Beekeepers: Methodical Chaos

Patrick's got some demons. I don't know if these are bad demons or good demons - but I know that the music he makes is certainly good - even if it sounds wholly weird, inconsistent, freaky or insistently sardonic --to your ears. Your ears are just weird in their own way - just as my ears are weird - but my ears, damn it, respond to the certain weirdness of the music made by Patrick's band: The Beekeepers.

Jan 24th --- ---- New Dodge Lounge --- --- 
PINK LIGHTNING - K9 SNIFFIES - ABSOLUTELY NOT (CHICAGO) - BEEKEEPERS

Patrick Robinson (just one bass-wielding component of this outfit) struggles with his demons and what they tell him about his music. "...The Beekeepers don't seem to fit in, which I find strange."

"We aren't that weird..."




Early rock n' roll, doo-wop, acid-jazz, post-bop, tin-pan alley, psychedelic noise-rock... My receptors flare up whenever I hear a Beekeepers song... "It's all too much..." as George Harrison once sang, "...for me to take...," as the group's songs blaze along like a montage of styles, flavors from idealized "era's" or moods from half-forgotten film soundtracks, noises from the nightmares you tuck away into the cordoned-off carnival of your childhood-memory museum. Like haunted honey, like a blackhole-sun, even! 



"I consider our songs to have a formal structure," says Robinson, who writes and performs with Patrick McGlew, Pete Steffey, Jeff Else, Jeremy Franchi and Brandon Robinson. "It's true that we have always liked to fuck-around, musically. However, in a live setting, we prefer to give the audience discrete packets of music. (It's) a little chaos here and there, but there is a method."

Beekeepers strength, their charm, is their caprice. To have one song go from a punk-tempo'ed rock vibe into a whirling waltz... "Our sound is not the result of conscious intentions." No surprise.

"We have our own unique angles, but we are also unafraid to subdue ourselves to the will of the collective spirit."

Now we're talking! Maybe it's less caprice, and more something intangible, something supernatural within the songs that weirds-people-out in good ways or bad.... Good demons...bad demons... melodic demons nonetheless!


Robinson is his own worst-judge, he admits. "I love talking to other musicians, to revel in the joy of music and to commiserate about the biz. For bands that want to maintain artistic integrity these days, the prospect of making money is grim..." Which, our point being, it can be either discouraging or encouraging for an eclectic, or weird--band - Because you truly can be as weird as you want! But then....to what end? Maddening! But empowering! But, also, maddening!

The Beekeepers have finished up a new album that will be "very different" from last winter's release. "McGlew, our former frontman, recently left the group and moved to Finland to see what there is to see.... He is still our biggest fan. And, the new album will be full of desperation...and...madness."



Up next, the Beekeepers will release a single on local X! Records (spring) and the aforementioned album comes out in the autumn.

Sooner, rather than later: Expect a proper CD Release show celebrating their 2010 debut... (a disc that never got its proper moment to shine).

NEXT SHOW
Jan 24th --- ---- New Dodge Lounge --- ---
PINK LIGHTNING - K9 SNIFFIES - ABSOLUTELY NOT (CHICAGO) - BEEKEEPERS