Echo Orbiter

Get the band back together or the terrorists win.

by Patrick Rapa

	print	email	reply

Published: Sep 21, 2010

Jessica Kourkounis HOT FREAKS: Echo Orbiter (L-R: Colin Emerle, Justin Emerle and Jeremiah Steffen) played its first show since 2001 at Johnny Brenda's on Saturday.

The reasons Echo Orbiter came back are as hazy as the reasons it left. After six years of making loud, weird rock 'n' roll together, and then nine years in which they were never all in the same room, the trio — Justin Emerle (vocals, guitar, keys) and his brother Colin Emerle (bass), and high school friend Jeremiah Steffen (drums) — played a reunion show at Johnny Brenda's on Saturday night.

The set was engaging, 45 tight minutes of old favorites, and new ones off Euphonicmontage. Like every Echo Orbiter release since 2001 (that's five full-lengths, plus several EPs and compilation appearances), the album is essentially a Justin Emerle solo project. This live, full-band return began as a whim, a publicist's suggestion that Euphonicmontage needed a release party. "I got a hold of these guys and here we are," says Justin, shrugging, a few nights before the show. "This was, like, literally three and a half weeks ago."

So. What actually broke them up? None of the classics (personality conflicts, creative differences). Just circumstance.

Rewind nine years: After months of planning, the band was about to launch its first big tour, during most of which it'd be opening for Oklahoma rock veterans The Starlight Mints. They started with a warm-up gig in Chapel Hill. That was Sept. 10, 2001.

The next day they were driving past the smoking Pentagon and answering calls from bookers canceling most of their gigs. They finished up in Providence with what turned out to be the last show for Echo Orbiter 1.0. Weeks after coming home, somebody broke into their New Jersey practice space and stole everything: drums, amps, guitars. Then they just stopped. No breakup, no meeting. The brothers still saw each other, of course, but the band became, mysteriously, a non-issue.

Kids, jobs, school, the lack of equipment — Steffen still hasn't replaced his stolen drum kit — all kept even the thought of a reunion on the back burner. "I look back and I kind of regret it. I definitely regret it," says Justin. "It was a lot of lost time there. For no reason."

Euphonicmontage is a fine reintroduction to Echo Orbiter, the kind of twisted songwriting that earned them comparisons to Elephant 6 bands like Olivia Tremor Control and Of Montreal back in the day. Now they see kindred spirits in Animal Collective, Black Moth Super Rainbow and MGMT.

Their sound used to get them tagged as psychedelic. Justin prefers dark, demented and playful. Euphonicmontage is like a sideshow, full of sad freaks and geeks: "Mouth of an Incomplete Twin" is about a guy who hears voices and thinks he's going crazy until he discovers the titular orifice in his stomach. In "This Worm in Rigor Mortis," a girl punctures her boyfriend to release the butterflies he'd eaten. One can only presume what "A No-Headed Magician Born in Philly Today" is about.

Sonically, Justin subscribes to Bob Pollard's 4 P's: psych, pop, prog, punk. Guided by Voices, at least philosophically, has a strong influence on his songwriting. "If you really dig deep you can see stuff like that," he says. "But on the surface, I mean, 'Mouth of an Incomplete Twin' is pretty far from 'Echos Myron.'"

Now in their 30s, the guys laugh about returning to the Philly scene as old-heads. "I had to lie to get in to play the Khyber. I was 17," recalls Colin. Before they went away, Echo Orbiter was probably best known around here as the punks who smashed their instruments on the Trocadero stage at POPfest in 2000. Now a lot of the bands they used to play with are gone: Bent Leg Fatima, Perils of Pauline, etc.

"But there's no shortage of good bands on the scene now," says Justin. "If they did a POPfest now it would be a pretty damn good one."

(pat@citypaper.net)

War on Drugs
Dominic Angelella
Attia Taylor
Baby Flamehead
Bilal
F/M Fest