Coach Said Not to Say Hi to Your Mom

Eric Elbogen says hi to your teddy bear.

So, for the past week, I’ve been strangely attracted to this band from New York called Say Hi to Your Mom. The songs off their new album, Ferocious Mopes, have infiltrated my subconscious – I find myself spontaneously singing them whenever my mind wanders from my daily chores. None of this is too surprising, considering I’ve always had a thing for sad-bastard indie pop. Say Hi to Your Mom could be prescribed alongside Belle & Sebastian, The Magnetic Fields, and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone to alleviate a broken heart (or, simply, to soothe the pain left over from the girl who never noticed you in fifth grade).

Surprisingly, I wasn’t even familiar with Say Hi to Your Mom until I saw them open for Coach Said Not To a couple Saturdays ago at the Nomad World Pub. …Or so I thought. As soon as they started playing their first song, a light bulb flashed in my head, and I exclaimed to myself, “Hey, I know this song! I love this song!” Yeah, isn’t it great when you realize that you have more indie cred than you give yourself credit for?

Say Hi were a welcome change of pace from the no-offense-but-it’s-really-not-my-thing Americana of the first openers, The Sirachas. Eric Elbogen (the songwriter behind Say Hi to Your Mom) and his guitar were supported onstage by an excellent drummer and a synth player. The trio’s cathartic instrumentals and Eric’s witty lyrics kept me captivated throughout their entire set, which I thought ended way too quickly. But I suppose they didn’t want to hog all of the night’s glory.

The rest of the night belonged to a very unique Coach Said Not To “remix” show. Normally, Nate, from Nate on Drums, drums for Coach Said Not To. But Nate was nowhere to be found that Saturday – he definitely wasn’t “on drums.” Thankfully, the girls were determined to carry on without him. They enlisted DJ PDA to lay down some beats over their artsy sarcasti-pop. To my astonishment, it actually worked (I’ve been leery of turntables in rock bands ever since Limp Bizkit vomited in a recording studio and sold the end result to millions of frat boys).

I remember seeing Coach Said Not To at one of their very first shows a couple years ago, so I’m always amazed when I think about how popular they’ve become. They’re so popular, in fact, that they’ve completely sold out of their debut EP. But procrastinators like me weren’t completely out of luck – they were selling “limited edition” CD-R’s of the EP at Saturday’s show. Each CD-R came with a Polaroid that the band took during the course of the night. Apparently, most of the Polaroids were action shots of the band members (who all happen to be pleasant to look at). But, of course, the Polaroid that was included with my CD was a picture of the sky. How nice.

I ended up staying up pretty late that night, but I was still able to wake up early enough the next day to catch Stephen Malkmus’s in-store at the Electric Fetus (ok, so maybe some of you don’t think that 5:00 on a Sunday is early). He treated us to a solo acoustic performance of several songs off all three of his solo albums. His music was never really meant to be played acoustically, but who cares – I was just delighted to be in the presence of a true genius.

That was two weekends ago. Last weekend, I went down to Chicago for my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah. So, my 13-year-old cousin is now officially a man. Hmm…I think at age 13, I was just starting to get my pubes. I wonder when my time will finally come. But if being a man means trading in my GI-Joe underwear, I’m afraid it’s never gonna happen.

There, I think I’m all caught up with my bloggin’. I’ll try to be a bit more punctual from now on (meaning I’ll only be one week behind, instead of two).