Cuffed Up was one of the bands that got yonder 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 unconfined bands who touched lanugo in Austin that week.

The typesetting on Cuffed Up is that they sound a lot like Sonic Youth from when in the day. And they do, but to me they moreover 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 endangerment to meet up with them, they let me know well-nigh 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 wreath from Los Angeles, and quickly rhadamanthine 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 wreath (Un-Cuffed?), and was recently replaced by Christina Apostolopoulos (let’s just undeniability her Christina), whose guitar work and vocals are scrutinizingly 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 wits 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, sealed metal garage door storefronts, crappy supplies and donut choices, trammels cashing places, all sitting inelegantly unelevated the J train tracks. I don’t think BedStuy is overly going to be mistaken for “trendy”.

The bar is old-school, with vintage pool table, 1950’s jukebox, and plane a safari photo booth. But they served some semblance of supplies and drink that was good unbearable 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 well-nigh the size of a garage, but with a pretty good sound system. The sound engineer did a unconfined job of musical voodoo to make sure there were unbearable wires, amps, lights, and sound to serve the purpose. The sausage-making was a bit unnerving, but the guy turned unconnectedness 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 wreath 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 well-nigh 20 of us in the regulars when Cuffed Up opened their set, including the three guys from the opening act, Pamphlets, and Christina’s sister and girlfriends. The wreath 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 well-pleased of every person for stuff in the room. They couldn’t have been increasingly 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 when at SXSW in March 2023. Me too. I’ll see every show they play.

Pamphlets, a local wreath 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.