Am I the only person that remembers the band Pikadori? If I didn't have their CD, I wouldn't have believed they existed. The band was Joey Vesley, Joel Grimes, Jacob Leger and Jason Kirker.
They were active in the early aughts and played a lot of shows at the old Roboto Project and I never had a chance to see them play. Back when there used to be enough green space over at Carnegie Mellon for their Tech Fair to be held, a friend of mine did get to see them. He called me the next day and thought Pikadori would be right up my alley. And goddammit if he wasn't right. I picked up their CD the next time I stopped into Brave New World and the band's Dischord/Fugazi sound was, in fact, right up my alley.
Pikadori's self-titled record isn't streaming anywhere that I noticed and I could only find a handful of grainy live videos on Youtube. At first glance, Google didn't offer up too much information about the band itself. Outside of an album review posted on a defunct website called the New Yinzer. On the third or fourth page of my search, things started to get interesting.
After Pikadori dissolved, Vesely and Grimes went on to form a band called Allies. The band released a self-titled album in 2008 and another in 2011 titled Wire Walk which came out on the label Lock & Key Collective. Then the pair went on to form a band called Trace Remains which seems to be active in some manner since they played a show back on July 1st of this year. The Trace Remains Bandcamp page has one song posted and says there will be an EP on the way. The Allies albums have been downloaded and I am eagerly awaiting the release of the Trace Remains EP.
My brain got stuck on Pikadori because the band Emptier reminded me of them so much. Not in a derivative way but in a “I need to hear more” kind of way. I have seen Emptier twice and they were impressive both times. Their album OMW is worth putting some time into.
Pittsburgh has always seemed to lack noisy, nerd-rock type bands to fill my jones for that kind of music. Either that or the very real possibility that I've been looking for it in all the wrong places. Lately, Emptier has been scratching that itch for me. What's worse is that touring bands that play that style of music seem to be allergic to Pittsburgh and skip over the city. The Canadian band METZ was scheduled to play here back in October but cancelled the show for some reason. They were already south of the border playing in other towns so I'm guessing low ticket pre-sales caused the cancellation. Either that or it was the usual “Why the fuck are we going to Pittsburgh?” excuse to pull the plug.
I'm glad I ripped my old Pikadori CD onto a hard drive because when I went back to it recently there was a skip halfway through the second to last song. Since I treat my records and CDs better than most people, my guess is that the foil on the back of the CD has started to degrade. There are a handful of copies available on the Discogs so if my nostalgia becomes too overwhelming I will be able to find a replacement without too much trouble.
I do know for certain that the next time Trace Remains is playing a show somewhere in town that I will try my damndest to be in the room when it happens.
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