by Claire Marie Vogel
For my money “Lazy Eye” is one of the great rock songs of the 21st Century. In just under six minutes, the 2006 track by Silversun Pickups covers the full range of human emotion one could ever expect from rock n roll. It organically flows from catchy blissfulness to angsty horniness to a full throated rage to sonic chaos and then all the way back to mellow.
Threre’s a ton of other gems to find across the Los Angeles indie band’s six-album discography: the aggressive alienation of 2009’s “Panic Switch” or the dreamy clanginess of 2007’s “Well Though Out Twinkles.” But “Lazy Eye” is the song I keep going back to, from a debut album, Carnavas, that somehow perfected an American version of shoegaze The Smashing Pumpkins seemingly gave up on after Siamese Dream.
Their Wiki bio has it that singer/guitarist Brian Aubert and bassist Nikki Monninger met on a flight from L.A. to London when Aubert spied Monninger stealing liquor from the drink cart. Keyboardist Joe Lester told this writer in 2016 that he joined the group less anecdotally: They just appreciated his skill at manipulating sounds. “We like to add weird samples from other records,” Lester said. “And Brian and I enjoyed the idea of not knowing what was guitar and what was keys.”
Days later, Silversun Pickups played a blistering, passionate 90 minutes for a sweaty and packed Culture Room — a show whose specialness Lester foreshadowed when he told me, “We’ll play wherever you put us, but honestly smaller shows with everyone so close together are easier to get into.”
They’re back at Culture Room in June with a new-ish album, 2022’s Physical Thrills (2022) that has them dwelling in a latter-day Radiohead realm. But don’t worry, they’ll undoubtedly play “Lazy Eye” while you cathartically scream to “I said we really need to fight to relate” and then dreamily sing along to “the room the sun and the sky”.
Silversun Pickups with Hello Mary play 7:30pm Saturday, June 15 at Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. silversunpickups.com ~ David Rolland
