On the surface, Brooklyn's Say Hi To Your Mom doesn't really seem like a "Tropical Heatwave" kind of band.
The project 29-year-old Eric Elbogen started around 2002 as a name under which to release his newest batch of songs seems more of an indie-pop-scene kind of band. You know, an all-ages-club kind of band. A matinee-show-at-a-mom-and-pop-record-store kind of band. A get-called-emo-because-it's-catchy-and-earnest kind of band.
Not a band for longhaired white reggae-loving Baby Boomers to dance badly to — that's what I'm trying to say here.
Ah, but Heatwave has changed in recent years, has it not?
There's the local-band stage at New World Brewery, which is usually heavy on bands playing more guitars than steel drums. There's a recent appearance or two by more punk-scene-centric acts, most notably last year's set by incendiary Gainesville act Against Me!. And while a look back at the 24 preceding Heatwaves shows that WMNF has habitually included at least a couple of rock- or pop-ish performers in its annual shindig, those performers have lately increased in number, profile and hipster-friendliness.
Not that any of that matters to Elbogen, in any case.
"We put on the same show regardless," says the songwriter/bandleader. "I mean, anyone is welcome to check us out. I think traditionally we've gotten a great response from crowds that wouldn't normally seek out indie rock, and I think that that probably has a lot to do with the fact that at the core, I write pop songs that hopefully can appeal to anyone."
Even Elbogen is at a loss to describe the typical Say Hi fan.
"I really don't know, to tell you the truth," he says. "They really run the gamut, anywhere from 13 to 40, so I couldn't actually tell you. I know that people are often pissed when we're forced to do 21-and-up shows, so I imagine there are a lot of younger fans, and that's good."
Over the last three-and-a-half years, Say Hi To Your Mom (now rounded out by drummer Chris Egan and keyboardist/bassist Jeff Sheinkopf) has built an indie/college-rock presence by ascribing more to the scene's methodologies than its trendy sonics. Elbogen built the computer he used to record the first three Say Hi albums, the most recent being lasts year's Ferocious Mopes. The group tours regularly, hitting the same venues punk bands do.
But a listen to any of Elbogen's CDs immediately reveals what seems like a concerted effort to defy the sounds and lyrical themes of both underground rock and the singer-songwriter set. Say Hi songs are simultaneously serious and funny, basic and layered, personally resonant and utterly unrealistic. They're peopled by robots; young men who hurt cats or would rather watch sports than talk about their problems; aliens; and young women Elbogen swears aren't based on actual young women he knows.
Say Hi To Your Mom songs are unafraid to be silly, or absurd, in the name of expressing a thought or emotion. (A new album due in July, Impeccable Blahs, is reputedly all about vampires, but not the literal blood-sucking kind.) It's a testament to Elbogen's writing talent that they never fall into the realm of wacky novelty.
"Yeah, it's a fine line, I think," he says. "When you're writing a song about someone being in love with a robot, it could very easily be 100-percent over the top, and get filed with the Weird Al Yankovich school of joke rock. But I do my best to balance the silliness and the poignancy. That happens with certain songs more than others, and I've often found that it takes a certain sort of person to appreciate what I'm doing. And by that I mean a lot of people really look for a songwriter to wear his or her heart on their sleeve, and I am just sort of not interested in that."
Odd subject matter. Category-ignorant music. A songwriter more interested in following his artistic impulses than catering to trends.
Sounds like Say Hi To Your Mom could be a "Tropical Heatwave" kind of band, after all.
Say Hi To Your Mom plays at 11:40 p.m. in the Cuban Club Cantina.
This article appears in May 17-23, 2006.