The Beginners are playing a rare show at Gus’ on Thu Jun 5 with The Superfantastics, The Slate Pacific and Quiet Parade (10pm/$5). Made up of Mike O’Neill on bass and vocals, Hampton Kelly on drums and vocals (with an upcoming recording featuring Charles Austin on guitar), the band likes to keep their cards close to their chest. When asked about the Buddy Bolden-esque move of having a tune-free myspace, O’Neill jokes, “I found that people were copying my coronet fingerings so I used to obscure my technique by wearing a 200 and then moved to 500 a thread count sheet over my entire body like a ghost. You see? I was actually inside the sheet playing the coronet—hot in there. People started asking, ‘What thread count did you use at the show tonight?’ So I took down all my songs.” Unlike Bolden, The Beginners do plan on releasing a record, and when the new album comes out there will be no shortage of folks carefully transcribing the songs note for note. “Hopefully it will be done by August. It’s really good, but all it is right now is 16 excellent drum tracks and pitchy guitars. I enjoy listening to it but I know how it’s supposed to go and what’s coming,” says O’Neill. “I’d like to write songs faster but it takes me a long time. I’ve certainly landed on an excellent band now so that makes practicing more fun and shows are less stressful.” O’Neill’s stellar songwriting skills were honed with his previous band, The Inbreds, but his current job doing location sound might also influence his recordings. Says O’Neill, “I did just get back from doing a location sound job where I was traveling around the world and I collected all these bizarre sounds that I want to use on the record somehow but I haven’t figured it out how I’m going to do it.”
This article appears in May 22-28, 2008.