I was at the first Splinters show — well, both of their first shows. One was 3/4’s of the band singing songs in the living room I shared with them in our house in Berkeley, playing their songs based on inside jokes, acoustic guitar strums and bedroom rehearsals. The next was the first with their drummer Courtney, where those songs met a nervous, unsure loudness filled with feedback and amp hum to an art gallery full of friends.
That’s what makes their song “Sorry” so amazing to me, even back when heard in a scratchy demo I got via e-mail a year ago — I saw these ladies become the band that could write this song. Even in demo form, the song’s lean guitar and refrain felt so natural, as if it was a song everyone already knew, but hadn’t heard just yet. It was surprising to hear a band of my friends come up with such a universal pop song so effortlessly memorable and genuine.
At those first shows, and even now, with such a sweet, perfect pop song like “Sorry,” it feels like the Splinters are letting us all in on some sort of secret club. Four friends playing the songs they wrote for each other, resulting in the unadorned, universal pop that only a bedroom project could birth.
Tempo No Tempo can be found on the web at their MySpace page.
