ARGONAUT & WASP- American Beauty

Argonaut & Wasp
American Beauty, NYC
7/8/17
Written by and Photos by Rich Rickaby

Theo & Trey

I never heard of Argonaut & Wasp, I never looked them up on SoundCloud, I just said "OK", when concert buddy Bruce asked, "Do you want to go?"

Bruce does all kinds of things Rock & Roll. I don't know if he heard of this band or knew of another band that knew them but he was in touch with them somehow before we showed up, hence, he brought a pair of custom made pants he designed for a Rock and Roll fitting and we were on the guest list.

American Beauty has been around for a while. I'm told I've been there before but under a different name, one of those places, same location, many names. It's a bar up front, bands in the back with pizza and pool upstairs.

Bruce spotted Theo, the Keyboardist and Singer, one of two, for ArgoW and we immediately started talking. Bruce showed him the pants he brought. All were impressed upon the reveal of black denim with silver, glitter striped pants. These are multi-angled stripes, not one way runners. I shared pix of other pants Bruce had designed. Theo immediately split to the dressing room to try them on.

Trey & Alec

With a beer purchase, we get a ticket to redeem for a personal pizza, upstairs. I don't know if they give you a ticket so you know there's an upstairs or if it's their way of feeding inexperienced drinkers before they have the wrong experience.

Eat before drinking, people!

Wonderments aside, the pizza was cooked to order and quite tasty. A game of pool passed the time until we went back downstairs to the gig space, complete with chandelier, and everything changed. Alec, the Bass player was now wearing the pants because they fit. I took some pix and Bruce became more energized, knowing his pants would be taking the stage with the band.

Argonaut and Wasp took the stage and they were great! Bruce had described them "Clubby, but with guitar." I'd say this is accurate enough and go on the note that there was a touch of New Order, The Cure and Talking Heads in their music.

Chris Corsico, The Drummer, kept things moving steady.
Trey Schibili, Guitarist and Singer was solid forward. He sang well, clearly and coaxed the way with his guitar. He didn't fill all the spaces strumming, he has bits and kicks that created part of the overall sound with Keyboardist Theo Klein. Theo has a bit of a David Byrne approach to singing and playing. Bass playing Alec Donkin held down the rhythm with Chris when he didn't break out with some bad ass bass licks of his own.

The energy was of a working band working together and enjoying the set. They were competent and had the audience dancing, or at least moving, no small feat for a NY audience.

Their new song, 'Paradise,' is the only one I remember by name since they said, "This is Paradise, our new song." You can check them out on Soundcloud here.

I enjoyed their performance so much, I did check out their SoundCloud after the show.

I suggest you too listen to their SoundCloud line up once and you will be an instant fan. They do a great cover of The Stones 'Beast Of Burden' funkified. It will be almost impossible to pick one song to be your favorite with all the choices: 'Paradise', 'Loser Like You', 'The Sneeze', 'Planetary', 'Ever Enough', 'Paisley', 'Higher Ground' etc...

I moved to the front to get some pictures and I kept moving by place-dancing but Bruce was full on joy, dancing, but then again he does that at most shows, that is, if the band is good. And these guys were not just good but fantastic, very electrifying.

If you like electronic music you will love ArgoW.

They'll be touring all summer long, check out their website for a schedule of their upcoming shows.
Argonaut & Wasp Website