The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
If you’re into noisy indie-pop, you will probably
like The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. On the surface the loud, fuzzy guitars
may remind one of The Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine, but the
underlying melodies and vocals are more dreamy and “poppy”. The band’s influences
include The Pastels, The Exploding Hearts, The Ramones, Black Tambourine, and
The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are: Kip Berman
(Guitar & Vocals), Peggy Wang (Keyboard & Vocals), Alex Naidus (Bass),
and Kurt Feldman (Drums). Kip, Peggy, and Alex are big fans of The Manhattan
Love Suicides [W♥M], and got them to play at Peggy’s birthday party when they
were in the states earlier this year. Before the party, the trio of friends
decided to form their own band, which also played at the birthday bash. They
have since added a drummer, Kurt, and recorded a limited CD-single on Cloudberry
Records and a self-released EP containing 5 outstanding tracks.
The band is playing a few dates in New York and
Philadelphia before hopping over to England to play a mini-tour in February.
Thanks to Kip, I have obtained a few nuggets of
useless trivia about the band:
1. The band got its name from the title of a book
by Charles Augustus Steen III. Mr. Steen claims that his book was plagiarized by
Dr. Seuss’ estate and published as “Daisy-Head Mayzie” in 1995.
2. “There is another Peggy Wang who lives in
California who is friends with the Peggy Wang who is in The Pains. Hence, ‘Peggy
Wang-West’ and ‘Peggy Wang-East.'”
3. “Kurt (drums) joined our band after proving his
worth by being the only person to best me at the 1980s arcade classic, ‘Galaga.’
We live together in an apartment called ‘The House of Pains.'”
