Passengers, Now Boarding (Er, Boarding Tomorrow) @ The Mink

I mentioned a while back on this little blog how power pop heroes Teenage Kicks were no more, right?

Well, drummer John Baldwin hasn’t been doing much relaxing since, apparently — not only has he been DJing as Urbane Guerrilla Sound System, but now he’s drummer for a brand-new band called Passengers, who’re playing their debut show tomorrow night (Fri., August 14th) up at The Mink alongside SCR favorites and retro-’70s bombast reinventors Roky Moon & Bolt and DJ King Ghidora (which is — dum-da-de-dum! — John’s fellow ex-bandmate Stewart Anderson).

Musically, Passengers definitely aren’t Teenage Kicks Mk. II, by any stretch. Rather, they’re more garage-psych than anything else, with scraping, raw guitars playing grimy Velvet Underground riffs that circle in upon themselves above bumping, ’60s-ish rhythms, while vocalist Justin mutters shit I can’t make out in the midst of it all. Granted, the two songs I’ve heard so far (on the Myspace, naturally) are rough, rough demos, recorded totally live and lo-fi, but I’d be willing to bet the band’s live sound doesn’t veer too far from what they’ve captured.

There’s some muddied-up Brian Jonestown Massacre, some Black Angels, some No Wave, some Black Mountain, and even some Clinic-esque mess lurking in there, and the end result is intriguing, for sure. The band’s already recorded their debut 7″, to be released on John & Stewart’s own Action Town Records, so hopefully that’ll happen soon, too. Sounds like some good stuff…