Feline Imperialism

Things have changed since I was a kid. Specifically, geography. I never knew, for instance, that Australia is now located halfway between Cuba and Jamaica.

At least, that's the only circumstance I can come up with that explains the joyful noise put forth by the Aussie band The Cat Empire (see also Wikipedia entry, here), who I caught at the Grand Ballroom in SF last night. They sound like no one else I've ever heard. Their music is a marriage of Latin beats and reggae riddims -- skalsa? -- with elements of jazz, funk and even hip-hop thrown in for good measure. The band is comprised of a keyboard player, a bass player, a drummer, a DJ who also plays percussion and two front men, one of whom sings and plays trumpet, while the other sings and plays congas and timbales (NO guitar!). They are joined on occasion by a number of other musicians, mostly horn players, but last night it was just the basic core six.

Some of you may have heard the single Sly, from their most recent album Two Shoes, which is getting some local airplay here and in other parts of the country. That was my first exposure to them, and the upbeat, almost sloppy exuberance of that song is enough to intrigue most anyone with an ear for new sounds. They played that, stretching it out as they did most songs, and just about everything else off the new album, plus a new song that they said they are in the process of recording, and they absolutely killed. I couldn't get over how unique their sound was; kind of English Beat meets the Buena Vista Social Club (or maybe Los Van Van), but definitely their own and nobody else's.

What was really worth going for, though, was simply the enthusiasm they showed, and the obvious enjoyment they had of performing. I've seen literally thousands of concerts over the past 35 years, and far too many have been rote, by-the-numbers, phone-it-in-and-let's-get-back-on-the-bus affairs that you just know had been and would be repeated night after night after night, with the same between-song banter and the same jokes and the same segues done so many times in a row that the musicians could (and, I swear, sometimes did) do them in their sleep. I didn't get that impression at all last night. The joy those guys projected was infectious, and they had the 2/3 capacity crowd dancing up a storm all the way through. I was damn glad to be a witness to it and a part of it.

If you don't own Two Shoes, go out today and buy it. If The Cat Empire is going to be playing anywhere near your town soon (they're in Los Angeles tonight), go out and buy a ticket right now. Highly, highly recommended.