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Myers Quad is a weird place. For many, it’s little but a vacuum sucking in Ultimate Frisbee enthusiasts from seemingly across the globe.
But for some, such as University graduates Charlie Key and Greg O’Connell, it’s a place where long-lasting friends are met and musical collaborations are born.
It was 2005 when Key and O’Connell met — honors kids, one a comparative literature major and the other studying genetics. Inconspicuous enough, at the time. But soon enough, this unassuming duo would form one of Athens’ weirdest, most intriguing bands: Bubbly Mommy Gun.
Asking the pair for musical influences probably won’t help you get a good idea of their band, unless you’re familiar with ’60s-’70s era Brazilian music.
“The tropicália movement in particular,” Key noted.
O’Connell had a comment that was slightly more illuminating:
“It’s more of an experimental approach where Charlie Key and I just sort of do a number on each others songs, dance all over ’em, then it ends up getting kind of messy for a while then we kind of make sense of the mess,” O’Connell said. “It’s a fun process.”
And you can hear it down there, underneath the wild echoes and screeching feedback; sweet little pop tunes that the band — now with drums and bass along with keys and guitar — has molded into an absurdly original version of itself.
“I know the two of us really like music that’s a little more ambiguous,” Key said. “There is more of an emotional truth to a bit of ambiguity.”
Key and O’Connell started writing together in the same place they met: Myers Hall.
“We were really good friends before there were two guitars in the room,” O’Connell said. “And then one day there were, and it was great.”
And those long hours of dorm room jamming evolved into the perfectly melded, out-of-the-norm sound that BMG has today.
“Given all the time with the two of us just playing together, we were able to match what we were doing musically more than we would if you had a rhythm section,” Key said.
The band, fully formed in 2008, quickly joined up with other quirky local acts such as Quiet Hooves, which had influenced Key and O’Connell from their freshmen days.
“Being a member of that collective helped us take some more legitimate steps in terms of actually putting music out in a streamlined process and coming up with art to go along with the band, and on top of that getting shows with those bands,” Key said.
That collective features a slew of experimental bands on the local indie label Party Party Partners, who all seem to share a profound interest and support of each others’ creativity and originality.
“It helps if you are making music that is different or new to be working on it in a group of people who are trying to do the same thing,” Key said.
“What all of us enjoy the most is something that sounds new to us, or doesn’t quite sound like anything we’ve heard but also sounds like things that we love. When things start to sound familiar, we know that we have to change it somehow.”
When: Tonight at 10
Where: The Max Canada
Price: $2
Also Playing: Green Gerry and Nights Moves Gold
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