Daytrotter.com's latest Barnstormer tour - five nights of live music in Midwestern barns - closes Saturday at the Codfish Hollow barn in Makoqueta. The Reader published an interview with headliner Sondre Lerche in 2009 (RCReader.com/y/lerche), but we wanted to acquaint our readers with a couple of the other bands on this year's tour: Guards and the Romany Rye. (The bill also includes Keegan DeWitt, ARMS, Mike & the Moonpies, and Hands.)
Guards: A Series of Fortunate Events
Richie James Follin said that the ongoing joke of his current band is that as long as a song has a Omnichord - an electronic instrument that was meant to mimic an autoharp - and a 12-string electric guitar, it's a Guards song, regardless of genre or any other consideration.
So Guards' seven-inch of covers includes a startlingly sleepy and longing inversion of Metallica's "Motorbreath" alongside transformed tracks from M.I.A. and Vampire Weekend. There's a dreamy, retro haze over everything, but on that and the earlier collection of seven songs that Follin posted on Guards' Bandcamp site (Guards.Bandcamp.com), the vibe ranges from dark, propulsive pop to angular, doom-filled rock. (Both sets of recordings can be downloaded for free.)
