And though Perlman may be getting ahead of himself — SFR have yet to sign a record deal — this is an unusually self-aware group. "We’re putting up our own posters, we’re putting up fliers, we’re getting information out," says Eichenbaum. "And [because of that] we’re getting flack from other bands. ‘You guys are always working!’ The difference is, if we were signed, someone would be doing that work for us. We’re really treating ourselves like we are our own label." After those eggs arrive, the band head over to La Zona Rosa, but not before Perlman, now in a much better mood, gets a happy-birthday phone call from his mom. "Thanks for having me," he says to her, hopping in the Chairman to find out — for MTV — exactly what life is like for a breakthrough band on the other side of the city. For Something for Rockets, a band still waiting for their big break, life couldn’t be better. Something for Rockets join the Young Republic, the Shills, and Soft Caustic upstairs at the Middle East, 472 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square, this Wednesday, April 6; call (617) 864-EAST.
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