
Playing tonight with Twin Tigers Outer Spaces and Roverta & Charlene at Farm 255 in downtown Athens, here's the fb invite http://www.facebook.com/events/189509234497225/

With only one full-length album (last year's self-released, fuzz-infested Del Black Aloha) and two EPs under their belt (including most recently, the poppier Summer Fling), the Vandelles have a history that goes back further than their catalog and recent SXSW acclaim suggests. Main songwriter/architect "Jasno" Suarez (guitar/vocals) and "Lulu" Lapin (bass/vocals) have logged enough shows in the back-biting New York/Brooklyn rock scene to have earned a little attitude, but fortunately they are still green enough to be as nice as pie. Talking from their publicist's office in New York, they even laugh as they catch themselves forgetting their stage names. No, kids, you're not the Cramps yet.
The Vandelles' name accurately conjures a cross between the downtown smarts of Martha and the Vandellas and the surliness of a B-label early '60s rock-and-roll band. Their roots go back to undergrad years at Rutgers in the early aughts, but by mid-decade, Brooklyn became a logical base for the quartet (drummer Honey Valentine and guitarist Christo Buffam, formerly of Boston's Sanguine Drone, round out the stylish outfit). Suarez was the last to make the transition to the city, reluctant to give up the waves around the New Jersey coastal town of Rumson. Unlike most of the Beach Boys, Suarez actually surfs. And along those waves and during long drives to shows around the New York metro area, a sound was building in his head.
"We are really trying to touch on this oceanic version of surf music that encompasses a larger feel than the beat sound of the early 1960s," says Suarez. By "oceanic" in this context, one might liken the ocean's incessant wash to the heaping shovels of sympathetic white noise evident in groups like Jesus and Mary Chain and Suicide — groups whose influence has no doubt had an impact on the Vandelles' dark, loud, noir-pop sound.
Early on, the Vandelles got a lot of funny looks when they told people they were interested in the primitive early surf of Link Wray and Davie Allan. Although the popularity of Wavves and Best Coast help the Vandelles describe their surf hook a little more easily, the more rocking Vandelles often got lumped into the "psych" genre just because they have a lot of fuzz pedals. "There was nothing else that we fit with," says Lapin. "I think actually being in that [scene] changed the way that we write a little bit and the way that we were going."
Sometimes defining a sound just requires a little bit of reclaiming. Suarez remembers watching a YouTube clip of the Beach Boys being interviewed during one of their first trips to England, when a journalist asked Brian Wilson to describe "surf music."
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The Vandelles are the ultimate post-modern version of surf rock, replete with feedback squalls, killer reverb, and unbounded harmonies. And it’s loud. Alternately catchy and dissonant, their music straddles the line between nihilism and exuberance, and leaves your ears ringing. Often described as noir rock, listening to The Vandelles is like going to the beach on a sunny day to play with knives.
Rock Edition caught up with The Vandelles’ guitarist Christo Buffam right after they got back from SXSW, where they were the talk of the town.

Surf/Psych quartet The Vandelles are on a roll. After the release of a well-received self-titled debut EP and tours with The Warlocks and The Black Angels, their full-length debut, Del Black Aloha, earned the band a headlining slot Iceland Airwaves 2010, where, by all accounts, they blew the roof off the place, almost singlehandedly saving that country’s faltering economy.
The Vandelles are currently writing material for a proper follow up toDel Black Aloha, but with a official SXSW showcase on the horizon, the band has elected to offer up the stopgap Summer Fling EP. With its monolithic guitars and a pounding rhythm section, lead single My Time plays like an heavy hazy drug-addled version of California’s foremost idyllic idols (Beach Boys, The Mama And The Papas), with bleeding feedback and unbearable JAMC-esque tension ultimately giving way to resplendent singalong chorus sure to evoke bombpops and banana seats. Put these guys’n gals on your SXSW “must see” list.
MP3 : The Vandelles – My Time