The New Standards

Largo - March 14, 2009

Live Review by Joe Cortez

Photograph by Paul Paguyo

You know a band has good taste when it chooses to open a set with a song by The Replacements, but I'm getting ahead of myself. To call The New Standards a covers band is to do a disservice to the trio's ambition and imagination. They add so much to the songs in their repertoire that you immediately forget these are songs made famous by other bands. Ranging from punk anthems to modern chart toppers you would be hard pressed to pin down a particular genre and that's part of the fun.

While the set list may seem random, the consistency that holds these varied songs together is the band itself: it's all in the musicianship and presentation. Dressed to the nine's in dapper suits, the sharp tongued men of The New Standards looked as though they would be right at home at a jazz club. The band's attire was appropriate for the venue, Los Angeles's Hotel Cafe, and showed that while laughs were had, The New Standards is no joke-band. They gave their all throughout their time on stage and by night's end all three members were in a sweaty huff, looking as if they had just been involved in a prize fight.

The band riotously ripped through a set including "Watching the Detectives," "Toxic" and, in one of the true highlights of the evening, a soaring rendition of "London Calling."  What impressed me most about the band's performance was that they took ownership of each number. It's not that they changed the arrangements just for the sake of changing the arrangements but rather discovered new ways of interpreting songs we're all familiar with. This may seem like the performance was an exercise in high brow tedium but this couldn't be further from the truth.

The New Standards at Hotel Cafe was an exceedingly entertaining show and one of the more memorable I've seen all year. At night's end the band literally had the audience asking for more. If nothing else, The New Standards should be commended for making a Britney Spears tune tolerable and breathing fresh life into songs I only thought I knew so well. Spending a night with these boys is wholly recommended.