http://www.movingunits.net/

Moving Units guitarist/singer Blake Miller sounds slightly annoyed when you compare his band to Gang Of Four. "We weren't really influenced by Gang Of Four," he says. "It's just one of those generalizations that people like to stick on bands. I had one Gang Of Four record in my collection among a thousand others. When I first started writing, the songs kind of came out of the wild blue yonder. It just happened to bare some resemblance to some of the original bands form the post-punk scene."

Okay. So it might be unfair to lump the band in with the current clutter of angular, danceable punk (Radio 4, Hot Hot Heat, Franz Ferdinand), but you have to admit a lot of MU's joie de vivre comes from the distinctly post-punk vibe the band bangs out.

In the end every band must grow or die, however, so don't be surprised if the next album sounds more like Brian Wilson than Andy Gill. "I've been drifting into a more orchestral state of mind," Blake says. "I'm kind of interested in using more instrumentation and making things more lush. Certain elements of our music will always be there. The urgency of rhythm section, for instance - that really driving feeling, the beat and bass lines that drive the music."

"I think I'm just trying to find ways to drive the melody," he continues. "We started with a really minimalist, stripped down, aggressive band and we've gotten that out of our system and we are going down some more experimental terrain."

For Blake and the band (rounded out by bass player Johan Bogeli, and drummer Chris Hathwell), the name of the game is longevity. "We are interested in putting out records for years to come. We are interested in making records worth listening to, records that will be interesting ten to twenty years from now."

That kind of staying power would be a hard thing for any band to achieve, even back when rock was young. It is near impossible today, with shrinking Clear Channel playlists and record company staff, but Moving Units seem up to the challenge.

One way to maintain relevance is by bucking the trend machine of the British press that so many current U.S. bands have been seduced by. "For whatever reason [the U.K. press] created this illusion of romantic history. So I think a lot of the world expects the U.K. to break new things. That's always been their m.o. To find a band coming down the pike that has a little hype and blow it out and take credit for it and move on to the next."

"It's really consumer driven," adds Blake. "You get a little window of time to capitalize on your hype. If it works, then you become the next Strokes or Yeah Yeah Yeahs." If not? Well how many of you remember The Wonderstuff or Ned's Atomic Dustbin (who, incidentally, are rumored back together with their first new material in about ten years) or even Inspiral Carpets?

So we have a band from Los Angeles that can navigate the trappings of the increasingly important U.K. media machine, has a singer who has influences ranging from "Krautrock to old film soundtracks to the Coctau Twins" and an ever evolving need to experiment musically. This definitely seems to be a band that will outlive trends and continue to surprise.

According to Blake, when the band first got together, "We weren't looking for an audience or a revival of some sort. We were just bored and we wanted to play music again. I guess when we played our first show it worked in our favor because all of these kids identified to our music. They seemed to want to have a good time and once we started playing everyone kind of vibed together. It was all spontaneous. Our audiences kind of came to us." And it looks like that audience will continue to come to them for a long time.

March 2005
Brad Filicky