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Re-Up’s Fridays @ 5 Performance

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much when Re-Up first walked onto the Sadler Center Terrace stage set up for AMP’s free “Fridays @ 5” event on Sept. 18. Dressed in baggy t-shirts and baseball caps, they hardly looked like the “hip-hop/experimental” group advertised on the band’s myspace.

But then the music started. And I fell in love.

Cliff “Spliff” Kuhn-Lloyd’s vocals had me immediately hooked, with a magnificent whiskey voice that sent chills down my spine. The band presented a surprisingly sophisticated blend of hard-hitting rap and soulful jazz, with an unbeatable combination of great lyrics and a laid-back attitude onstage.

Each player of the eight-member band was highlighted at one point in the performance, from guitar solos to great riffs from the trumpet and saxophone duo.

Re-Up was booked for the event’s usual two-hour time slot, which was perhaps overambitious for just one band. The band even remarked that they’d have to “stretch” a few songs to fill the two-hours, and transitions between songs slowly became a matter of Kuhn-Lloyd asking the crowd how much time was left in their set.

The unsigned band from Boston, Massachusetts stopped to play at William & Mary before kicking off their Midwest tour. Check out their MySpace for songs and more info about the band.

Boston got a little bit better tonight.

Seeing a not-so-old friend gave me an excuse to sneak out of the MIT Delt house, after a middling day of meetings and calls. The friend in question has changed a lot in four years (who hasn’t?) and I’m thrilled this job let me catch up with her after we both went through some changes.

Hallmark card prose will have to wait. I was also here to see the band she pumped up like so many fishpork reviews of yesteryear, and the impressive Myspace clips didn’t do it a shred of justice.

If the Hold Steady can complain “Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night,” than funk-hop outfit The Re-Up should write the polar opposite about the crowd at Cask and Flagon near Fenway Park. The guys know how to work a crowd, making us bounce like tennis balls in space.

With a Dylan-circa-1968 beard and a rope holding up his sagging pants, singer Cliff “Spliff” Kuhn-Lloyd sung in a reggae-fied croak falling somewhere on the earthy common ground between Mos Def and Citizen Cope. Meanwhile, guitarist Owen Ross ripped stinging arpeggios out of the air to puncture the warm, loping bass-n-sax vibe. The guys love climaxes more than the adult film industry, consistently pumping up the drums every few bars and sending the vocals up in a blaze of record scratches (DJs in rock bands are back in style, folks) and shit-hot saxophone. It’s like Steely Dan fronted by Bob Marley. No, it’s like The Roots as a funk band in 1976. That’s probably not right either. Whatever you call it, it’s undeniably insidious to anyone afraid of letting their feet slip in a rhythmic fashion. Simply put, this is the best black music made by white people since The Black Keys became Ohio’s hottest export. Cooland genre-bending, the dudes make forward-thinking acts like TV On The Radio look like Pat Boone. I knew about two song titles, other than the closing “Easy Baby,” where anyone who heard the title knew the words. “Bad Mother Fucker” wasn’t so much a teeth-baring challenge as a revelatory celebration of confidence set to stun. One particularly groovy cut sounded like a mashup of Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman” and Mary J. Blige’s “Family Affair.” But as influences weaved their way in and out of the music, Cliff and crew held tight to their brand of bold let’s-get-fucked-up-and-ball music.

If this band isn’t big within a year, I’ll quit writing.