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Pray for Polanski
By ROB TURBOVSKY
del.ico.us
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Singer/guitarist Aviv Rubinstien formed Pray for Polanski in 2005 out of the remains of his old high school band, B&D Confusion, which was a side project of Sexy Randal & The Pharaoh Wizards—a better-in-memory cover band that I in fact played in, and whose entire touring life consisted of two high school talent shows and the eighth birthday party of a now-scarred child named Abbott. At 17, Rubinstien could never quite reach the boozy heights of Bon Scott's hyena cry for our AC/DC covers, but in PFP, he seems to have finally found the sound that suits him, which, strangely enough, is no permanent sound at all.
"We play whatever song comes our way," says Rubinstien. "We don't have a defined sound. What happens is, I get obsessed with a certain genre, and I want to write a song that way." Those songs, now collected on their first album, The Ghost and Bones, have a range filled with twangs of rockabilly-by-way-of-a-Detroit-garage to slicker tracks that show off a more pop, hook-driven sensibility. The style changes almost as rapidly as the band's membership, which, by Aviv's count, has included nine people (before its current five): The group now boasts a trumpet player, a bassist, a drummer (currently at NASA, building a satellite) and the band's other vocalist, Anne Warnock.
"I had few voices to look up to in the alternative scene, but I sure did learn how to be angsty," she says. Aviv credits Warnock's powerful voice and its believably angsty screams with inspiring him to write the duets that are now a major staple of the band's live shows. "We did have an epiphany once after a particularly good practice, though," says Warnock, "when we dubbed ourselves 'diner rock.' We would love to be found in the back corner of a rusty old jukebox in a lonely rest stop diner."
Before hitting the studio in the fall, the band will head out on their first tour in August—an eight-city jaunt to the Midwest and back in a newly purchased van with 180,000 miles on it. They'll surely find a lot of diners along the way.
[Pray for Polanski with Fancy Me Dead. 8.6.08 at O'Brien's Pub, 3 Harvard Ave., Allston. 617.782.6245. 9pm/21+/$7. greatscottboston.com/obriens, myspace.com/prayforpolanski]