You'll love the Limousines

“We got together over the internet.” This is taken from the Limousines’ self-penned backstory on their Kickstarter page. The Limousines are two guys: Giovanni Giusti and Eric Victorino. The virtual meeting took place while Victorino was in England (where all American pop goes to be reinvigorated), and Giusti was in San Francisco. Downloads and email addresses were exchanged and, in short order, the two began swapping lyrics and beats over the web. They crafted virtual songs. They became a virtual band. Before too long, there was a collection of virtual songs, which, oddly enough, they released on vinyl. Finally, they connected in the flesh in Oakland sometime during the late 2000s. “Luckily, when we met,” the Kickstarter narrative continues, “we fell in love instantly.”

As did the duo’s fans, who more than doubled the Limousines’ Kickstarter request for $30,000 to record and launch a tour. And how did that happen, you may ask, for a band that had very little in the way of real-time gigging? The gold came as a result of their YouTube hit, a stab at the ’80s song “Video Killed the Radio Star” called “Internet Killed the Video Star.” The video has 1,275,080 views as of this writing.

The Limousines have harnessed every bad pop cliché from the Euro-pop ’80s and folded them into sweeping synth chords with chipper vocals, only like a darker version of Thompson Twins or Wham! “We gotta be careful, ’cause love,” Victorino sings, “is a dog from hell.” The duo chalked up the three-year gap between recordings to label troubles and death: eight of their friends, Victorino told a reporter, died in a span of less than two years. The two have mastered the art of sounding like many, which is not so difficult when you consider the tools available to electronica artists. The sky’s the limit in that arena, and the Limousines are as weird as it gets. You’ll love them.

Mona and Dresses also perform.