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!


back