Chamber Strings at Maxwell's

Chamber Strings Maxwell's (july 22) Maxwell's may be Hoboken's only redeeming quality, but it's enough. The venue sounds better than any Manhattan venue except the Knitting Factory main stage and the Bowery Ballroom. And of course Maxwell's upper hand is its "intimate" setting, better known as really small. There is no better way to see a band than in a tiny room with good friends and I fantasize regularly about seeing Big Joe Williams, Otis Redding or Guns 'N Roses in a small club before they hit it big. Without a time machine, I go to small clubs to see bands like the Chamber Strings. Those other entertainers have sent couples running for their bedrooms afterward, but the Chamber Strings just make you want to dance around your kitchen with your hubby, or so my companion for the evening said. I have to agree.

The Chamber Strings create pleasing music for those who can relate to the hopes of white middle-class suburbia. They're clean and pretty and fun. They may exercise some debauchery offstage, as their website's tour diary attests, but onstage they throw wads of paper at each other. They smile and laugh. And they play perfect pop songs. Kevin Junior's vocals use sweet melodies like McCartney did. The two keyboards and backup vocals further his cause. The guitar parts send your head back and forth from shoulder to shoulder like an Everly Brothers song or the more clean-cut Troggs tunes. All melody with strong-but-silent-type rhythm. Everything a good suburban white girl loves, no dirty sex stuff or hip-shaking.

As we left, we asked the band's bass player, Jason Walker, where they were from and learned the answer: Chicago. This didn't explain Junior's pre-"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" Rod Stewart stylings or the lyrics referencing London. Too drunk to inquire about a Camden Town in Chicago, I noticed my friend and Jason too heavily engaged in conversation. I pulled her toward the PATH before yet another touring musician could prove my theories on the ways of touring musicians. Pop musician = still a musician. I came to regret that decision a bit, as after reading the tour diary penned by Jason I feared missing out on more of Junior's preacher imitation, which he performed convincingly onstage for only a minute or so, exciting amens and hallelujahs from the audience. And I would love to drink with a band that wrestles late into the evening at a Quality Inn. That is good clean fun, drunken or not.