Here's a really old review taken from Jane's Xine.
Polar Bear @ The Troubadour
(A Non-Review)
March, 1996
By Tyrone Thompson
Eric Avery's new musical flirtation is called Polar
Bear. His first project since Deconstruction, Polar
Bear consists of Biff Sanders, Eric Avery, and John Curry. Their music is absolutely amazing- I can't
really compare it to anything else that I've heard
before but will do my best to summarize what it's like.
Polar Bear has played only a handful of shows (both in and out of L.A.) and
fortunately for me I've witnessed two out of the three that they have played
in Los Angeles. Both shows were absolutely great, but I had one
complaint... they didn't play long enough! The 35-40 minute set didn't seem
to satisfy the audience who cheered for more at the end of each set. At the
end of the first show I saw Eric had to come back on stage to calm the
crowd down, saying, "Please stop cheering! You're embarrassing us! Please! We don't know any more songs!"
For the March Troubadour performance, Eric looked and sounded great
for the shows. As in Deconstruction, he plays bass and sings lead vocals as
well- to top it off, his voice has really improved since Deconstruction. I
haven't seen him play live since the first Lollapalooza tour, and it was
refreshing to see him again. He looked to be in great health and sported a
short haircut with natural light brown color. Sorry folks, but the long
"Surfer-Blue" hairdo with a bandanna is no longer with Eric.
Eric did have his trusty old bass (Brahms) that he's played throughout his
involvement with Jane's Addiction and Deconstruction. But the ONE thing
that remains vivid in my mind about Eric was the shoes that he was wearing
during the shows. I've never seen anything like them! I thought that my
original Air Jordan's were pretty cool but these take the cake. They looked
like they were made from this red glittery material that could very well have
been found in the wreckage from the Roswell incident. My theory is that if
Eric felt insecure at anytime during the show he could have clicked his heels
together three times and ended up back in Kansas with those shoes!
Biff Sanders completely amazed me! He takes on the roll of five different
people while on stage. He plays drums, he sings, he plays the keyboard and
if that weren't enough, he's in charge of all of the samples and programming
that Polar Bear incorporates into it's music during the shows.
His drums are set up with a lap top computer placed right next to him. The
computer is hooked up to a variety of processors leading to an amp that
plays the samples. Before each song Biff looks at the computer screen and
checks to see if he's in sync with the samples. They last throughout the
entirety of every Polar Bear song... and the samples begin and end every
one as well!
It's possible the rest of the band knows what song to play by the sound of
the sample at the start of each song since they didn't use set lists. The
samples of piano, drums, voices, and other ambient noises all seemed to
work perfectly into each song. All of the samples were programmed to a
specific tempo in the computer as well, so Biff really had to keep in perfect
sync with the computer when he played drums or else he'd really fuck things
up! But the best thing that I like about Biff is that he always had this zany
smile on his face while playing which reminded me of a mad scientist
musician.
John Curry's guitar playing fit perfectly into the mix. His style was very
melodic, textural, and ambient - reminiscent of the guitar school Dave
Navarro comes from. He also adds to the vocals behind Eric during many of
the songs. The funny thing about John is that he also has some strange
shoes - glittery lookin' silver Doc Martins or something. Not quite as
mind-blowing as Eric's shoes... but close! It must be a prerequisite to have
crazy shoes if you want to play in the band....
Now the hard part - describing the music. Well, I guess that you could say
Polar Bear is as to Deconstruction as Deconstruction was to Jane's
Addiction. I think that if you listened to Ethyl Meatplow, (Biff's previous
band) you could get a better sense of what to expect.
Imagine combining a Jane's feel with Ethyl Meatplow, adding some cool
samples, Eric singing, and having a smoother Deconstruction sound without
the drastic compositional changes... if that makes any sense. You can't
compare Polar Bear's sound to anything else out there because nothing else
sounds like it. I hate to categorize anything but I'm going to categorize and
label Polar Bear's music anyway. Polar Bear plays "crazy-funky shoe"
music!
Anyhow, I plan on seeing Polar Bear every show that they play around me
in the future. I'd advise you all to do the same if they happen to play within a
few hundred miles from where you live... it's worth the drive!
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