Stream: Near Beer, ‘Yelling at a Dog’

Kevin Bronson on May 9th, 2022

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Ten years ago next month, Joey Siara’s old band, the Henry Clay People, released their swan song, the album “Twenty-Five for the Rest of Our Lives.” It capped a frenetic seven-year stretch of brash, bratty, bombastic, boozy, brotherly high jinx from the band founded by Siara and younger sibling Andy. They shout-sang their angst to anybody who would listen, and most of Silver Lake’s indie-rock scenesters did, at beer-soaked show after show.

Not 25 anymore (bulletin!) and not quite as beer-soaked (careers, families, y’know?), Joey Siara now helms Near Beer, the indie-rock project including bassist Jeremy Levy, drummer Brent Stranathan and, in its early incarnation, guitarist/producer Dan Long. Near Beer debuted in 2020 and released the “Sleeping Is for Suckers” EP.

Today, Near Beer announced that their self-titled album would be out this summer via Double Helix Records, a collection of what the band describes as “mini-anthems about insomnia, drinking and human connection. Sometimes cynical. Sometimes romantic. Always with loud guitars.” As with Siara’s previous bands (including Fakers), the Replacements and Pavement will be the targets of genuflection.

With the news comes the new single “Yelling at a Dog” — which, they say, “sounds a lot less like all of our previous bands … It’s got more 12-string, minor chords and ‘sure, why not?’ kinds of turns. Lyrically, it’s very much a blender of thirties-band-person anxieties — being broke, being terrified of the future, questioning your life decisions, but still kinda OK with it all. We suppose this is just a variation on the same rock ’n’ roll romantic themes we sang about in our twenties, but maybe with higher stakes because the fuck-ups can feel more permanent.”

Importantly, they add: “We all love dogs. If we actually saw people yelling at dogs, we’d be pretty bummed. So consider this an anti-yelling-at-dogs song.”

||| Stream: “Yelling at a Dog”