Being Dead is hard to pin down. Here’s what we know: The band lives in Austin, Texas, and is currently comprised of three people: Falcon Bitch, who sings, sometimes plays guitar and sometimes plays drums; Cody Dosier (also known as Gumball and/or Shmoofy), who sings, sometimes plays guitar and sometimes plays drums; and Nicole Roman-Johnston, who plays bass. Falcon and Dosier are the main songwriters and the best of friends. They met at some point in the last decade but getting them to clarify where and when has proven elusive. During a recent live performance at the indispensable KEXP studios, host Cheryl Waters coaxed this out of Falcon, who directed her answer to Dosier: “We met at a chocolate factory. I was doing experimental confectionery stuff, and you were interning. Your last name was Buckets at the time.”
Biographical shenanigans aside, Being Dead is a musical anomaly, an endlessly curious entity that combines rudimentary chops with a playfulness and creativity few can match. For the uninitiated, a melding of The Mamas & the Papas with Parquet Courts comes to mind, as does any number of ramshackle outfits that have reveled in this kind of stuff — catchy garage pop rife with infectious boy/girl vocal harmonizing and lyrics about characters like Godzilla and Frazier Crane to more mundane stuff like bad dreams and the fact that “rock and roll hurts, baby.”
Being Dead’s full-length debut for Bayonet Records, last year’s When Horses Would Run, features addictive tunes that move in fun and unpredictable directions, as if Jonathan Richman blessed Falcon Bitch and Dosier with his good-natured songwriting secrets. Recorded with the help of ace producer John Congleton, the recently unveiled follow-up, EELS, is even better, 16 songs sure to put a smile on your face on a consistent basis. The mood ranges from pensive to exuberant, often within the same song. See the glorious “Problems,” which laments the end of a party and this unfortunate conundrum: “How can I fix the problem when it is with myself,” as Falcon Bitch and Dosier interweave their vocals with oddly affecting results.
And don’t forget that Being Dead is best experienced in a live setting, wherein their infectious front people trade off playing guitar and drums as both sing sweetly and without shame.
Being Dead plays MOTR Pub on Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. More info: motrpub.com.
This story is featured in CityBeat's Oct. 2 print edition.
