Review Blowback: Sugarbuzz.com Magazine
The Viper Room
The Sunset Strip
West Hollywood, CA
July 28, 2007
By Victoria Joyce
(SugarBuzz Hollywood)
The last sultry Saturday night of July on the Sunset Strip we happened to catch Slow Burning Car at the Viper room. Here’s a band that ain’t a band. They call themselves “an agency dedicated to the preservation of creative individualism and the alchemy of “Rock” through compositional application in the audio realm.” Dudes, just tune up and play, OK?
Our pal, Bret Miller gave us the heads up on these guys and he knows rock, so we go. He intro’ed us to the leader Troy, before the set, very nice guy. Cute too. And the room is loosely packed with their also very nice fans.
After Troy Spiropoulos on lead vocals and bass we got Mike Zimmerman on drums and vocals, Corey Birkholz on lead/rhythm guitar, Jim Le on lead/rhythm guitar, Victor Bishop on keyboards and screams. Yeah, I said screams.
They got a very cool logo of a street sign, black and yellow diamond with a flaming vehicle. Don’t know the backstory on that but it kind of goes with their secret agent mystique. Sunglasses and berets.
They’ve got a big-band thing going on with this many players and singers on stage and a good old fashioned Leslie West-Mountain, Southern Rock, Sweet Home Alabama sound. Like good old boys without the cowboy hats.
The songs in their short set came right on top of each other without a lot of blah blah in between. We like. Our favorite was their signature song “Slow Burning Car” with a psychedelic guitar-laden middle. And “First Born” thick with waves of synthesizers and builds and a lot of structure. Troy does mighty fine vocals on all.
On the road now, Slow Burning Car is headed for the Midwest and points beyond. Pull up next to them and roll down your windows.
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