Waiting for the Other Boot to Sparkle | The Source Weekly - Bend, Oregon

Waiting for the Other Boot to Sparkle

GoldBoot's dance-music contingent

Future-spaceship disco ball music, drenched in sequins and synthesizers—that's the sound of Las Vegas duo GoldBoot. Flittering strobe guitars, handclapping percussion and shimmering tambourines collide around Logan Lanning and Bobby Lucy who often don matching goofy sunglasses and, you guessed it, gold boots, as plumes of glitter encircle the pair like dust around a glam Pigpen. More than anything else, GoldBoot sounds like the audio representation of the glitz and bright shiny lights of the Vegas strip.

"At first I didn't think it mattered where we lived, but now I know [living in Las Vegas] has not only shaped our music, but our drive for the music," said Lanning. "Vegas is in a rebirth as far as I am concerned for a stable scene."

With the charm of early Killer's anticipated song structures and driving synthesizer riffs, the two members met back in 2006. After meeting at a show in San Jose, Calif. while they were touring the DIY circuit with two other respective bands, they reconnected in 2012, and invested in GoldBoot completing four songs in their first jam session.

"We both grew up listening to the popular trends of music," said Lanning. "I know that in our houses there were a lot of '70s and '80s music being played on repeat. The Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Phil Collins, I don't know all of that kinda seeps its way into our music somehow."

Phil Collins, maybe, plus a load of synthesizers. Freaky-sounding keys are at the heart of GoldBoots danceable tracks.

"The synths are everything to our music. The guitar is more of a rhythm instrument and the Synths, horns, strings, and percussion are used as the icing," explained Lanning.

Calling upon influences like Prince, Michael Jackson, The Killers, Broken Bells, and Sly and The Family Stone, the duo released its first EP in 2013 The Electric Eccentric with driving percussion and filled with falsetto-spiked bridges and synthesizer solos, and disco intrigue. With an indie-veneer plastered to a Scissor Sisters-style pop showmanship, GoldBoot mixes live instrumentation with pre-recorded tracks to create a sound with complexities far beyond what its two members could do live without growing several extra arms. But Lanning insists that what GoldBoot does is not laptop rock, a label which many indie artists vehemently reject as inauthentic.

"You know I think there are a lot of labels and opinions that run with using a laptop or iPod running previously recorded tracks. I see GoldBoot as using the technology of today to move forward playing music we believe in with the team we believe in," said Lanning. "We have a vision for GoldBoot that might involve 15 people on stage and then we have a vision that just involves us. So no, I wouldn't consider us laptop rock, all those backing tracks we played and wrote ourselves. We play guitar, synthesizer, and drums live with every show as well as both handling vocal duties. The rest of the horns, strings, synthesizers, and added percussion is done with backing tracks."

GoldBoot with Isles

9 pm. Tues., Nov. 11

Volcanic Theatre Pub, 70 SW Century Dr. $5.

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