Eastern Conference Champions, going for the win

Kevin Bronson on
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Eastern Conference Champions bandmates Joshua Ostrander and Greg Lyons go back a long way. Ostrander was an admiring kid in the days of long-ago Philadelphia-area bands Trip 66 and Dandelion, played in local heroes Ty Cobb and eventually teamed up with the left-handed drummer in Laguardia, who released one major-label album, in 2003.

Five roller-coaster years into ECC, the past three in Los Angeles, the pair are joined at the creative hip. “He’s one of the best drummers I’ve ever seen – I can’t sit down to write a song with hearing him in my head,” Ostrander says. “But that’s the way is should be. It’s a f*cking band; we all have an equal stake in what we do.”

The new music from the trio – which since last year has included guitarist Melissa Dougherty – reflects that kinship more than ever. Starting with the 2009 EP “Santa Fe” and continuing with the tunes the band has been writing and playing for its album-in-the-works, “SPEAK-AHH,” ECC has broadened its scope and embellished its arrangements, arriving at a tough-to-pigeonhole sound that spans barbed-wire folk, funk-flavored rebukes and wall-of-guitar anthems.

At the forefront is Ostrander and the gnarly/beautiful tones he coaxes from his Gretsch Anniversary Model – as well as his keening vocals, curled and nasally, which somehow split the difference between Bob Dylan and Thom Yorke and can be an acquired taste. “From touring with Black Francis and Jeremy Enigk, you see how they work the dynamic of their voices,” Ostrander says. “I feel like on ‘Santa Fe’ I found mine.”

It’s become a formidable weapon, whether on aching songs like the EP’s “Sideways Walking” or full-blown rockers like the percussion-heavy “Atlas,” which ECC has been using to close its sets.

“What I like about this band is that we’re always pushing forward,” Ostrander says. “I love seeing the transformation of Greg, of Melissa, of all of us as songwriters and lyricists. When you figure things out and stop trying to impress people, when you home and write songs you actually want to listen to, that’s it.”

The freedom to do that has been hard-earned. With original member Vern Zaborowski in the lineup, ECC released its debut “Ameritown” in 2007 before separating from their label, Suretone, the following year. In 2009, Ostranders and Lyons convinced Dougherty, who’d been playing with local rockers Lemon Sun, to join the band. (“We spent so much money on alcohol to get her,” Ostrander says with a laugh.)

Dougherty joined up while ECC was recording “Santa Fe” and immediately fit in. Then the band started seeing their music make its way onto television, first on “Melrose Place” and “Friday Night Lights,” then on “Gossip Girl.” (Their cover of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” is the band’s biggest seller on iTunes.) Then the trio scored big, writing the song “A Million Miles an Hour” for the soundtrack to this year’s “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.”

The attention accelerated ECC’s plans to finish a full-length album

||| Live: Starting tonight, Eastern Conference Champions plays the free Monday residency this month at Spaceland.

Photo by Clay Patrick McBride