Hey! I Heard Bryan Scary Before He Was (Sort of) Famous!

It's true! Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears are playing at the Black Cat on Friday. I've seen them there once before, but before their first DC show, I saw them play at a place called Pianos in NYC's Lower East Side. Check out my appropriately-titled "Pianos and Scaryville" post from March '07 , where I described them as "intensely original, with balls-out flair and flourish."

Other descriptions of the band:

"...insanely creative songs that would sound like the result of a jam session featuring ELO, Queen, Yes, and a bunch of other bands no one's listening to nowadays."
- Jordan, over at Wired for Music

"... a Brookyn-based wunderkind who's quickly building a name for himself due to his intricate and orchestral brand of indie-pop. Do I hear a little ELO in there? Yes, I do. But a little ELO never hurt anyone, now did it?"
-Black Cat website

"Queen/ELO/Bowie disciples"
-DCist

Understand, the reason for my delight in having heard of them back in '07 is that I never know about bands before they become big (or, well, bigger). So I'm feeling pretty cool right now. Prit-ty cool.

(The reason I had the early scoop in this case is a long and involved story that Jordan does a good job of narrating.)

More:

• The band's MySpace page and official site
• DCist's music picks for this week
• The history of the Black Cat