Hot to Voxtrot

Austin, Texas, cult heroes tap the smart lyrics of Britpop and the infectious energy of the dance floor

By Kate Izquierdo

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Just broke up with the love of your life and thinking about hurling yourself in front of a BART train? Voxtrot is probably not your band.

They sing about broken-down love, but they don't want your tears. They write pensive songs of life, yet they aren't big on the wallowing. Voxtrot wants their audience dancing, and not just the sexy people or that tweaker at the back of the club who was grooving to the sounds of the cash register before the place filled up. Everyone. It's a pretty radical notion for your pensive, cardigan-wrapped indie kid. Just what are these people getting at?

The buzz on Voxtrot has gotten to be almost deafening, with their recent EP, the jangly Raised by Wolves (Cult Hero), sending people into apoplectic fits of adoration. When Spin.com chose Voxtrot as Band of the Day, the site described the release as "a stunning mini-collection of John Hughes–heyday paeans, twitchy pop, and surging, Strokes-y dance floor fillers." While the skiffle pop and breathy vocals of a song like "Start of Something" signal homage to the Moz, the band just as easily recalls the sarcastic wit and crooning vocals of the Housemartins, not to mention the frenetic urgency of Wire.

But those touches are just that: small pieces of the whole. What makes people nutty for Voxtrot is the combination of smart lyrics, unstoppable dance beats, and huge, kaleidoscopic guitars that hit the listener like a delicious, sugary wave. When lead vocalist-songwriter Ramesh Srivastava declares, "Look over / look fast / look in / look past / the motley kids and ugly cast / that smother you / all radiant with joy," it's not a lament à la "Headmaster Ritual"; it's an invitation to laugh and dismiss all the bullies of life in whatever form they take.

DISCO TARTANS

For all their newfound notoriety, Voxtrot almost never made it out of their native Austin, Texas. Founder Srivastava was simply looking to record some songs he had written before moving to Glasgow, Scotland, to pursue a degree and, he hoped, to form the ultimate Britpop band.

His plan was thwarted by an altogether different kind of music: the thumping bass of the local Glaswegian discos. "I thought, 'This is great. I'll start this awesome, perfect British indie band,' and it never happened because I discovered all these amazing techno clubs," he said recently on the phone from Cincinnati. Srivastava was still writing songs, but he was also dancing, enthralled by the energy and spirit of club music in its myriad forms. He returned to Austin for the holidays, always reconnecting with his bandmates for hastily rehearsed, one-off shows. "We'd drive directly from the airport to the practice space," Srivastava said. "We'd learn the song in three weeks and then play a live show. It's a totally bizarre way to do things."

This odd arrangement finally changed last year when they sent two songs to friend James Minor, an ex-booker for the venerable Austin club Emo's, now based in New York City. He was already a fan, calling them "my favorite Austin band, tied with American Analog Set. It was really great to see a younger group that embraced Felt and Love and who even knew who Comet Gain was, for that matter! Austin, at that time, had absolutely nothing like Voxtrot." The band had approached him on previous occasions to manage them, but he hadn't felt the timing was right. The two new tracks, however, convinced him. "The main thing that changed my mind was receiving the songs 'Raised by Wolves' and 'Missing Pieces' from Ramesh," Minor recalled. "The older songs were great, but I didn't feel as if Voxtrot had really found their own voice yet. Those two tracks made it apparent to me that they were in the transition of becoming their own band."

Impressed by their ridiculously catchy Britpop, Minor offered to manage the band, and Srivastava reconsidered the direction his life was taking. "You can't wait, you know?" Srivastava explained. "If people are excited about your band, you can't go, 'Oh, I've got one more year on my degree — we'll do this in a year.' It doesn't work." He made the decision to come home, and one EP later (as well as another EP, Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Wives, which will be in stores April 4), and after relentless amounts of touring, Voxtrot has become a force to be reckoned with.

ALL ABOUT US

In William E. Jones's 2004 documentary about Smiths fans, Is It Really So Strange?, music is rhapsodized as a solitary affair, an event that takes place in gloomy teenage bedrooms. It's exactly this phenomenon that Voxtrot, for all their Mancunian leanings, avoid brilliantly — and deliberately. Is it their history as a house-party band — coupled with Srivastava's respect for dance culture — that has given their live performances shape? He confessed that the "terrible analogy" is that "indie music is masturbatory — it's 'all about me.' " Dance music, on the other hand, is "all about the crowd," he added. "It's all about responding to this vibe in a room."

The title track of Raised by Wolves, inspired by the use of the phrase in Don DeLillo's novel Cosmopolis, proclaims, "I will never love like you do" like a war cry or warning to the heartbreakers of this world. In Voxtrot's cosmology, dire commentary is hidden deep within a treasure chest of gleaming pop. Srivastava doesn't find much of a paradox there: "Life is not, I would hope, really a dirge. It's bittersweet. Your emotion is complicated. It's kind of colored and tinted. It shouldn't be 'this is a happy song; this is a sad song.' It should be a song that encapsulates the whole spectrum." *

VOXTROT

With We Are Wolves and Kiss Me Deadly

Fri/10, 9:30 p.m.

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

$10

(415) 923-0923

With Kiss Me Deadly, Joggers, and Seiko and Salome

Sat/11, 9 p.m.

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

$10 advance; $12 door

(415) 621-4455