What You Missed || June 25, 2007

Saturday's concert by The New Year saw a few interesting things--namely, the first new songs from the brothers Kadane in years (one of which is posted right here). But I managed to be overwhelmed by something that most other people might call inconsequential: the presence of Clark Vogeler and Peter Schmidt in the band.



"We haven't played on a stage together in 11 years," Schmidt says, and it's probably as close as Dallas music fans will get to a Funland reunion for the foreseeable future. The pop-rock trio's paths diverged greatly after Funland broke up in the '90s--Schmidt had LCC, Vogeler had/has The Toadies, and drummer Will Johnson started a little something called Centro-matic--and efforts to entice a reunion have failed consistently over the years. Of course, the night had nothing to do with Funland; The New Year needed someone to fill in on guitar for a brief west coast tour, Vogeler lives in California while working on video editing projects (Project Runway, etc.), and Schmidt called the old friend. But I almost found myself requesting "Impala." How I restrained myself, I'll never know.

"For the first few days of the tour, I was nervous, just trying to learn the songs," Vogeler says. "But tonight's show was the last one of the tour. I was comfortable, and I got to finally sit back and listen." It's an apt description of The New Year's set--four guitarists lay out the kind of melodies that others would rig up a pedal kit to work up, and the band's ability to drop ego and let each other's parts work together results in a guitar tone that you rarely hear in concert. Beautiful stuff; The New Year will begin recording its next record with Steve Albini in August with hopes for a CD release within a year after that.

In addition, I'll have more on Schmidt's latest endeavors either this week or next. -SM