The band at last Saturday’s Time Warp Drive-In certainly lived up to its name. Seemingly out of nowhere, they simply became. Where at first only scattered musical gear was strewn in front of the concession stand at the Malco Summer Quartet, suddenly a band manifested itself. True, one of their songs mentions “beaming me up and beaming me down,” and with that clue alone, this reporter was intrigued. How exactly did they become?
I donned my sleuth’s hat, but all my years of investigative music journalism were of no avail. The band, shrouded in mystery, simply materialized at the golden hour, played a short, tight set, and were gone, leaving the gathered Earthlings only to wonder at what just happened.
Their SoundCloud page reveals precious little, its profile explaining only that the band consists of 7-year-old Seba, 12-year-old Holland, and 10-year-old G3. These reported ages were the first clue that something didn’t add up, that something unearthly was at work in this musical ensemble. For their playing was not a mere children’s curiosity, a slapdash, charming exercise in naivete. Rather, this was the sound of advanced beings well-versed in the niceties of rocking out.
Deciding their deceptively juvenile ages were the result of traveling at near-light speeds before returning to Earth, I simply took in the power of their performance. There was a quick introductory song by the duet Breeze, featuring G3 on drums and friend Noah on bass. Then, as Holland sang and wielded her Gibson SG with aplomb, Seba’s bass and G3’s drums locked in like a locomotive and they were off, delivering a fine rendition of Nena’s “99 Red Balloons,” aka “99 Luftballoons.”
That set the tone for a short, sharp mix of covers and originals that mined a similar vein of power pop marked with an ’80s edge. Even “Immigrant Song,” Led Zeppelin’s dinosaur rock chestnut, took on new meanings when played by a trio of bass, drums, and distorted ukulele, and delivered by instrument-swapping singers with a combined age of 29.
The real gems of the evening were the group’s originals. Their “Get Get Get It Going” is a fine mod anthem on par with the spiky punch of early works by The Who or The Creation, with just a touch of the Kink’s “Come On Now.”
Another uptempo number, “Energy,” had the audience singing along with gusto. And what an audience it was: When Time Warp co-curator Mike McCarthy seemed to half-jokingly imply that this was the best crowd turnout for any pre-movie warm-up band at the monthly event, I turned around to see that he was not joking at all. A crowd of dozens was gathered around the band area, cheering them on.
Among the crowd, and offering the occasional assist to G3, was another being, G2, who looked suspiciously like Graham Burks, better known for his role in local bands like Pezz, Sweet Knives, and Loose Opinions.
One original song The Becomers played, also available online, “Satellites Are Spinning Around the Earth,” was a perfect set-up for the evening’s first film, 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, directed by Steven Spielberg. That song, of course, featured lyrics about beaming this way and that, in the manner of space-faring, sentient beings who can simply become at will. We can only hope that more frequent visitations on other local stages will “become a thing.”
*Full disclosure: G3 may or not be Graham Burks III, a piano student of the author’s.
