Some bands can be enjoyed under any circumstances.  Other require lots of cocaine, dim lighting, and strong drink.  I’ll let you take a wild guess which label falls snugly on local spazz funk slash high concept gone boring act, The Campaign For Real Time.

I remember enjoying the Campaign’s schtick, really I do.  It was a night last February, when the group headlined the Knocks From The Underground CD release party at the Middle East’s downstairs room.  The boys came out swinging and had the large crowd moving / dancing / swaying rhythmically to their party-ready sounds, and I made a beer-soaked mental note to follow the Campaign's campaign on future endeavors.

Unfortunately, when the earnest young lads find themselves on a stage half the size and faced with a smaller crowd, their white-boy R&B antics come across as more irritating than underappreciated.  These were the conditions the C4RT-sters found themselves confronted with last Monday at Great Scott, where they hosted night two of their “Making Mondays Tuesdays” residency.    

The opening acts didn’t help the band much, that’s for sure.  The night started with that most dreaded of musically-accompanied act, the joke musician.  Robby Roadsteamer kicked things off and promptly buried my hopes for an entertaining evening down a well lined with the bones of lost orphans.  Songs were screamed about Atari games, sexual acts, and whatever else this foul beast thought might entertain or shock.  It ended up being just about as boring and obnoxious as you’d expect such edgy material to be. I quickly upped my Monday night beer intake to alleviate the situation.

Two more bad comedy acts did follow, and in defense of Roadsteamer, at least I remembered his name. It was at this point where I heard a young man complain to a bartender about a listing in the day’s Metro, one that had advertised the evening’s festivities as something more danceable.  It was time to hide out with the smokers and hope for a brief reprieve.

Said respite came in the form of Ketman, a band I’ve seen a ton of times over the past year, and one that always promises a good set.  The trio delivered a messier-than-usual trip through some of their poppier growlers, and a trumpet and sax player joined them for a few extended forays into noisier territory.  Overall it was a solid set with a few surprises thrown in, and one deserving of better company. 

It was now time for the Campaign to emerge, and while the energy was there, the whole thing seemed a bit more hollow than it had been last winter.  The band has stars in their eyes, and their stage antics ooze confidence and good timey-ness.  They have an intricate back-story that involves time travel, they’re having fun with the self-mythologizing (exhibit A: the title of their latest release, L.A. Tracks 1933-1969), and everybody loves a good Moog-heavy dance tune. 

But on Monday it all seemed a little too rehearsed and self-conscious.  There was swagger, but it was the kind that seemed more at home in front of your bathroom mirror.  There was rhythm and bass, but it seemed highly derivative of a legion of better funk acts.  The band’s outfits were cute, but they seemed more dated than futuristic.  Ultimately, it was like being at a children’s talent show filled with kids who didn’t belong to you, and it was kind of painful.  I finally gave up and fled for the doors by about the third song.

I guess with a band like Campaign, image is everything, and in their case the image is pretty much all they’ve got.  The songs are catchy but empty, and folks impressed by bands with clear vision, swagger, and an ear for catchy rhythms will have a good time with them.  The rest of us just need to swap our tall boys for straight vodka and shovel enough Zhivago up our nose-holes to the point where we are convinced that we are in the company of greatness.