City Pulse - MUSIC

music:: OCTOBER 27, 2004

Flatfoot deftly straddles the rock/twang divide

By CALE SAUTER

Flatfoot
With special guests The Blanks and Charlie Don’t Shake, Friday, Oct. 29, at Mac’s Bar, 2700 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing. Doors open at 10 p.m. with a $5 cover. 21+. For more information visit www.macsbar.com.Flatfoot don’t plan to scare you on Oct. 29, but vocalist/guitarist Jason Bales hints that folks should stick around until the end for a little pre-Halloween surprise. He won’t share the surprise, but chances are, Flatfoot’s rollicking take on the twang genre that’s been so popular with the locals will keep the audience rocking along until the end regardless.

The boys in Flatfoot classify what they play as “honest music.” A friend of mine likes to call it grunge-try (prounounced “grunge-tree”). Whether that is to imply that the band’s music is an unlikely (unholy?) union of grunge and country or that they are just playing gritty country-tinged rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t matter; both comparisons seem to apply.

The manly men of Flatfoot: (l to r) Aaron Bales, Jason Bales, Erik Miller and Jeremy Whitman.

Whatever you want to call it, one thing you could never accuse Flatfoot of is being boring. The band’s no-nonsense charisma and dedication to sticking to its guns and continuing to play “honest music” sets it apart somewhat from the recent wave of twang bands in the Lansing and Detroit areas. Seeing the band live, the last thing that comes to mind is somber country tunes. Flatfoot is rock ‘n’ roll — drummer Erik Miller and bassist Jeremy Whitman make sure of that with up-tempo rhythm.

That’s not to say guitarist/vocalist brothers Aaron and Jason Bales can’t bust out an acoustic guitar and some heartbreak if prompted, but lately, live Flatfoot has been all about out-rocking the competition — knees and elbows flailing wildly and somebody (it doesn’t seem to matter who) howling a campfire tale gone wrong into the microphone.

Flatfoot, however, is not all on-stage bravado. The boys have managed to collect a set of songs that play somewhat like a concept album based on Michigan folklore and other Americana-styled muses. These tracks were released this past summer on the band’s second full-length, “The Legend of Big Sid.” The album has garnered nothing but positive press thus far. It shows the band in a slightly more upbeat mood than its first effort, “Down in the Cellar,” which contained a more classic outlaw country approach.

One thing that sets Flatfoot’s development apart is that the band does not sound unnatural in either setting. The boys have essentially made a progression not unlike the one rock music in general made in the mid-‘60s. Flatfoot has turned up the amps a notch, opened up its collective conscience and let ‘er rip. Whether subdued or driven, the band always has an entertaining yarn to spin.

As for the band’s future, the younger Bales sounds like he and the others would prefer to take it on a day-to-day basis. “We’d just like to continue playing; maybe get out and play a few different cities; write some new songs. Maybe get down on our knees and beg Bloodshot [Records] to put out our next release,” he jokes.

For now, Flatfoot will continue to shake stages and pay homage to its members’ vast classic rock record collections whenever the guys can all get in the same room at the same time. They will be joined on Friday by mop-topped locals The Blanks (with Pulse writer Todd McKenzie on bass) and Charlie Don’t Shake — look for Flatfoot bassist Jeremy Whitman pulling double duty with them on the guitar.

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