One of the greatest things about writing music is how improvisational it can be. Some of the best songs have come from a few guys gathering together in a room just to jam with no preconceived ideas. When each musician is free to react to what the others are playing a certain kind of permutation takes place to create something that no one of them could have come up with on their own. We just came across 2 guys that locked themselves in a room to see what the result would be and it came out extremely interesting. Let us introduce Rog & Glenn.
The story goes way back to the mid-1980s when Roger Brandon and Glenn Hubbard (“Rog & Glenn”) started recording music together as young kids like so many garage bands of the day. The North Carolina natives had long since accepted their lives as regular guys with day jobs when they planned a songwriting weekend in March of 2012 for old-times’ sake. The running joke was to see what happened if they tried to write a dance record. The duo got in the room and basically just hit play as they started improvising with each other with no real goal except to have a great time.
The result of this impromptu jam session resulted in a complete 13-song album that Rog & Glenn decided to call Close The Club. It is a tough genre to describe as the overall dance feel is heavily influenced by progressive and jam rock. The sudden synergy of these two men basically started a new style. Rog’s vocals are interesting in all their own with a touch of new-wave geek rock such as The Talking Heads or Weezer. The opening track ‘That’s What You Get’ starts with a mish mosh of sound that leaves the listener searching for direction. I think this was intentional to try and throw the listener off guard and to open their mind to what they are about to experience. The track that jumped out at me was ‘One Of Them’, a funk filled dance number that pokes fun at the dance floor crowd while secretly desiring to be that guy in the middle of that scene. The fun little new-wave track ‘Good As Advertised’ seems to find the band members in their element. It is abundantly obvious they are having a great time putting these songs on record. There is definitely a concept to the whole album as it ties together brilliantly and closes with the somber title track ‘Close The Club’ that lets you know this is the end of their flashback to their younger days. (Sadly, I can relate to this song very well)
When you have the time to listen to a complete record instead of your 0.99 singles, go give this record a listen at:
https://soundcloud.com/rogandglenn/sets/close-the-club-entire-album