Cuffed Up at The Broadway 10/24/2022
Cuffed Up was one of the bands that got away from me at SXSW 2022. They were one of the “must-see” bands on my list, but I managed to miss them while getting my fill of Los Bitchos, Yard Act, Wet Leg, Nova Twins, and other great bands who touched down in Austin that week.
The book on Cuffed Up is that they sound a lot like Sonic Youth from back in the day. And they do, but to me they also sound a lot like the Pixies, and a bit like The Joy Formidable, with whom they’re touring for the next several weeks. And when I had the chance to meet up with them, they let me know about influences they get from bands like IDLES, Shame, Viagra Boys, and Fontaines D.C. — pretty much my favorite bands, and the ones I’ve been seeing live for the past few weeks. But the guys from Cuffed Up not only go to the shows, but they hang with the bands, and then work their musical styles into their repertoire. It’s pretty impressive, and their song writing is terrific.
Cuffed Up is a four-piece band from Los Angeles, and quickly becoming one of my faves. Front man Ralph Torrefranca leads the crew, plays led guitar and handles the lion’s share of the vocals. Vic Ordonez plays bass, and Joe Liptock is a Dave Grohl look-alike on drums. Guitarist and vocalist Sapphire Jewell has French Exit-ed the band (Un-Cuffed?), and was recently replaced by Christina Apostolopoulos (let’s just call her Christina), whose guitar work and vocals are almost indistinguishable from the original recordings of the group. She sounds (and looks) a lot like Ellie Rowsell from Wolf Alice, and her guitar work would make Kim Gordon proud.
This was my first experience at The Broadway, located cleverly on Broadway in Brooklyn. My first impression was, “What a shithole!” My second impression was, “But the neighborhood looks worse!” — graffiti everywhere, closed metal garage door storefronts, crappy food and donut choices, check cashing places, all sitting inelegantly below the J train tracks. I don’t think BedStuy is ever going to be mistaken for “trendy”.
The bar is old-school, with vintage pool table, 1950’s jukebox, and even a carnival photo booth. But they served some semblance of food and drink that was good enough to me, and it was safer than venturing back outside.
Upstairs, Cuffed Up was warming up and doing their sound check. The musical venue was about the size of a garage, but with a pretty good sound system. The sound engineer did a great job of musical voodoo to make sure there were enough wires, amps, lights, and sound to serve the purpose. The sausage-making was a bit unnerving, but the guy turned chaos into a soundstage pretty impressively.
I pointed to the white, raspberry art decorated t-shirt on the merch stand, and explained to one of the band members that I had ordered one online, but it hadn’t arrived yet, and that’s why I was sporting my Violent Femmes shirt. He asked me, “Is your name Jeff?” Uh, yeah. “Then you can take one of those Mediums, and save us the trouble of mailing it to you.” Made my day.
There were about 20 of us in the audience when Cuffed Up opened their set, including the three guys from the opening act, Pamphlets, and Christina’s sister and girlfriends. The band didn’t care, and they played and sounded like they were on stage at Madison Square Garden in front of 20,000 people. They were excited to be playing in New York (even in this dump!), and super appreciative of every person for being in the room. They couldn’t have been more gracious.
Their hour-long set was terrific. They blasted out a dozen or so songs, including some new, unreleased material. You can get a taste of their set from last night here. They finished with a couple of my favorite numbers, Bonnie and Small Town Kid, which you can see in full via these YouTube links.
Cuffed Up plans to be back at SXSW in March 2023. Me too. I’ll see every show they play.
Pamphlets, a local band from Brooklyn, did a nice job of opening for Cuffed Up. Fitting for the venue, they had a garage-rock sound, and the three-piece group put out a ton of well-orchestrated sound. Here’s a clip of what they sounded like last night.