The Sights - a mix CD I made

The Sights

Original Line ups included:
Eddie Baranek, vocals and guitar
Mike Trombley, drums
Dave Knepp, drums
Mark Leahey, bass
Matt Hatch, bass

and more recently:
Dave Shettler, drums
Keith Fox, Drums
Bobby Emmett on organ/keyboards


I'm totally psyched cause I found this old Sights mix CD I made from back in the day back when like Napster was still free and gave you viruses n' shit and there were all these weird fart popping noises on the shit you stole. Man, I'm glad those days are over... Carrying on...

The Sights are one of the raddest, underground garage rock bands EVER. Hailing from Detroit, these three guys formed their band when they were in High School. They've had a few album releases on the independent "scatchie" record label, and for the longest time I was sure they had broken up (as no more albums were being put out, and also numerous websites including wikipedia had stated they'd broken up) Now I read on their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/thesights that they are indeed, together and sitting on a pile of unreleased stuff. The couple songs they have uploaded to their myspace page sound rad. More produced than their earlier stuff, and a little more melodic, smacking of the beatles. I am definitely a bigger fan of their hard edged, 60's garage rock sound that they do so fucking well but I'm open to this new direction. They have still maintained their signature 60's pop sound, so all is well.

I first noticed The Sights on the Wedding Crashers soundtrack...a song called The Circus which seemed totally out of place on the crashers soundtrack. I.e. it was waaay better and stranger than anything else on there. It's got CRUSHING minor organ chords, heavy drums, guitar, and depressing and odd vocals. It's a completely "modal" song, which i'm guessing The Sights werent even aware of at the time (or maybe they were? if Eddie Baranek is reading this please respond) and has unsettling modal guitar scales. A classic song! and apparently even the music director of the wedding crashers could recognize that. Other than that little shot at fame, The Sights have remained relatively under the radar, perhaps by their own doing?

This is a band that could so easily become megastars by lending their catchy songs to commercials and their cute looks to MTV reality shows but these guys mean business and I believe they want to be taken seriously for their amazing song writing abilities and musicianship, even if it means playing small clubs for the rest of their lives.

I should probably stop stealing The Sights music and actually buy their three albums to financially support them and let them know they have one more superfan out there.

There is something about The Sights music those goes beyond simple 60's inspired pop songs. There is tremendous complex song writing going on. Under the guise of simple pop music, lies ever changing and intricate time signatures, key changes and modal harmonies. False stops, fake endings, miniature pop opuses (opusi?). Psychedelic freakouts, cowbell, surf rock, richie blackmoresque (deep purple) intricate guitar solos, strange and haunting melodies, XYLOPHONE! All on the same album (and sometimes same song!) No other word but "crushing" organ chords dominating hard rock songs in an almost cinematic score kind of way, I'm speaking of their song Sorry. Oh yeah and don't forget insane, dissonant violin, organ and guitar feedback and echo sound effects to finish Sorry on a high note.

I like their album, Got What We Want most, with Their self titled (and most recent) album just not being quite as creative, but still amazing, and their debut album Are You Green? (Ha! Talk about being ahead of the curve, coming out in 1998) being slightly rough around the edges, but probably the best debut from any psychedelic band outside of The Doors maybe, but even that is debate able.

It's so hard to highlight just a few of their songs, I could write about each of their 30 or so songs but then I'd never get to bed tonight... The country twang of Waiting on a Friend (not to be confused with the stones) is catchy as chickenpox, and the super sweet and poppy It would be nice to have you around and Everyone's a poet are infectiously giddy. (I swore to never use the word infectiously in a review too!). And Be Like Normal is pure genius, wood block and all!!

The Sights albums have recently become available on ITUNES. Buy Them! Buy Them! Buy Them! If these guys ever do decide to become mega huge stars, they'll be the biggest fucking thing since sliced bread, television and stone washed jeans combined.

Circus -not "Rock and Roll Circus" -incorrect name of song.


Backseat, Last Chance and Waiting on a Friend