Damone, Out Here All Night EP

Damn. I did it again. I went to a show last night specifically to see Boston rockers Damone, rushing my little girl to bed, throwing on a T-shirt I didn’t mind getting smoky, and blazing like a lunatic down the freeway to the club, all so I could get to the show before 8PM, when it was supposed to start…only to find out that the band had started playing at 7:30PM. I literally walked in just in time to hear singer/guitarist Noelle (last name Leblanc, but she goes by the first) say that the next song would be the band’s last and tell the crowd to stick around for Less Than Jake. Fuck.

Don’t get me wrong — that last song was great, all distorted rawk guitars and pounding drums, but I’m starting to feel like I’m cursed when it comes to this band. The only other time I’ve seen them (at the same club, the downtown Engine Room, and with the same couple of friends, weirdly enough), I’d never heard of ’em before, and I stumbled in about halfway through their set with a big scowl on my face…and then found myself wishing I’d gotten to the club earlier so I could’ve caught the whole thing. The little snippet I caught then was the highlight of the night (and only later did I realize that “Damone” was actually the new name of “Noelle,” a band a friend of mine had been raving about for a while via e-mail).

So, this time I thought I was ready. I got off work early so I could do all the evening stuff and still make it to the show on time, homeboy Mel had already bought the tickets so there wouldn’t be much waiting in line, and I had enough cash in my pocket to hopefully afford a T-shirt and a copy of the band’s latest release, the Out Here All Night EP. I was set. And in the end, I got to see one measly song (although to be fair, it sounded like even the earlybirds were left wanting; when Damone finished their last song after about 20 minutes of music, one disgruntled friend yelled out that it was a cocktease). I’m not blaming the band, by the way — bassist Vazquez told me afterwards that they’d been assured it was the club’s standard operating procedure…and this in a city where a show seldom starts before 10PM. Guess it serves me right for bitching about the lateness of shows here for a full decade now. sigh. Engine Room: 2; Me: 0.

What I’m left with, in the end, is the EP. And y’know, that might just be enough (’til the next time they come through H-town, at least). I’ll admit up front that no, it’s not From the Attic II, but I think the disc is far better as its own unique beast than if it were just a copy of what the band had done before. When the From the Attic songs were recorded, frontwoman Noelle was still in high school, after all, and the songs themselves (written by now-departed guitarist Dave Pino) were juvenile, sweet, and naive to match, all tomboyish toughness and teen angst. The older, wiser, more mature Damone of now would’ve looked ridiculous, frankly, if they’d tried to recapture that pseudo-youthful innocence, so it’s a damn good thing they decided to go a slightly different road this time out.

Where From the Attic was the sound of the car wash and the high school crush, Out Here All Night is the sound of somebody leaving home and working on being an adult. Most of the sweet puppy love story-songs are gone, replaced by more thoughtful, more defiant, almost angry tracks along the lines of From the Attic‘s “On My Mind”. The title track of the EP, for one, is a blazing roar of a cautionary note to a (possible?) love that ends by finally shrugging and saying, “You can say what you like / It doesn’t matter to me.” Then there’s “What We Came Here For,” which depicts a struggle between love and disillusionment and the painful aftermath, “Get Up And Go,” which is an exhortation from Noelle to take a risk and quit playing it safe, and “Never Getting Mine (Demo),” which is a big middle finger of a get-lost-you-loser song. The only “soft” moment lyrically comes at the very end, with “Time And Time Again” almost holding out a conciliatory, supportive hand to a friend/loved one gone astray.

And despite the songwriting shift from Pino to the rest of his erstwhile bandmates, I’m loving the songs — they’re like the best moments of Veruca Salt’s classic Eight Arms to Hold You crystallized and stripped of any hint of goofiness (and I’ll admit it, the vocals remind me at points of Nina Gordon’s, which ain’t a bad thing). It feels a lot more honest, as well, knowing that the primary songwriter’s actually the person doing the singing. I’m well aware that Noelle wasn’t ever really the “character” she played/sang in Pino’s songs, and that makes it especially nice to hear something this time and know it’s actually her speaking for herself, in her own voice.

Oh, and then there’s the sound. Beyond the lyrics, the music itself differs pretty significantly from the songs on In the Attic, even with the same sweet-yet-edgy voice soaring and snarling over the guitars. Again, it’s almost like an age progression — I read somewhere that Dave Pino originally wanted to write universal pop love songs like Rick Springfield, and he succeeded admirably, but with Out Here All Night the band’s left the teenybopper pop behind and sped head-on into the realm of ’80s metal. The guitar solos in “What We Came Here For” scream “Scorpions Rule, Dude!”, the backing vocals on “Get Up And Go” sound like Hysteria-era Def Leppard (and believe it or not, I do mean that in a positive way), and the bombastic thunder of “Time And Time Again” comes off like Queen playing to a crowd of millions at Wembley. It’s enough to make me want to bang my head and go digging through my old box of cheesy metal tapes; I’d almost forgotten what that adrenaline rush felt like.

It’s fast, too, far speedier than most of In the Attic — “Out Here All Night” could be a Sahara Hotnights song if you listened to it with your eyes closed, and “Get Up And Go” makes like The Donnas if they were, uh, actually as good as their hype says they are (sorry, but I’ve never been impressed). One review I’ve read of Damone in general referred to them as a “pop-punk” band, but despite the punkish fire, that’s absolute bullshit; they’re a rock band, of the full-on, leather-jacket-wearing, fist-pumping, arena-playing variety. There are echoes of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts all over the place, which is pretty appropriate, but I don’t know that Ms. Jett ever sounded this badass. Noelle’s and lead guitarist Mike W’s guitars roar and scream, drummer Dustin Hengst pounds like a madman, and Vazquez drives the whole thing along like an out-of-control freight train, and the whole thing’s got this slick, razor-sharp metallic sheen to it. The one exception’s “Never Getting Mine,” which is explicitly labeled as a demo (even though it sounds very finished) — of the EP, it sounds the closest to the band’s earlier stuff, production-wise.

(I should note, by the way, that the production made a lot more sense once I glanced at the liner notes — and started giggling hysterically, in spite of myself: two of the five tracks on Out Here All Night were mixed by none other than Mike Shipley, the same engineer who mixed both of Def Leppard’s best albums, Pyromania and Hyseria… Man. I must really be an ’80s metal nerd…)

Oh, and this is apparently just a taste of what’s to come on the band’s sophomore full-length, due out in June 2006. Until next time, then, at least I’ve got this to hold me over and that to look forward to. In the Attic is still a classic, yes, and I still adore the “old” Damone, but hey, you can’t sit in the past forever. The band probably puts it best on their Myspace site: “The ‘carwash’ is fucking closed.” They’ve moved on, and good for them — I’ll happily move on right with ’em.