Goes Down Easy

It’s a full moon on a Monday night in Manhattan. Wall Street boys are just heading home from a long day of business as usual but I’m headed downtown to see Pleasure Pill, a San Diego band with a month long residency at Heaven Can Wait in the East Village. The sound of amped up guitar riffs is echoing through the venues front wall as young people queue up to get in. Much of The excitement seems to be directed at the first act of the night, woman-fronted NY band, Foreign Love Language. Their shoulder pad-clad singer, who I would learn is called Virginia, bellows over a noisy set, smiling at homemade signs that say “virgin 4 Virginia” and “marry me, Virginia”. Evidently, they already have a dedicated fanbase. Their set is up tempo, backed by a killer rhythm section and punctuated by their punchy double guitar sound. Virginia's mellow alto offers a respite from the barrage of instrumentation. They kill their set, and still don’t have anything recorded. (This may change soon, I’ll keep you posted.) The next act, See Plus, change the mood with a poppier west coast sound that echos the wave of covid era SoCal surf rock bands. They even use their time tuning between songs to play ocean noise: seagulls, waves etc... furthering beach images I already had going. Their Front man's voice has a clarity that penetrates through wavy effects of the band’s instrumentation. He has a vice grip of control on a truly impressive range that See Plus’ recordings don’t do justice. Their set is tight but I hope in future that band loosen up a bit— allow some unpolished edges to show. To me, See Plus' sound longs to be played near an ocean on a sunny day, backed by seagulls. Ironically, our San Diego-based headliners seem like they were born perform in the bowels of an urban jungle. 

Pleasure Pill's four instrumentalists take the stage with no ceremony, just saunter on up as if they’re going to sound check. Front man Jonah Paz is somewhere hiding in the small crowd (likely brooding by the bar, as he has been for most of the opening sets). But suddenly, the band strikes a cohesive chord and Jonah jumps on stage (it’s only about 8 in off the ground, don’t be too impressed) and shouts into the mic: “PLEASURE PILL!” 

The only way I know to describe the sound is something like the “Hello, Wisconsin!!” Ad lib in the That 70s show version of  Big Star’s “In the Street” at the end of the show's intro. It certainly gets my attention. He's playing to a room of about 30 people like it’s a damn stadium. It’s admittedly electric, but very familiar. Jonah plays a tambourine, holding it behind his back when he sings, leaning up into the mic like he’s pleading with it, almost uncannily Liam Gallagher-esque. In fact, the entire band's sound, look, and dynamic feels like some amalgamation of The Strokes, Oasis, and the Verve. That's not to say these guys aren't great musicians in their own right, but they wear their influences (as I see them) on their sleeves.

 Jonah delivers his lyrics in a gravelly, almost spoken tone without the hint of a smile. Where the strokes might have added distortion to their vocal, Jonah’s gritty baritone adds an additional layer of texture to the bands already rough-riding rock, his voice weaving in and out of the instrumentation rather than sitting on top of it. When Jonah takes a step back, his brother and rhythm guitarist, Ethan, jumps to the edge of the stage. He wears a track jacket zipped up to his chin (I'm starting to think the whole band has watched too much Oasis concert footage) and plays his parts with remarkable fervor. In my opinion, rhythm guitar can get a bit blah...kind of just filler content drawing rough lines between other parts. Filler content this is not. Ethan's guitar parts are the cytoplasm in which the rest of the band is able operate. His tone is the part of this band's sound that sinks into your bones and makes you come back for more. He keeps playing away, he and Jonah occupying most of the audience attention, but I start to notice their other guitarist (not so) quietly shredding in the corner.

Luke Blake has an understated stage presence but his playing is magnetic and pulls me right out of my britpop stupor. He’s kind of a Nick Valensi type (tall with crazy cheek bones) if Nick Valensi was a history professor...wearing an old blazer, holding his guitar like he almost forgot it was there. He looks around the room like he has better things to do but delivers riffs that run right through the bands wall of sound and spill off the stage. It’s guitar that starts to give me a sense of where this band could go. And we were lucky (as Jonah put it) Pleasure Pill treated us to a couple unreleased numbers mid-set. These tracks featured the bands rhythm section more heavily, offering some more dynamic bass lines compared to what's featured on their released stuff. Don’t get me wrong, the double guitar sound is fantastic, but the complexity built into the lower end with these new tracks really filled out the band's sound. Their drummer, Dom Friedly, has a distinctly melodic style that just clicks perfectly with their bassist, Ivan Delgado. (I'm sure many of you have seen the bassist-drummer romance jokes right? these guys are so tight they're gonna have trouble beating the allegations). The Oasis comparisons are still strong but there’s an undertone of something more diy to the new songs--and it’s no wonder:

(I learned shortly after the set from a couple friends of the band that most of the guys were formerly in punk bands. They’re loud tonight but apparently achieve earsplitting levels on a regular basis. In fact, they would have done so that night if it wasn’t for the sound guy (in typical sound guy fashion) telling them they needed to turn it down. Personally, I hope they told him to fuck off. It might be Monday but it’s still New York…keep the volume at 11. )

When they return to their older stuff, I'm left mourning those bass lines. Not that I'm disappointed by the back half of the set, it's just as ballsy as the A side. The rest of the tracks proceed with equal fervor and a similar order to their live album, recorded at Heaven last spring, which I had taken a look at before coming out. Jonah has great deadpan banter between numbers, reminding the crowd to buy the band's merch, saying: "especially if you got in for free. This shit ain't charity." Such a sweet and polite young man!

Sooner than I would have liked, the set is wrapping up. They end the with a cover of Brian Jamestown Massacre's "That Girl Suicide." It's an interesting choice, not so much in song selection, but in placement. Usually I'd say bracket a cover with originals unless the band's version of a song is particularly popular, but this is a lesser known song by a lesser known 90s band. Despite this, Pleasure Pill's adaptation, for lack of better words, goes fucking bonkers. Jonah's grittier take on the vocal and a less distorted second guitar give it an edge that creates a line of continuity with the rest of their set. The band certainly seem to play like this is the final stretch of a race, Dom wailing on the drums and all three guitars pulling everything they can out of their instruments-- giving us a taste of the punks that might lying beneath those mod haircuts. When the lyrics of the last chorus have been sung, Jonah leaves the stage much like he entered--just walks off like he's got somewhere to be. The rest of the band stay on, finish the song, and then do the same. It's like they've all just stubbled in here on their way to the bar, deliver a smashing set, and are headed right back out to get that drink--audience be damned. It would be kind of badass if I could see into the back room where they're all headed. Ah, well...

But for real, Pleasure Pill certainly delivered on what their live album promised. They seem to be burgeoning with potential and apparently have new music coming out in the spring of 2025 (fingers crossed.) With Oasis now goin on tour, I hope they lean less into the britpopisms and more into their punk roots, maybe take some risks stylistically. These guys left me wishing they were staying in New York a bit longer and I can only hope they'll be back soon.