Friday night with Mike and Cody and All The Best Kids.

Today’s post introduces SnarkerTV!

I spent last Friday night at Tropicalia in D.C. A friend of mine’s band was playing and he suggested that it might be fun to cover the show for my blog. I was way down because not only does his band sound really really really good (I’m not even being biased), but their shows are the best kind of dancey.

Cody is a member of All The Best Kids and they really are. My favorite song of theirs is “Free Your Mind.” The members of ATBK come from varied musical backgrounds, but know exactly how to power their strengths together. I especially dig the way Christine’s vocals play off Cody when he raps like in “She Said.” At one point during the show, she was singing Mariah Carey and he was spitting Jay-Z and I’m pretty sure I died and went to Heaven. I had so much fun chatting with Cody, Caleb, Jason and Peter (Christine and Will weren’t yet there) and learned a surprising amount about Caleb.

Opening for All The Best Kids was a band that I hadn’t heard of before, but really should have. Mike and Cody basically perfect synthpop. I was actually late to interview them because I could not stop hitting replay on their cover of “No Scrubs.” It is so good. I also thought it was interesting that they mostly left the original pronouns in the song alone. When asked about it, Cody responded, “Did we? Well, the song was already good to begin with.” Whatever the reason, it just has a more inclusive feel to it. Their originals are also addictive. “Monster Soul” will definitely remind you of Foster the People. I was super excited to interview Mike and Cody and the other Mike, their drummer. (The other bandmates are Dave and Matt on keyboards and Nick on guitar.) This interview did not disappoint.

It was an awesome Friday night, but I will say that I forgot how awkward it was to be the girl with the tripod. I should also note that it was all the more the weird because my video camera wasn’t working and instead, I had to film with my mom’s iPhone 5 taped to the tripod. Yes, that happened. My baby sister later told me, “You. You put yourself in these situations. No sympathy.” Whatevs, no regrets.

–b.d.sloane