This review involves a lot of name-dropping. So don't say you weren't warned.

And, really, how else to consider Free Energy? The Philadelphia-based blogosphere favorite doesn't strive for originality, nor even hipster cachet: You can hear Television or Big Star all you want in the quintet's peppy, big-guitar sound, but really, these guys are all about what you hear on "corporate classic rock stations." Why it works — at least on record in mp3s — has as much to do with the group's nonironic approach as its mindless raison d’être and taut, oft-inspired songwriting. We're understandably skeptical of "woo-ooh," "oh-oh," and "hey alright" choruses, but it's refreshing that Free Energy can actually sell them. Whether that places the band, in those gilded annals of nostalgia rock, closer to The Strokes or The Darkness, I can't say.

In a quick, fairly energetic, and underattended show at the Black Cat downstairs last night, Free Energy cribbed T. Rex's "Mambo Sun" almost verbatim and sometimes invoked The Stooges, but mostly, it reveled in the stuff of Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, early Tom Petty, and (most centrally) Thin Lizzy — think big, loud, elemental, and poppy. Objectively, it was perfect: Hooks breathed, guitars sirened, cowbells clanged. Skinny as death and neon as fuck, singer Paul Sprangers pranced and strutted and crooned, a little bit Iggy Pop, a little less Julian Casablancas. And I was utterly nonplussed.

I suppose I owe you a mea culpa: Strange as it seems, somehow it's easier to appreciate Free Energy on an academic level than a visceral one. To Sprangers and his bandmates, they're just channeling their heroes and playing it straight. Hell, drummer Nick Shuminsky was wearing a Styx shirt. But the band's songs conjure up grander, arena-sized associations it can't pay off live — never mind the half-empty room. What I'm getting at is this: If you're going for pure homage, then mean it. Execute rock kicks. Flash a devil sign or two. Spit on your fans. As long as the songs are good — and Free Energy's songs are very good — it's not self-parody.

The lexicon Free Energy trades in — of partying 'cuz it's all you've got left, of girls called "child" and "babe," where "hold on" is the only imperative — is a seductive one. So are the choruses, repetitive, sure, but entirely infectious. And slowly, the charisma is creaking toward 11.

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In an entirely different sense, the evening's openers also made smart use of repetition. With drummer David Rich hospitalized, Buildings (or BLDGS) , usually a quartet, became a one-piece for the evening (BLDG?). Guitarist Collin Crowe smiled nervously as he played, constructing slow-building soundscapes with his guitar, synth, and laptop (chirp noises abounded). In the post-rock tradition, Crowe's compositions involved much guitar noodling, but these moments were more barbed than fluid — more Nels Cline or Loren Connors, say, than Mogwai or Do Make Say Think.

And the Brooklyn band Bear In Heaven favored crescendoing song structures and unusual rhythms over verse-chorus arrangements and 4/4 beats. The quartet drew from bands blending the epic and the artsy — some Spiritualized, much Deerhunter — and half its members played synths half the time. What resulted was a glazed, insistent aesthetic that probably could use more attentive songwriting, but showed promise. Not terrible for an evening of works-in-progress.

Photo by Benjamin R. Freed.

Pastiche can be a funny thing: When Paul Sprangers and Scott Wells played fuzzy, proggy slacker pop in the St. Paul, Minn., band Hockey Night, I figured that as long as Stephen Malkmus keeps pumping out decent-or-better albums every few years, my brain just doesn't have the RAM for a Pavement Lite.

If this is beginning to sound like a half-hearted endorsement, I'll stop and say this: Sprangers and Wells' new outfit, Free Energy, makes anthemic, insanely catchy music with a hefty, forgivable debt to your favorite '70s pre- (but not proto-) punk bands — think Thin Lizzy's chutzpah, Cheap Trick's contagiousness, and the wide, romantic eyes of The Raspberries. The much-buzzed-about group (now based in Philly) recently signed with New York's dance-punk mavens DFA, which some people find strange or something, since Free Energy isn't a dance band. Bullshit. I'm shimmying in my desk chair just writing about these guys. What they lack in originality (plus ça change... and all that), they more than make up for with insistent songwriting, strutting rhythms, and insane hooks.

Free Energy brings its old-is-new-again rock to the Black Cat backstage tomorrow, and the show, also with Bear In Heaven and D.C.'s BLDGS, is well worth your $10. Unless, of course, you're set on getting your Gossip Girl on with Cobra Starship instead.

This blog has already covered Free Energy's self-titled single, so check out the hometown-loving video (and show deets) after the jump. (I lived in Philly for two years, so sometimes I gotta rep, too.)

Wednesday, Aug. 26 | Free Energy, Bear In Heaven, and BLDGS | Black Cat downstairs | 8 p.m. | $10

Photo courtesy of Free Energy's MySpace page.

DCist notes that 94.7 FM switched from its classic rock format to its "fresh" top 40 format today. This means listeners woke up to Kelly Clarkson and Coldplay instead of Led Zeppelin. The Post writes about one DJ's fade out and the possible fade out of an entire genre (boomer rock):

"WTGB's end closes a chapter for FM radio in the Washington area. Until the rock era, AM radio was the dominant force, with narrow, Top 40 playlists. But in the late 1960s and early '70s, lured by the static-free FM sound, young people across the country turned in droves to the free-form, album-rock format pioneered by stations like WHFS. The music was introduced (and personally selected) by DJs such as Cerphe, Jonathan "Weasel" Gilbert and Damien Einstein, who became minor stars in their own right (Gilbert was let go by WTGB in October)."

Marc Fisher also seems to mourn the loss of classic rock. He also includes a potential playlist for the fresh format that should make most if not all Black Plastic Bag readers gag:

"Sugar Ray–Every Morning
Gwen Stefani–The Sweet Escape
Kelly Clarkson–Walk Away
Chris Brown–With You
Savage Garden–Truly Madly Deeply
Howie Day–Collide
Spin Doctors–Two Princes
John Mayer–Waiting On The World To Change
Rihanna–Hate That I Love You
Mr. Big–To Be With You"

This just makes D.C.'s lack of a viable college rock station that much more of a crime.