Bottleneck rocks on with songs, covers
by Jack Bullion
Skiff Staff

Early in their headlining show Feb. 1 at the Aardvark, Barrett Shipp, the lead singer and guitarist of TCU band Bottleneck, educated his audience on what to expect from his four-piece rock outfit.

They should prepare themselves to not only hear some original material, but also, Shipp mused: “Something else. Oh yeah — covers!”

The band’s set, performed in two halves with a brief 20-minute interlude to give lead guitarist and part-time vocalist Brett Yates enough time to nurse his beaten guitar back to full-strength (he broke a string during the furious solo of “Something Like Home”), didn’t disappoint on that pledge.

Special to the Skiff The band Bottleneck peforms at the Ardvark February 1.

While it’s true Bottleneck has an extensive amount of covers in their repertoire, it’s hard to quibble with them — especially when they’re played so effortlessly and, often, innovatively. The band navigated two distinctly different entries in the Radiohead canon, “High and Dry” and “The National Anthem,” as well as making sure that the Pixies (“Where Is My Mind”) and Tonic (“Open Up Your Eyes”) didn’t get their feelings hurt.

Even cheeseball rap standard “Bust A Move” was reinvented with drenching funk courtesy of Yates, who also provided a crowd-pleasing rap flow as accompaniment.
The covers also testify to Bottleneck’s disparate influences. While based in the catchy pop-rock of Third Eye Blind, the Goo Goo Dolls and the Counting Crows, what truly separates Bottleneck from about a million other sound-alikes is a fierce, very accomplished musicianship that stands front and center at the band’s live performances.

Songs like “Something Like Home” and the serpentine opener “2 Way Street” wrap themselves around the complex guitar arrangements laid down by guitarist and vocalist Barrett Shipp and lead guitarist Brett Yates, who is clearly the band’s centerpiece.

In his hands the guitar becomes a limitlessly galvanic instrument, and to hear him alternately coax, tease and punish his six-string is to feel the sudden urge to spray-paint “Brett Yates is God” on campus landmarks.

Thursday’s show was more than a Brett Yates expo, however; Bottleneck’s set also provided ample evidence that the rest of the band has caught up with its formidable guitarist. Of all the band’s many influences, a monumentally propulsive tinge of Zeppelin-esque rhythm burbles noticeably beneath the accommodating pop-rock.

Drummer Andy Rice and bassist Johnny Ferraro lay the foundation for such towering displays, anchoring a song like “Not Just a Glance” with an insistent, churning backbeat that billowed into full-fledged sonic explosions by the time the powerhouse chorus rolled around. Shipp miraculously managed not to drown amidst the turmoil all around him, keeping the band tethered to earth with the playful, starry-eyed romanticism of his lyrics and his breezily unpretentious on-stage attitude.

These elements converged spectacularly on the fiery closing number “Well Lit Girl,” which held the audience in thrall for nearly 15 minutes, as Yates gave everyone at the Aardvark a reason to believe that Bottleneck will deservedly be headlining more than a few shows in the future.

Jack Bullion
j.w.bullion@student.tcu.edu

credits

TCU Daily Skiff © 2002