If there’s one word to describe the Magic Bullets, it’s kinetic.
The band’s music is a hopped-up pastiche of new wave and new sounds. They favor upbeat tempos and bouncing, throbbing rhythms. There’s a solid driving backbeat and a hooky bass line to just about every tune on their newest (self-titled) record.
They don’t shy away from love songs. Like most bands who tackle the subject, they swing both ways, hitting the full range between the bright side and the darker side. But the message is usually always delivered in a pure pop wrapper — sonically, at least. No matter how the story plays out, there’s a beat there, and it begs you to move.
But not until you see them live do you get the full meaning.
The band’s name comes from the lore surrounding the JFK assassination. The Warren Commission report on Kennedy’s murder is based on the theory that a single bullet, fired by Lee Harvey Oswald, caused all of the injuries to both the President and Texas governor John Connally. To do this, the bullet would have had to have bounced around JFK’s car in improbable ways, changing direction multiple times in a manner that challenges the laws of physics.
Frontman Phil Benson is such a magical object on stage. He’s constantly in motion, bouncing, kicking and dancing through the entire set, his six-foot, whippet-thin frame firing up the whole front of the stage with movement. He’s a blur of energy. The people feel it — the first few rows of the Magic Bullets crowd are usually bopping up and down with him.
And, as is happening more often these days, they’re singing along, too.
The band has built up its fan base by playing regularly in the Bay Area, touring regionally and occasionally hitting the East coast or playing some mid-sized festivals like Noise Pop and The Bay Bridged events. They had a song on Gossip Girl.
The wave has been steadily growing under their feet for the past few years.
“There was a show we played in 2006, I think it was at Cafe DuNord,” Phil says. “It was before our first full-length came out, and after every song, all the people were clapping. Wait — clapping? We weren’t used to that. I remember thinking, ‘Maybe people do like this band. And maybe we can keep being a band and not just quit.’”
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The Magic Bullets started in earnest in 2004, with singer Phil, guitarist Corey Cunningham and bassist Nathan Sweatt getting things underway. They’ve had a few member changes over the years (they used to have a second guitarist, but he left to start fellow indie darlings Girls). The line-up today is Benson, Cunningham, Sweatt, drummer Alex Kaiser and the newest addition, keyboard player Shony Collins. Cunningham is from Tennessee, but the rest of the band grew up here, on the SF peninsula.
(Shony, Phil and Corey joined us for a chat in the garden patio of their favorite Bernal Heights bar. To see the whole band in action, scroll to the bottom of the page.)
The band’s first studio LP was released in 2007. They recorded it at a friends’ studios and released it themselves. They’ve also put out a few singles, and there was the four-song “Lives for Romance” 12-inch in 2009.
Their self-titled new release just came out on vinyl and CD in June, on Mon Amie records. It’s the result of a long-time friendship with label manager Mona Dehghan.
“She’s this really nice lady that used to be a DJ at KALX in Berkeley,” Phil says. “She was the programming director, and she used to ask us to be guest DJs. We’d totally invade her show and play all kinds of random stuff.”
“Last year, she moved to Brooklyn and she said she wanted to start a label, putting something out by us as her first release. So now, it’s happening and it’s exciting.”
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Phil has the kind of voice where you can hear him smiling as he sings. And that’s pretty much what he’s like in real life, a friendly guy who seems almost carefree at times. Even when he’s singing lyrics that paint images of ennui, he’s still got that smiling sound. Corey’s guitar is clean and chiming, almost always tightly syncopated or layered, with picked arpeggios. The keyboards add melodic counterpoints — Shony plays organ and Wurlitzer at live shows, though some piano creeps in on the records. The rhythm section positively swings. Nathan’s bass tone is throaty and a little distorted (he plays a Rickenbacker). Alex’s drums provide a straightforward and unwavering dance-rock pulse.
It’s not just a heavy schedule of live shows that keeps the band tight. Three of them also have a side-project going called Terry Malts. They flex different muscles there, throwing together a noisy mix of Ramones-style punk and 70s garage pop. The line-up is different in the Terry Malts. Corey still plays guitar, but Phil moves to bass and Nathan switches to drums.
We first caught up with the Bullets at The Knockout in San Francisco’s Mission District just after the album had come out. They were playing the last show of a short California tour to promote the release, and the night was one of Neil Martinson’s SMiLE parties, a total rave. The place was packed, and spirits were high. The fans in the crowd sang along and jumped to the beat, pogoing in time with Phil.
A month or so later, we saw them again at Bottom of the Hill (scoll down to see our photos).
Even in the bigger room, the crowd was jammed against the stage just like they were weeks before at the Knockout. The band ran through most of the new record, relying on the dancier numbers like “A Day Not So Far Off,” “Sigh the Day Away,” and “On Top of the World” to get the whole place moving from the top. They did a cover, “I Could Be Happy” by the Altered Images, that’s a perfect match for their style. Phil says they’ve been playing for years. The five members were jammed together on the club’s stage, but that didn’t seem to hinder the boys’ physical enthusiasm. Corey stood stock still — that’s his style on stage, all business — but the rest of the band swayed and jumped with the thumping of the beat.
That incessant beat. It was infectious, all encompassing. And it’s taking them places.
The Magic Bullets play the Rickshaw Stop on October 14, then head east to play the CMJ Music Marathon, which runs from October 19-23 in NYC. They’ll be back at the Knockout on December 10. Terry Malts play on October 27 at the Rickshaw Stop.
Photos: Jim Merithew
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