Crazy Old Language: Radiohead's Rocking Offspring
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Crazy Old Language is the newest band to burst onto the Darien High School music scene. The quintuplet is made up of seniors Charlie Nicholls, who is the lead singer and plays guitar, Chris Gray is on back-up vocals and plays lead guitar, Juan Sucre is the bassist, R.J. Irizarry on drums and Dane Gebauer who serves a dual role on drums and keyboards.
“We didn’t form the band, the band formed us,” Irizarry said of the band’s beginning.
Nicholls claimed that the music became an extension of their creative work in Theatre 308. “Chris, R.J. and I have always been really passionate about music, and we were sort of waiting for a band to start. Then the three of us started to get to know Juan Sucre when we were all working on “Dead Man Walking.” He told us that he could play the bass, so we decided to get together one day. The rest is history,” Nicholls said.
The band played its first concert to a packed crowd at The Depot during a five-band marathon performance, where Crazy Old Language added a distinct, new approach to Fairfield County’s already diverse collection of high school bands. In the reviewer’s opinion, the band is not quite as “indie-orientated as a band like The Seascape (previously featured on Neirad Enilno, yet they also aren’t of the same mold as the hard rocking TONE. The product is a unique group, heavily influenced by alternative and experimental rock
“Radiohead is definitely a big influence for our band,” Nicholls said. “Their material is just about the only stuff we can play.”
But then again, professional and sophisticated certainly wouldn’t be words used to describe COL; this point was apparent to this reviewer after watching their show at The Depot. The band is still emerging from the “garage” stage of its existence. The songs came hard and fast and struck the crowd like a nuclear missile. Nicholls howled out each lyric with emotion that can only come from years spent acting in various school plays. He also made sure to yell a curse into the microphone at almost every pause between songs, just for the hell of it. Gray’s guitar work was smooth and effective, and though sound quality was poor, the sound I was able to pick up, I remembered all night. The alternating drum work by Irizarry and Gebauer was loud and aggressive and Sucre’s stage presence gave the whole show more color, as he pranced around, never staying still longer than for a few seconds.
“Crazy Old Language was fantastic at the concert. They made the most beautiful music known to man,” sophomore Alex Rankine said. “To be honest, I'm surprised I didn't black out by the sheer awesome of their music.”
Crazy Old Language still needs some practice in my opinion, and yet for a first attempt, the performance was very entertaining. The band had an overflowing of energy that propelled them through each song with an undying burst of power.
“Their energy and sound was a great change from most new bands,” Jake Seymour (lead singer and bassist of The Seascape) said. I was very surprised when I realized that it was their first concert in front of 30+ people. Once they become more comfortable on a stage, I can definitely see COL becoming local favorites very soon."
Their music was compiled mostly of Radiohead, but also included Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, and Rage Against the Machine. The songs were great because no tune was too similar to the one before it. The show kicked off with the upbeat “Optimistic” by Radiohead and the performance culminated with Rage Against the Machine’s “Sleep Now Through the Fire”. Each song varied from rocking, guitar-laden romp, to a strobe light flashing, beat pumping, techno raves, as heard in Radiohead’s “Idiotech,” were Nicholls stood alone in the midst of the stage with nothing but a synth beat at his back and I microphone in front of him. Their performance was definitely one of the more unforgettable sets played that night.
Of the eight-song set, COL played two originals. “But I thought” was my personal favorite. It was a mix between Kurt Cobain-esque vocals and a new age guitar sound. Apposed to your average garage band, Crazy Old Language delivered a fuller and more captivating sound. The song is currently up on MySpace, and the actual recording of the song is sub-par, the song itself was excellent. I would highly recommend it to anybody looking to learn more about COL.
