This song should come with an addiction warning, cause once you pop you seriously can’t stop listening. The cracker of a duet comes from the mouths and minds of Alex Niemetz and Dan Lardner, who together make up QTY. Hailing from New York, the duo are so new they have but two songs under their belt; this and another great track called ‘Rodeo.’ Dan met Alex at the tender age of 17, and now, years later, they’ve finally made the music they were destined to make.
Rodeo is a storming track , echoes of Bowie and Lou Reed with definate Mick Ronson (Spiders Style Guitar) That’s partially because it combines elements of almost every great New York band in living memory. There’s hints of The Velvet Underground, The Strokes, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Television, The Ramones in its grotty guitars and Dan Lardner’s drawled vocals. It’s so New York it practically builds the glittering Manhattan skyline and the grimy streets of the Lower East Side in front of you as you listen.
It’s also because it’s just immediately and undeniably brilliant. From the opening chords to the cool-but-giddy chorus, it’s the sort of song that you can listen to 100 times in a row and still get the same fresh feeling of pure joy each time it restarts. When Lardner yells “Eight-hour day at work!“, you feel weirdly fine about being stuck at your desk all day. ‘Rodeo’ is the ultimate pick-me-up – it’s basically impossible not to crack a very broad grin when it’s playing.
Lardner and bandmate Alex Niemetz are native New Yorkers, having grown up five blocks apart in Chinatown. They met on the street, “ate ice cream and talked music while laying down the groundwork for what would much later become QTY”, according to a typewritten letter from the duo. Humble beginnings (“Grew up with words like ‘less’,” goes one line in ‘Rodeo’) they might be, but this pair are onto much greater things.
The Fat Angel Sings 