Aural Fixation

Crocodiles are too cool for school in leather jackets and Wayfarers.

In the fall of 2009 I found myself in New Orleans again. I was celebrating a birthday and seeing shows I’d helped book for a New Mexico band. During that time, British group The Horrors was on tour and had a date at One-Eyed Jack’s, a small theater in the French Quarter. The opening act was Crocodiles, about which I knew nothing. The Horrors had recently made a shift from leather-clad garage rock to flowy-shirt post punk, and, for whatever reason, the band was clearly having a terrible night. Crocodiles, though, with buzzing guitars and indulgent disco beats, stole the show.

“Hearts of Love” from Sleep Forever

“I don’t know,” laughs singer Brandon Welchez when asked over a crackling phone about his band’s chosen moniker. “At the time what we wanted was, you know, something that sounded slightly sinister.”

“Neon Jesus” from Crocodiles’ first album Summer of Hate

Welchez and guitarist Charles Rowell grew up in San Diego, Calif., and have been in multiple bands together since they were teenagers. In 2008, the creative duo formed Crocodiles. Holding a fondness for punk, girl groups and Krautrock, the result is a kind of noisy, psychedelic pop that would make Brian Eno and Phil Spector proud, respectively. Each song is tinged with a bit of the macabre—the band’s video for “Hearts of Love” from second album Sleep Forever finds Welchez and Rowell meeting their doppelgängers, who in turn murder them with switchblades to the gut.

With campy gore and a droning kind of punk in tow, Welchez desires to entertain our humble burg’s residents on Monday when Crocodiles performs with a full band. “I hope [sonic pleasure-seekers] come,” he says “I want them to have fun.” And, he assures, this show will be better than the one I witnessed in the aughts.

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