Whoa Whoa Whoa, Graham Tyler and Matt Safer in Julian Plenti?

EDIT: It was not Graham Tyler. I jumped the gun seeing that Epiphone and hair. It was actually Mike Stroud of Ratatat on guitar. Thanks to "Anonymous."

So, Julian Plenti (aka the solo moniker of Interpol's Paul Banks) just performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Upon this first listen, I can't say the song really did anything for me or that it was stronger than Banks' output with Interpol but there is something worthy of note here: Graham Tyler Mike Stroud and Mattie Safer were in the backing band.


(Graham Tyler performing w/ The Mooney Suzuki)

This is awesome. For one, Graham Tyler was a member of The Mooney Suzuki during what I consider to be the band's greatest era (Electric Sweat). He left the band to pursue a career in graphic design and I was under the impression that was the end of his professional music career. This makes it all the more surprising -- and awesome -- to find him on network television, of all places, playing his treasured Epiphone. It's also surprising to hear him play this type of music considering his musical background. Nevertheless, I'm glad to see he's still strumming away.

Considering The Mooney Suzuki went from a straight-up garage rock/pure rock 'n' roll band -- so authentic you could believe they were ripped out of the '60s -- to a psychedelic rock band, I can see why Tyler gradually grew disinterested in playing with the band. It always seemed his true passion and height of his tenure with the band was when they were one of the best nu-garage rock bands of the present day. The Mooney Suzuki is a band that has seen frontman Sammy James Jr. go from a mod-styled, energized rocker to more of a West Coast/California hippie rocker circa mid to early '70s. It's late so maybe my descriptions are vague or somewhat inaccurate, so I apologize for any shortcomings in this respect. If you go The Mooney Suzuki's official website, you'll see the spider logo that was used back during the Electric Sweat-era. Maybe the band is going to have a renaissance of sorts. Maybe.


(Mattie Safer performing w/ The Rapture)

And then there's Mattie Safer, former vocalist and bassist of The Rapture. When I heard a number of weeks ago that Safer was leaving the band, I was a bit shocked. He always seemed like such an integral part of The Rapture's sound. I hadn't heard anything about what he was up to, so it's a double whammy, if you will, to find Safer performing on TV like this. I think Julian Plenti's sound is definitely a bit closer to Safer's background than it is to Tyler's.

I can't tell you who the drummer was.

Interpol, The Mooney Suzuki Ratatat, and The Rapture are all from New York so, really, it's not all that surprising that these three guys performed together. In any case, kind of a supergroup though, no?

Julian Plenti's new LP Julian Plenti Is Skyscraper is available now via Matador Records.