The Joggers: Your Shop Teacher's In a Band

Last week we toughed it out through the chilly night and made our way to the Crocodile to see The Joggers, hailing from Portland. While it filled out over the course of the evening, Seattlest was still one of few willing to brave the elements, leaving much of Seattle to miss what was a very good show, highlighted by the hijinks of a few intoxicated audience members.

Seattlest showed up during the openers Oxford Collapse. From Brooklyn, they had just joined with the Joggers for the West Coast leg of their tour. Despite the half-empty room, the trio made the best of the situation, playing their straight-ahead rock with aplomb, making witty banter about Spike Lee, and otherwise playing like a band that likes to play. While Spin described them as falling from the dance-punk tree, we aren't so sure we'd go that far with our description of them, as they were more punk than dance, more rock than rave. Regardless of categorization, "In Your Volcano" (off their new album Remember the Night Parties) was a great way for them to close their set and deserves a spot on your next mixtape.

The Joggers then took to the stage with perhaps the least amount of pretension that we've ever witnessed in a band. Again, this was a band that just wanted to play, and thankfully the crowd had picked up a bit to indulge them. The Joggers aren't a fancy band in the slightest, with a lead singer that looks like he could have been your high school shop teacher, the rest of the band largely following suit in normal clothes, eschewing the "we wanna look like a band" look in favor of "we look like we're going to Fred Meyer." But this isn't a band for superficiality, as they rocked out regardless of how they looked (and regardless of technical issues on the part of the guitarist).

Now, onto the drunkards in the crowd. At some point, someone threw water onto the stage. The Joggers didn't quite know what to make of it, asking if that was meant as some sort of heckle-water. No one fessed up to the deed. Right behind Seattlest was a trio of hardcore fans who kept calling for a song based on the sample that precedes it. Their enthusiasm was amusing even to the band, who started to repeat their calls until they finally played the song in question, at which point they absolutely lost their shit. The Joggers sound has a lot of variety, with some songs dwelling in more rock-the-fuck-out territory ("Hot Autism" still remaining our favorite), but you'd think it was Slayer the way these guys reacted. Instead of being annoyed, the rest of the audience smiled, bobbed along, and let the band do their thing. And a good thing it was. It's a shame more people didn't come out to witness it.

Image from flickr user Consuelez