The Waiting Room Lounge

These Are Powers

with Mahjongg & Calvin Johnson

Most likely no other band than These Are Powers has enthusiastically been described after a live show as “baby John Coltrane in a stroller” or as having used “all of the buffalo”. They have been hugged by strangers who had never before heard them play, and have also received a few handwritten notes—one of them a “permanent thank you” complete with a shaky black ink drawing of a wide-eyed cat. In the short time they have existed, These Are Powers has played by the refrigerator door and on the counter of a kitchen in Little Rock. They have turned a living room full of kids in Kansas City into a giant group hug and carpet-wrestling match. In Montreal, the same drunken Quebecois girl has given them a partial striptease and the hairy eye. They have performed in a Brooklyn church basement, a Polish ballroom, an Ethiopian restaurant, a Cleveland coffee shop, and have inspired quite a few people to move. Movement is freedom. Repetition creates emotional resonance. These Are Powers mesh organic sounds in real time into the shape of songs through improvisation and collaboration.